Alcohol Should Be Banned

I. Alcohol as a pain relieverMy opponent has agreed with me that alcohol can serve as a pain reliever. With that said, I fully acknowledge that their are other pain relievers nowadays and was merely pointing out the historical value that alcohol has served. We must not forget my point that most countries are not as developed as first world nations such as America. If we implemented a ban on alcohol altogether we would still be robbing most developing countries from a vital and easy to access pain reliever. To think that Tylenol or Dilaudid is easily accessible everywhere in the world is incredibly shallow and reflects once again the narrow scope in which my opponent is perceiving this issue. Unfortunately, the reality is that alcohol still serves as an ever present, easy access pain reliever for those who are not or do not have the capability or access to a convenience store or doctors office. To think that those drugs are a viable solution for everyone is ludicrous.II. Alcohol fights off infectionOnce again, my opponent has agreed with me that alcohol serves an important role as an anti-infection agent. I would also like to point out that my opponent has totally misunderstood what 'Purple drink' is, and makes me wonder if he even bothered to read the information on the link he shared. According to my opponent:..."minors have used this to make something called Purple Drink, which is basically over the counter drugs, which includes rubbing alcohol and mix it with jolly ranchers and sprite then drink it."To correct my opponents mis-informed contention, alcohol plays no role whatsoever in the creation of the drink known as 'purple drink', according to the link my opponent shared: "Purple Drank is a mixture of a prescription cold medication with a soda drink like Sprite or Mountain Dew, plus ice and Jolly Rancher candies often added for color and taste. The cold medication should contain promethazine (an antihistamine) and codeine. These ingredients combined make a purple liquid that is then sipped until euphoria and dissociation from one's body occur. These effects will last between three and six hours." Source:http://www.narconon.org...As you can see, my opponent has no idea what he is talking about when making the claim that 'purple drink' involves alcohol. I hope my audience takes into consideration his blatant mis-information and will look towards his own link to verify the inaccuracy of his claim.My opponent also tries to downplay the importance of having access to rubbing alcohol. And makes the bold claim that it is extremely hard for a human to get an infection in the first place. Once again, my opponent attempts to turn a blind eye against the majority of humans in this world that don't share the same quality of life as Americans. In many regions around the world, a doctors office or pharmacy is not within a 15 minute drive, the reality is that many do not have the option to drive a few minutes to the local pharmacy and grab anti-biotics. Furthermore, most anti-biotics that fight off infections require a doctors prescription which involves a costly appointment and time. The ease of rubbing alcohol must not be overlooked when considering the global implications of banning all alcohol based products, especially anti-infection products such as rubbing alcohol.III. Hand Sanitizers and other claims made by opponent.It has been proven that alcohol based hand sanitizers are much more effective at killing diseases such as E.Coli than my opponent's hand washing method. The University of Maryland did an experiment recently with the show 'Good Morning America' to test whether alcohol based hand sanitizers were really that much better than hand washing or other non-alcohol based hand sanitizers. "The first thing we noticed is that alcohol-based hand sanitizer clearly works the best."Source:http://abcnews.go.com..."Also, alcohol kills 80,000 people a year plus more from people killed in drunk driving accidents in the U.S. alone. Minors can easily be killed by alcohol and it can cause development issues."Yes, and cancer killed 580,000 people last year. So by your logic we should ban cell-phones, Genetically Modified Foods, microwaves, cigarettes, make-up and any other cancer causing products or things right? Source: http://www.cancer.org...Heart disease killed 597,000 people last year. So we should ban any and all products that could cause heart-disease right? Let's ban hamburgers, milkshakes, and fried chicken - because hey, they kill people! Source: http://www.cdc.gov...Your point is an emotional one, but if we banned literally every little thing that caused someone to die, our world as we know it would be unrecognizable. Let's ban guns, and television, and prescription drugs because people have died from all those things! It makes no logical sense. We cannot let emotion get in the way of rational thinking.IV. AlcoholicsMy opponent wishes that we enact a ban on alcohol because it would reduce the number of deaths and addicts in the United States. Yes, and we should ban television because people get addicted to that, and definitely ban working out because those health freaks get addicted and within gyms people have had heart attacks. We should ban prescription drugs because people get addicted to those and die, and we should definitely ban hamburgers because people get addicted to fast food and die from unhealthy lifestyles. Your reason for banning alcohol is completely irrational.The point I am trying to make is that we cannot just go and ban every single thing that causes addiction, that is but one negative result of one practice of using alcohol. It would be like saying lets kill the octopus because one tentacle is damaged even though it still has seven other perfectly fine tentacles working. We cannot risk losing one of the most accessible and easy to obtain, medically beneficial substance known to man. If we truly wish to solve the problem of addiction, we need to look at the mental dispositions of certain individuals and consider environmental factors. Not every person is the same and to enact something that would punish the many, just to help a few, is not a logical decision in any way, shape or form. My opponents initial claim that alcohol is easily accessible to teens also falls into this category of self-responsibility and moderation. Many countries have a lower drinking age than America and also lower cases of alcohol abuse. Source: http://www.udetc.org...Perhaps there is a connection between this phenomenon that calls for further study. Perhaps, if we raised our future generations on the values of moderation and incorporated the right traditions to teaching children when and how to properly use alcohol, we might not need to even have this conversation. We must approach the issue of addiction with more viable actions that can be done to fix the underlying issue of addictive personalities or traits within the individual - because banning alcohol is not the solution that will fix an issue that spreads far beyond just alcoholism. Addiction comes in all forms.