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

Thank you for your compliments. You concede, then, that you have failed to prove your contention that the War on Drugs is unconstitutional. Thereby, you agree that you have failed to prove 1/3 of your statement. The next third of your statement is that the War on Drugs is immoral. Your points supporting this argument seem to still revolve around constitutional issues claiming that "citizens' implied civil liberties are threatened in an unjust way." The question of a law's constitutionality is a legal issue, not a moral issue. The concept of morality is easily confused in our modern day. Morality, its origins, and what constitutes the definition of a moral itself, are in the end all subjective ideas. It is left to each individual to listen to ideas of others, but to also decide what is true for them. Textbooks on ethics and morality define the terms by reference to "principles." Moral principles are not just any principles, however, but those that are consistent with goodness, truth and human happiness. Despite their doctrinal differences, the world's major religions remarkably have in common many of the same essential virtues, including humility, love, justice, respect, honesty and prudence, at the heart of their teachings and all teach the way to goodness and happiness in this lifetime as well as the next. These very same virtues can be found too at the core of educational, secular and societal efforts to form good character and responsible citizens. The concept of benefiting the greatest amount of people also falls parallel with the ideas of Mill. Mill supported utilitarianism and developed the concept of the greatest good for the greatest number of people. According to him morality comes by striving for the greatest good; it develops as a result of attaining this greatest good. Since you do not disagree with, as you call it, the "ten person theory, " then it would be moral to do something for the ten adversely affected people by the one drug addict. You stated "I will say that ruining children's lives is never a good thing, and drugs could certainly do that…" One could say that you feel that the effects on innocent children caused by illicit drug users are immoral. If this is so, then any program that benefits these children must be, at least in part, moral. I respectfully submit, therefore, that you have failed to prove that the War on Drugs is immoral. This brings us to your last assertion that the War on Drugs is a complete failure. Used as an adjective, Webster defines complete as "Having every necessary or normal part or component or step; "a complete meal"; "a complete wardrobe"; "a complete set of the Britannica"; "a complete set of china"; "a complete defeat"; "a complete accounting". It is further defined as Without qualification; used informally as (often pejorative) intensifiers; "an errant fool"; "a complete coward"; "a consummate fool"; "a double-dyed villain"; "gross negligence"; "a perfect idiot"; "pure folly"; "what a sodden mess"; "stark staring mad"; "a thoroughgoing villain"; "utter nonsense". Webster defines a failure as "An act that fails, an event that does not accomplish its intended purpose, lack of success." You have not offered any evidence that this is true of the War on Drugs. By the very definition of the words used, the War on Drugs cannot be deemed a complete failure since it is ongoing. Having not been ended yet, it is not complete so one cannot say it has not accomplished its goals so it cannot be a complete failure just yet! I would hope that those who read and vote on this debate will do so on its merits and not on the underlying purpose of advancing the legalization of drugs. The statement that the War on Drugs is unconstitutional, immoral and a failure has not been proven by my opponent! Rob, I believe that your real mission is to advocate for the legalization of drugs. This goal could be achieved if you would concentrate on passing newer laws that effect this. The War on Drugs is established by law and can be changed and even eliminated by law. I do not support that concept, however. I believe more of the War on Drugs effort should be in curtailing the big pushers and the main supplies. Drug cartels have become so powerful that they have taken over whole countries. More effort and monies should also be funneled into the rehabilitation end. The War on Drugs certainly needs major improvement but just in the loss of lives, legalizing drugs would be too costly. Thanks for the debate!