All drugs should be legalized

C1: The Marginal Drug UserI don’t think my opponent understands what I mean by ‘marginal.’ It just means the people that wouldn’t use drugs now, but would if they were legal. Like, the additional drug user—not marginal as in insignificant.High addiction rates were cited as a reason to prohibit drugs in the early 19th century. According to one estimate, there were 150,000-200,000 opiate addicts in the United States in the late 19th century, when opiates were completely legal. [1] But there are 750,000-1,000,000 addicts now. [2] The population increased about 4x in that time—with addiction rates increasing about the same amount.It’s true that cocaine use decreased more than alcohol and tobacco use. But alcohol use decreased more than tobacco use—is that because of alcohol prohibition during the past few decades? In addition, part of the decrease in cocaine use can be explained by the rise in meth use. As the drug war raised the price of cocaine, stimulant users turned to the much cheaper meth instead. And while it’s true that higher prices means fewer sales, it doesn’t mean substantially fewer sales. The demand for drugs is very inelastic—much lower prices mean only slightly higher consumption. [3] The problem with Con’s Portugal statistics [4] is that, like all unscientific drug warrior propaganda, they just cherry pick before and after statistics without any effort to control for other variables. For example, imagine that drug use increased 10% a year before decriminalization and then 8% a year afterward. Or if drug use in similar countries increased 300% while Portugal’s increased 200%. Controlling for other variables can make a huge difference in what the numbers show. When you do this, you find a decrease in heroin and cocaine seizures, a decrease in drug related deaths, a decrease in people entering drug treatment, and a sharp decrease in problem users. [5] [6] Again, Con gets the correlation backwards. It’s not that drugs cause people to be violent, it’s that the type of person who’s a violent criminal is also usually the type of person that uses drugs. This is why even though a high percentage of criminals are drug users, only a very small percentage of drug users are criminals. A study by the Department of Justice found that the only drug that can be shown to increase violence is alcohol. [7] A review of the scientific literature on the subject has the same conclusion. [8] If Con wants to make the case that legalization would increase violence, he should cite actual scientific studies, rather than cherry-picked drug warrior propaganda statistics. Perhaps some evidence does show that drugs use increases violence—I don’t know, I haven’t looked at every study on the subject. But even if it does, Con also has to show that this would outweigh the decrease in gang and cartel violence.It’s true that drug legalization would lead to more people driving high on marijuana. But driving high is much less dangerous than driving drunk, and more marijuana use leads to a decrease in alcohol use—the overall effect is a decrease in traffic fatalities. [9] The effect was a 9% decrease with just medical marijuana legalization, and would probably be higher with full legalization.Back to my argument about the marginal drug user, I’d like to restate my case for the sake of clarity. My argument is that the marginal users (the additional users after legalization) would have fewer problems with drugs than the typical user, and would certainly look nothing like hardcore criminal users. Since even the average drug user is not an addict or a violent criminal, and is just a normal person that happens to enjoy an illegal drug more than legal one like nicotine or alcohol, this suggests that the new users legalization would create wouldn’t negatively affect themselves or society all that much with their drug use. C2: Drugs are funMy opponent completely misses my point. Obviously using drugs has negative effects. So does drinking soda. So does sex—you could get an STD. So does skydiving and rock climbing. So does football—the side effects of this dangerous recreational activity include memory loss, dementia, and a 42% increase in heart disease. [10] If you looked only at the negative effects of any of these activities, you’d conclude that they’re bad and no one should do them. But all of these activities also have positive effects—mainly, people like doing them. Con uses the example of binge drinking, which just proves my point. Most alcohol users aren’t alcoholics or binge drinkers—they’re just normal people that enjoy alcohol. Most users of illegal drugs are just normal people that like getting high. Yes, drugs have risks, but if I weigh them against the positive effects and decide that I’m better off doing drugs, who are you to say that I’m wrong?C3: Current UsersCon concedes that prohibition makes drugs more dangerous for current users. This, of course, begs the question of why we should be so concerned with protecting future potential users from the dangers of drugs, but not with protecting current users.Con neglects to mention the non-violent drug dealers in prison—people who are no more morally guilty than a liquor store owner (perhaps less so, since alcohol is more dangerous than most illegal drugs).C4: GangsThe idea that there would be a violent black market supplying drugs to minors is absurd. Look at alcohol and tobacco now—they’re age-restricted, but gangs and cartels don’t supply minors with those things. A high enough tax could cause a black market, but we could just not have the tax then—problem solved.C5: Morality of ProhibitionYou don’t see a moral problem with not allowing people to buy something? Maybe not if it’s something you personally disapprove of. What if the government banned fast food because of its dangers? You wouldn’t have a problem with police throwing anyone caught with fast food in jail? (Of course, most of those actually imprisoned would be fast food dealers—those charged with simple possession are just put in fatty treatment centers).The “philosophical umbrella” I’m using is ethical intuitionism I guess—although it’s also immoral under deontological rights-based ethics and preference utilitarianism.[1] http://web.archive.org...[2] http://www.policyalmanac.org...[3] http://digitalcommons.iwu.edu...[4] http://www.drugfree.org.au...[5] http://www.beckleyfoundation.org...[6] www.iza.org/conference_files/riskonomics2012/portugal_p772.pdf[7] http://www.druglibrary.org...[8] Robert Nash Parker and Kathleen Auerhahn Annual Review of Sociology Vol. 24, (1998), pp. 291-311[9] http://ftp.iza.org...[10] http://en.wikipedia.org...