End the War on Drugs...

This will be my final rebuttal. I would like to thank my opponent once more for what has been a very enjoyable debate. I accept my opponent's apology for his misunderstanding, and withdraw my accusation. "Then my opponent concedes that the drugs he wishes to legalize and make freely available to the public will, to the person, cause great injury for no medicinal purpose. " Just like alcohol and tobacco. Other drugs are more dangerous, yes, but just like cocaine and heroin, alcohol and tobacco are purely recreational substances which cause damage and addiction. Neither have any medicinal benefits that cannot be provided in safer ways. I find this double standard to be intellectually dishonest. "The illegal drug users now are limited because there are few of them. Legalizing all illicit drugs will absolutely cause the number of addicts to skyrocket. More users means more addicts, these illegal drugs are addictive by their very nature and in order to even be effective recreationally, an amount that causes dependence and addiction needs to be taken. This means that every recreational drug user will 100% become a burden on the health care system. " More unsubstantiated claims and unfounded assertions. My opponent is hell-bent on portraying the legalization of drugs as a doomsday scenario, in which people who have never touched drugs before in their lives will become hard drug users en masse. Certainly, numbers would increase, but a few more drug addicts is a fair price to pay for the eradication of the social problems caused by the failed War on Drugs. My opponent has still failed to address these benefits. Furthermore, illegality makes these substances more profitable, and thus more prolific. "In addition, the legalization of these drugs would lead to a substantial number of potentially fatal drug-drug interactions between regular prescription drugs. One does not even have to be an addict, only on a certain medication or dietary supplement to receive health problems. " Alcohol and sleeping pills, anyone? You certainly don't need cocaine, heroin, or ecstasy to encounter this sort of problem. "To already classify alcohol and tobacco as "very dangerous" would leave few applicable descriptions for the three drugs my opponent wishes to legalize. Compared to alcohol and tobacco, the drugs cocaine, heroine, and ecstasy are far, FAR more deadly. The quantities in which alcohol and nicotine would cause fatality is astronomical in comparison to that of the three illegal drugs, there is absolutely no comparison. Users of alcohol and nicotine can be relatively healthy for decades and decades, but those who use cocaine, heroin, or ecstasy will begin suffering intensely in less than a year. " I don't see why you keep pushing this spiel about the health problems that illegal drugs cause. Nobody here is trying to argue that drugs are good for you. "There are plenty of safe ways to enjoy alcohol and tobacco, but for those three drugs I mentioned? The recreational aspect is necessarily linked with all the properties that are destructive to health. In addition, those who drink casually or smoke casually do not necessarily get addicted. To make cocaine, heroin, or ecstasy use anything remotely definable as a "habit" is suicide. " My previous statement, which you are responding to ("Countries with high alcohol and tobacco taxes do not suffer from this problem. ") had nothing to do with the addictive properties of the substances, only with your assumption that high taxes would make users buy on the black market, which I proved incorrect. Even if there are high taxes, people will still buy legally, because: 1) Black market drugs will always be more expensive. 2) Legal markets are safer. "There are literally hundreds upon hundreds of chemical substances available for medical use that would kill a person in seconds if ingested, in a dose that you can barely fit on your fingernail. Thankfully, there are rules and regulations that protect people from having these drugs readily available. In addition, for any drug that one can become addicted to, there are series of rules and regulations preventing abuse and further addiction. " Anyone who makes an informed choice, and chooses an option which will cause them that much harm, deserves the consequences. Personal responsibility, along with personal liberty and individual sovereignty, is a principle upon which this country was founded. "Let's go back to Health Insurance. My opponent thinks that because alcohol and cigarettes are fine, then so must these drugs. He is very, very poorly informed. My opponent's comparison of Cocaine, Heroin, and Ecstasy with tobacco and alcohol is completely unfounded. The addictive nature of these drugs as well as the inherent danger to one's health simply cannot be compared to that of tobacco or alcohol. The very thought of such a comparison is ludicrous. What my opponent does not understand is that there is absolutely no safe way to take these three drugs recreationally. To make it available for recreational use is, for all intents and purposes, to turn them into addicts and destroy their health. Normally, that would be okay with my opponent because of his stance on personal liberty. Health insurance is hideously expensive already. The more meds people take, the more sick they get, the more hospital visits, the more expensive for everyone. With all of these addicts popping up, regular people who think legal = safe, people who ignorantly think as my opponent does: That the deadliest, most addictive drugs in the world are like sipping a wine cooler or a smoking a newport, do you really want to pay the hospital bills for people this irresponsible? " I fully understand that the drugs I propose to legalize are more dangerous than alcohol and tobacco, but I don't think you can rule out a comparison between these drugs. I have already noted the fundamental similarities in their nature, namely their physical dangers, their ability to cause serious addictions, their purely recreational use, and their lack of medical benefits. CONCLUSION: In the process of debating health issues, my opponent has forgotten my argument. I never endorsed drug use. I never said it was not dangerous. My goal in ending the War on Drugs has been the eradication of several pressing social problems, and the discontinuation of a useless and destructive government policy which, to this date, has FAILED to adequately restrict the the proliferation of dangerous drugs. ALL of my original points and subpoints remain standing. I have already shown his two main arguments on health care and taxation to be the product of fallacious logic. They rely on two unsupported assertions: 1) That legalization will cause drug use and addiction to "skyrocket". 2) That high taxes will cause drug users to buy from the black market. In closing, I would like voters to consider the following: 1) Increased personal use of recreational substances will likely not cause the breakdown of society. 2) Organized crime, drug cartels (which are currently in danger of spilling into the US), and terrorist groups, all of which profit off of the illegality of drugs, have a FAR higher probability of doing serious damage. 3) The United States government has a moral obligation to protect its society from danger as best as it can. Which of the above alternatives seem more dangerous to you? 4) The War on Drugs has been a government policy for at least 20 years, and it has utterly failed in its purpose. All it is right now is a waste of money and effort. Because the greater welfare of society is the goal, the US government ought to end the War on Drugs. The resolution is affirmed.