Drugs should be legalized.

I am supposed to rebut the rebuttal? This is my first debate and so I was not aware of this rather baffling fact. As my opponents last entry consists of entirely rebuttal, I guess I have no choice but to start with doing as he suggests. I will then move onto my own point which is something I sincerely hope my opponent does in the next round as we have seen precious little from him in the way of his own material. The point that I was trying to make was that it's a grey area. Very few drug addicts will admit that they are addicted and then find enough courage to actually go to a rehabilitation center. There needs to be much more of an open dialogue between the state and the users. A recent study by the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (it's not libertarian leaning I promise you), predicted that of the 20.8 million Americans aged 12 and older (8.3 percent of the population) in 2008 who needed treatment but did not receive it at a specialty facility, more than 95 percent (95.2) felt they didn't need it. . http://www.elementsbehavioralhealth.com... This statistic tells you all you need to know and backs up my point that the vast majority of users are not seeking rehab. The fact that we have a rehabilitation center which people can go to, if they feel like they want to, is just not enough. As I said before, if made legal, we can monitor who is addicted. The complete breakdown in understanding between the state and the users currently, means that millions of people are in need of help, and there is no way that the state knows or can ever know. That communication will become much more easy and effective if drugs are legalized because we will know who needs help and the responsibility will be back on the shoulders of the state and of those of the users. I'd now like to respond to his claim that there will always be an underground market. I will now say why that is false. The main reason that the drug market is such a massive one, is because dealers and suppliers can charge virtually anything for their drugs. Their consumer base are venerable, damaged people who will do anything to get the drugs. Now the vasts amount of money which is made from this market, as I have said before, go to criminal organizations. They need a stable, and rather large source of income to fund their activities. This will be taken away if legalized, meaning that they will have to go elsewhere to find new sources of money. This means that they won't be paying the dealers, and so they will go elsewhere for money. It also means that the suppliers, the actual farmers who grow the drugs in places like Colombia and Afghanistan, are not being paid astronomical amounts to grow coca. This means that they will start to grow other crops which actually benefit them. If they decide to grow drugs then they will receive roughly the same amount of money as they would if they sold wheat. My opponent is being extremely naive when he says, "They could grow something else other than coca on that land. " Does he not realize that coca is by far and away the most expensive crop and the one which the farmers get the most amount of money from? By legalizing drugs, they will still be growing some drugs but the money incentive is taken away meaning that they grow a variety of crops. He questions my source on the claim that stopping the war on drugs will benefit the economy. But you don't have to be a genius to work out that this is true. Here is another source for him. . http://www.foxnews.com... Even fox news, one of the most right leaning news organizations recognize that the war has been a complete failure and will save billions of dollars. Do I need to come up with any more studies before he sees that his claim that legalizing drugs will cost the economy more? A socialist one maybe? . http://isreview.org... My opponent mentions that health care costs will increase if drugs are legalized. He said, "Health care will exponentially increase do to the fact that it will cost more to treat all the people with addictions. " Is he saying that we shouldn't treat all people with addictions? That's a pretty explosive comment. Yes, it will cost more short term, but we have to think long term about this point, as we have to think about the long term in this whole debate. By legalizing, we will see a new generation which is not caught up in a world where taking drugs is cool because it breaks the law. Therefore the long term benefits outweigh the short term benefits. I'd now like to make my final point of this debate. Control over the supply. The most harmful effects of most street drugs is not the drug itself, but what it's cut with. Arsenic which is used to make rat poison is a common one. Strychnine is sometimes cut with cocaine and heroin which can cause kidney failure, brain damage and even death. If made legal, we can make sure that these harmful substances are not being mixed into these drugs. By itself, Heroin isn't that harmful. It is used in morphine in hospitals and it's other uses include treatment for acute pain, such as in severe physical trauma, myocardial infarction, post-surgical pain, and chronic pain, including end-stage cancer and other terminal illnesses. It's when they put it together with arsenic that we need to start thinking about it. I have shown you over the course of this debate why the war on drugs has failed and has to be stopped, why legalizing drugs will lift a social underclass of a cycle of unemployment, drugs and crime, and also why legalizing it means we can monitor the drugs that people take and what substances we are letting people take.