All 'drugs' should be made legal and be controlled by the state.

==My opponents case== My opponents case is extremely weak. He is very vague, his only argunment is that statistics show we should legalize drugs. But he has provided none nor has he shown where those statistics apply. Therefore his argunment should be discarded. ==My case== C1. Drug legalization would increase use Drug legalization advocates claim legalization would have no effect on the usage rates, many go onto say it would decrease use. But they fail to use logic in the situation. Would it make sense if we lifted penalties that usage would decrease? If we lowered penalties based on Deterence theory usage would increase.(1) So based on valid legal and pshycological theory legalization would increase usage. Another reason use would increase is simple, prices would fall. Drugs which are currently illegal are much more costly and therefore deter lower class citizens of society from using them. Most scholars say legalization would cut prices by three times, in other words prohibition keeps drugs three times the cost then they would on a legal market. Lowering prices would make its availability higher and therefore increase usage. Unless all the people on drugs now are the only people wanting to do drugs, an unlikely scenario. Search price would go from low to zero. It is a risk of being arrested if you go to a street dealer, under legalization you could buy the drug all you want. Based on that the increased availability and lowering the cost of punishment means, in theory and practice, drug usage would increase.(2) Let's end the theory and let's ask what it does in practice. In practice we see periods of more lax control generally leads too increased consumption. In the 1800s, when most drugs where legal, addiction rates and usage rates where extremely high amongst the general population. Since drugs where prohibited we have been seeing steady declines in usage. Now let's look at the Alaska experiment -- they legalized marijuana in the mid-seventies -- was an utter failure. The law only allowed users of 19+, but this increased availability to kids and children could easily get acess from family members. Basically the market opened up, unintentionally, too all age groups. This experiment rose users amongst the adult and teenage populations tremendously. Teenagers saw a 51% increase in marijuana usage after the law, in the 90s when laws became more restrictive they saw a 57% decrease in drug usage amongst teenagers.(3) What's the problem with more users? Easy. Illicit drug users get addicted 75% of the time. Alcohol has addiction rates of 10%. So you think alcohols bad? Illicit drug usage is worse. It has been shown more users would increase drug induced deaths, DUI, and raise addiction rates which would lower productivity in the workforce.(4) C2. Drug legalization would increase crime It is commonly argued legalization would reduce crime, but that is illogical. Surveys have shown over half of violent crime offenders where under the influence of drugs during their attack, and almost a quarter (24%) of people attacking police officers where under the influence of illicit drugs which where known to increase aggressive behavior.(5) With increased usage from legalization it is logical these crimes would increase. Many drug experiments have shown large increases in crime. For example, marijuana decriminalization raises the total number of DUI's substantially. It rose over 40% for adults in California and 70% for juveniles in their experiment alone. Now over 80% of cases of child abuse is linked to drug usage. No evidence suggests legalization would help this problem, and evidence shows it would get worse. With taxation it would likely create a new niche for black markets. With high tobacco taxes we see large increases in black market crime over tobacco. Also more the black market would thrive amongst youth users too as they a) consume most of the drugs, and b) usage would increase meaning more demand. Legalization does nothing to lower crime, all it does is make the situation worse.(6) Conclusion: Legalization makes the problem worse. (1) http://en.wikipedia.org...(psychology) (2) http://www.physics.ohio-state.edu... (3) http://www.justice.gov... (4) http://www.justice.gov... (5) http://www.justice.gov... (6) http://www.sarnia.com...