The United States should legalize all drugs

I'll start with the harm principle, then address Con's cost-benefit analysis.(1) The harm principleThe harm principle is fundamentally utilitarian. [2] Society provides the greatest good for the greatest number when the government lets individuals weigh the costs and benefits of self-regarding acts according to their own subjective weighing mechanism.Utility is subjective—harm, value, cost, pleasure are subjective concepts—so there's no objective mechanism for measuring/weighing incommensurate costs and benefits. The harm principle solves that problem by letting individuals weigh costs/benefits subjectively, at least for self-regarding acts. And this maximizes utility precisely because utility itself is subjective.Notably, Con fails to offer any weighing mechanism at all. He simply asserts that the costs of legalization outweigh the benefits, without explaining how he's measuring/weighing the costs and benefits. This analysis is too vague. And it's arbitrary. So apply the harm principle and let individuals weigh the cost/benefits of drugs subjectively. This maximizes utility better than Con's vague framework.Con's responses aren't compelling. First, the is/ought gap applies to all moral theories, including utilitarianism. So to the extent it applies to the harm principle, it also applies to Con's framework. Moreover, the inference here isn't a fallacy because it derives an "ought" from a "must," not an "is." We must weigh utility subjectively, so the government shouldn't interfere except to prevent an unwilling person from being harmed.Second, the "state of nature" refers to a hypothetical condition before society came into existence. The concept is analytically useful to justify government. In particular, it says that government is the result of a social agreement among individuals to give up some freedoms to protect themselves from being harmed by others. This justification thus creates principled limits on the law (i.e. the harm principle). [Note: This gets around the is/ought problem by severing the law from ethics.]Third, the resolution is normative, so neither side is bound to the status quo. Con says he isn't required to support the legality of alcohol or the "war on drugs." So I don't need to support seat-belt laws. Yes, they probably violate the harm principle. But there's lots of bad laws out there. And lots of them violate Con's utilitarianism too (e.g. the Endangered Species Act).(2) Con's cost-benefit analysisThe issue is legalization vs prohibition. So we're weighing the costs and benefits of legalization vs prohibition. To the extent Con's analysis focuses on the costs of drug use in the status quo, Con's analysis isn't sufficient. What matters isn't whether drug use is net harmful in the status quo, but rather whether legalization is more harmful than prohibition.Con's only argument is that increased drug use means increased harms. However, Con dooms that argument with a fatal concession: Con admits that some people have positive experiences with drugs. So Con admits that using drugs isn't inherently harmful.That means the type and degree of harmfulness isn't defined by drugs themselves; the harms are defined by the circumstances in which a user consumes a drug.For example, consuming heroin in the status quo is extremely dangerous because of the potential to suffer poisioning from an adulterated batch, or to overdose because a batch is more pure than believed. This problem is solved in a legalized regime.So knowing the number of people using drugs doesn't automatically tell us how many people will abuse drugs, or what form drug problems will take. It's not enough to show legalization increases drug use to show legalization increases harms. And Con simply hasn't met his burden on this crucial point.That said, let's compare the costs and benefits of legalization vs prohibition: 1. When drugs are prohibited, the people who use drugs are those most likely to consume them in an irresponsible way (i.e. people who don't mind breaking the law). Even so, the vast majority of Americans who use illegal drugs don't become heavy users, addicts, or criminals. [3] Now, Con says there's gonna be an influx of new drug users in a legalized regime. But who are these new users? They're gonna be folks who didn't do drugs when drugs were illegal. In other words, responsible, law-abiding folks, folks who care about their health, and so on. These are the sorts of people who won't abuse drugs, won't become addicts, and won't commit violent crimes. Meanwhile, these new users still receive all the benefits of drug use (intense pleasure, happiness, meaning, fulfillment). So if legalization increases drug use, it means there's likely to be increased benefits, not increased harms.2. Con egregiously overstates the quantity of new users from legalization. Most people interested in drugs are already using drugs. There might be some new users but the increase won't be huge. Most hard drugs have very limited market appeal, so legalizing them isn't going to suddenly create a demand for them. Consider: Millions of people don't smoke or drink alcohol even though it's legal. And these people aren't going to suddenly do hard drugs. Also, consider the "forbidden fruit effect," the idea that people do drugs because it's forbidden. This points toward a decrease in drug use. Whatever the case, Con's argument about increased drug use is 100% speculation. It's conjecture, approaching nothing close to a clear probability.3. Con cites a wide range of health issues in the status quo. But in a legalized regime, drugs can be regulated by the FDA, tested for purity, sold with warning labels, and so on. Clean needles can be provided, solving the problem of widespread needle sharing.Con's weakest argument is the idea that heavy drug use harms the immue system, causes heart disease, and so on. Lots of legal foods are unhealthy. But we don't prohibit them. We don't prohibit junk food even though people abuse it, get addicted, and die from it. Con's "risk of abuse" argument isn't remotely compelling, given the number of risky activities that aren't prohibited. The government lets individuals weigh costs/benefits for most risky activities in society (e.g. driving, junk food, etc.). Using drugs shouldn't be treated any differently.Finally, "the most general way in which prohibition worsens the health consequences of drug use is by making prices so high that little money or attention can be spared for anything unrelated to the drug itself.” [4] Addicts who can't afford street drug prices thus won't be able to take care of themselves, their health, or their families. And high prices drives addicts to homelessness, property crime, or prostitution, simply to afford the drugs. Legalization solves this problem (Con even admits that legalization lowers prices).4. All drugs have non-criminal uses. Lethal drugs, suicide. Date rape drugs? They're already legal, prescribed by doctors for cataplexy and narcolepsy.Con says drugs increase violence. But "all major authorities agree that the vast majority of drug-related violent crime is caused by the prohibition against drugs, rather than the drugs themselves." [5] Some drugs impair judgment but it's no different than drinking alcohol. Under Con's logic, we should revert back to the Prohibition era, where you couldn't drink alcohol. Of course, everyone knows what a massive failure that was (e.g. the mafia, illegal drug trade, etc.) We should punish violent crime, not drug use. Not a single piece of evidence suggests that punishing drug use deters violent crime. This isn't surprising, since the only person affected by the use of drugs is the user, especially if done in your home, alone. In terms of regulatory responses, we could limit the use of drugs the way we limit the use of alcohol (e.g. drunk driving laws).Also, consider the "symbolic threshold" line an individual crosses when violating a law for the first time. This "threshold" will disappear in a legalized regime, which points to less overall crime in society.5. Prohibition increases the price of drugs while transferring that profit from the legitimate economy to the illicit one. On the most extreme end of such problems, drug profits can fund civil wars, finance terrorism, and increase the risk of state failure. "Drug revenues support insurgents, other armed non-state actors, and corrupt officials, while counternarcotic efforts create hostility to state power . . . If all we cared about was terrorism and insurgency, [then we should legalize drugs as a counterterrorist measure].” [6] Legalization transfers drug profits to the legitimate economy, solving this problem entirey.6. Prohibition increases use of pubic health care resources because of poisonings/overdoses, HIV spreading, emergency-room treatment of gunshot wounds, etc. Moreover, evidence shows that dying early, before recieving social security or medicare, yields a net public inflow. [7] Plus, lower prices means more money to spend on healthcare expenses. And drug profits are incorporated into the economy. And taxed. Legalization thus improves the economy.7. The most dangerous harms that need to be considered in a cost-benefit calculation are the ones we can't predict or plan for. For example, a major cost of heroin prohibition was the rapid spread of HIV through drug injecting before anyone knew what was going on. Or consider the changes in inner-city drug trade that occurred as a part of the crack trade in the 90s, specifically the increase in violent crime, gun prevalence, and so on. Prohibited markets are unpredictable. And that has major risks on public health (e.g. HIV), crime (e.g. crack trade), and potentially other social issues that we can't predict ahead-of-time. When you take these risks into account, predictable markets should prevail everytime.Legalization produces better outcomes on almost every level. Vote Pro.Sources in comments.