The War on Drugs is Unconstitutional, immoral, and a complete failure

Your stated focus of the debate concerns, first, the constitutionality of the War on Drugs. While it may be true that "our laws are not all 100% constitutional" the fact remains that only the Supreme Court has the power to definitively decide on the constitutionality of any law. You may be of the opinion that laws regulating drugs are unconstitutional; you cannot prove that position without citing actual court decisions. We have seen several Medical Necessity challenges make it through the lower courts, but these have not been appealed to the higher courts, therefore no precedence has been set. Aside from your own personal opinions, any law that declares a certain drug to be illegal is constitutional until such time as the Supreme Court issues an opinion that they are not. The fact that a future court may rescind the decision of a prior court is irrelevant. The latest Supreme Court decision is the one in effect and you cannot produce any evidence of a U. S. Supreme Court opinion declaring the War on Drugs as being unconstitutional. Therefore, you argument is unsupported and fails. The fact that a drug addict adversely affects the lives of at least 10 other people is an accepted fact by drug addiction counselors nationwide. While you may dubiously have the right to ruin your own life, you do not have the right to ruin another's. Your green hair theory pales to the effects of drug addiction on people's lives. Even you agree that ruining the life of a child is never a good thing. The government certainly has an interest in the welfare of the majority of the people or defenseless children. To paraphrase your own statement, government has a duty to protect non-drug addicts from their effects, because the children are innocent and deserve a chance. Thank you for conceding the anti-Christianity and homosexual theories as being invalid. Religion does not dictate family values. It would be safe to say that theists and atheists maintain the same concepts of family values and of morals which are "of or relating to principles of right and wrong in behavior." You agree by stating "Most people agree generally on basic family values." Your atheist theory is not plausible since he would not likely have been able to pass a law, or series of laws, in a congress where (to use your words) "Most people agree generally on basic family values." While I am not a doctor and don't see the appropriateness of the use of sarcasm in any debate, I could reverse your statement concerning the legal medications available to cancer patients. Where did anyone ever state that medication is supposed to be satisfying? Castor Oil certainly wasn't satisfying! While many people may be working to change the laws regarding marijuana use for medicinal purposes and have succeeded in some states to legalize its use, no challenge to the federal laws have succeeded at the U.S. Supreme Court level. How can the federal government's right to overrule a state law be questionable? Isn't that the way our country was set up? Couldn't the states, then, be construed as unconstitutionally allowing a federal law to be ignored? I am sure that you can come up with several examples where enforcement has used tactics that may be construed as excessive. Can you provide any court opinions where a conviction was overturned in your examples? The fact remains that anyone who knowingly and deliberately breaks a law puts themselves into the position of being arrested, tried and convicted as a result of their choice. As I stated, I have personally worked with drug addicts in the Bristol County House of Corrections. Many have related to me that they would never have stopped using drugs if they had not been sent to jail. One, in particular, sat in his apartment one evening crying, with his head between his hands praying to his God to do something because he tried but couldn't stop. Within fifteen minutes he was arrested. He completed the drug rehabilitation program and today has three drug-free years. Perhaps one would reconsider his choice to use drugs if he realized beforehand that he might lose his job and spend some time in prison as a result. In any event, the numbers in jail or suggestions on taxing drug sales, etc. don't prove that the War on Drugs is unconstitutional, immoral or a failure.