Drug Legalization

The War on Drugs: As I have stated beforehand, simply because something costs money doesn’t mean it is inherently bad. If drugs have a cost to society, then it is justified. I showed last round, illegal drugs cost society, in healthcare costs, crime and lost productivity $181 billion [16]. This statistic goes uncontested by Pro. More prisoners may be jailed, but, if the war is stopping further societal costs and keeping inevitable usage low (which I demonstrated last round [4] [7] [16]), then it is justified. Overdose deaths, with the exception of cocaine, are up a tad for drugs; this is true [24]. However, I will remind all that if costs are lower, then more people will be inclined to try drugs and become addicted. Overdoses will be more likely to occur in these scenarios. Pro’s education arguments are weak. As I pointed out before, with no legal penalties and low cost, there will be more people willing to try drugs. This is backed up by the non-partisan RAND Institute [7] [17]. Not to mention that drugs can be easily advertised to be safe, or safer than they appear, by companies. A perfect example of this occurring is in the state of Colorado, where legal drug use substantially increased and remains higher than the national average [21] [22]. To quote the article from the Denver Post, “Monthly use in Colorado jumped to 12.7 percent [from 10.4%] — a 22 percent increase — in the 2012-13 data. ” [23] Pro’s statement that a decrease in drug usage is due to education, not the Drug War, is pure conjecture and unsourced. My sources [4] shows a clear correlation between drug use decreasing and spending on the drug war per capita spending increasing. Further, Pro’s final statement the drug use is most prevalent in the U. S. is blatantly false. The U. S. ranks number 8, with Iran and the U. K. being numbers 1 and 2, respectively [25]. Further, Mexico’s drug laws took effect in 2009 and, since then, they have failed drastically, and haven’t reduced use rates or crime overall [35]. Heroin: Pro makes a mistake by addressing a major point on the purity of heroin. Pro states that, “. .. there can be laws passed to prevent this. Laws can be passed to maintain the purity of heroin. ” The critical problem with this is that it is contradictory with what Pro is trying to prove. “Legalization” entails “. .. removing a legal prohibition against something which is currently not legal. ” [2] This means that there shouldn’t be legal prohibition against using drugs, or altering them. If Pro wanted to support this law coupled with drug legalization, he has the responsibility to outline a clear resolution. However, making laws limiting what people can do with drugs directly conflicts with Pro's drug legalization. Furthermore, the FDA is already regulating tobacco products [26]. It is still more addictive than in the past years, despite the regulation Pro asks for. Essentially, these laws Pro is advocating for conflict with what he is trying to prove and won’t work seeing as they haven’t worked with legal drugs. Still none of Pro’s last two points justify heroin being legalized, they just talk about alternatives to heroin addiction. Pro ends this section with this question though: “If a junkie can use heroin without harming anybody, why should they be criminalized? ” The simple answer to this is that while one may be able to do this without harming, an aggregate of heroin users would tell a different story, and laws are made to address the large-scale effects with drug usage. I noted the $181 billion in costs that illegal drugs bring [16] and that a legal market would lead to increased use, meaning even more costs [17]. This is exemplified in the costs the tobacco and alcohol bring to society, each one costing more than illegal drugs by billions of dollars [16]: Since use increases, the costs would be substantially higher to all of society; hence, there is justification in making the drug illegal. Psychedelics: Pro’s argument on drug tolerance neglects many things. If someone requires more hits for the same effects, then they cannot refrain from moderated usage; it is conflicting. Steve Job’s usage of drugs, and the testimonies of just a few people, doesn’t prove Pro’s case that it is a positive impact on everyone’s life. This ignores many problems with these drugs, like flashbacks, tolerance, and other, more negative, testimonies [27, 28]. While other items can be abused, there is no need to exacerbate that ongoing issue by making these drugs legal. The mental addiction inherit with the tolerance these drugs build up in someone make it an issue to use responsibility. Pro’s last point fails as it relies on humans to be responsible with something that gives them pleasure. Many animal experiments provide interesting insight on issues with this point. When rats had unlimited access to drugs, they consumed until their eventual death. However, when they were limited, less died. This indicates that restricting the use of drugs would lead to decreased abuse [29]. This disproves Pro’s reliance on people’s responsibility justifying legalizing drugs. Medical Marijuana: Pro repeats numerous talking points about the healing properties of hemp oil. The American Cancer Society does not support many of the claims made by Pro [30]. To quote them: “These claims are largely unsupportable. Relying on marijuana alone as treatment while avoiding or delaying conventional medical care for cancer may have serious health consequences. ” Conventional treatments, while possibly harmful, have much more proof behind them, while reports on health benefits of marijuana do not. Dr. David Gorski sums up all of the issues with Pro’s statements [31]. Marijuana has many harms with it, such as those which affect the immune system, increase heart attack risks and chances of psychosis and schizophrenia [32, 33, 34]. Legalization can increase costs in medical care and decrease productivity, which will cost our society copious amounts of money. Pro’s arguments fail. Legalization Problems: Pro has failed to successfully refute my case, as I shown above. I showed the problem with his Mexico and U. S. point in The War on Drugs section. Pro’s arguments ignore many things I have presented. If drugs were legal, more people would have the inclination to use them, thus increasing the chance that they will become addicts themselves. Having more addicts and legal drugs does increase the chance of a crime being committed, or harms occurring costing society in the end. Also, if addicts are able to use drugs more often to legalization (which Pro is okay with), while they may get their fix, they are still going to spend money fueling their addiction, abusing more drugs and degrading their health, which will come back to sting us all through health care costs and welfare. Synthetic Drugs: Empirical evidence [7, 17] show that people will use drugs more often, even if the harms are know. This can be seen with my Colorado example earlier [23] and my point on animal experiments [29]. Synthetic drugs will be used far more when allowed and legalized, damaging people’s livelihood and burdening costs upon society. Pro’s last point justifying the legalization of all drugs by making addicts safer was refuted in the Legalization Problems section. Conclusion: Arguments should be awarded to me as I successfully defeated all of Pro’s arguments and fully upheld my own. Pro failed to fulfil his BOP and failed to show that all drugs should be legalized. Conduct should be awarded to me as I did not use phrases such as, “. .. without doing some crazy shiz. ” Sources should be awarded to me, seeing as I have used more and better sources from RAND, the ACS and the NIDA. S&G should be awarded to me as Pro had 23 noticeable mistakes in his arguments while I had little more than 4. The resolution has been negated. I urge a vote for Con. Sources: . http://www.debate.org...