Drug Legalization

Thank you, Con, for this debate. P1: Here, Con initially argued that if criminal penalties for drug use were abolished, drug use would increase significantly. When this has actually been tried, in Portugal, that did not happen—hard drug use stayed about the same during the decade after decriminalization, showing that Con's claims are contradicted by reality. Now Con claims that Portugal is culturally and geographically different from other nations, without explaining why exactly these differences matter, so this evidence doesn't count. This is ridiculous. Con made a claim about what would happen if criminal penalties for drug use were taken away. When a country actually did that, his claim was completely contradicted by the evidence. And he continues to make that claim that, "So we recognize that drug use still likely spikes drastically in, at the very least, a majority of nations." Based on what? Based on absolutely nothing. Con has provided no evidence of his claim whatsoever, and no evidence or actual reasons that the Portugal experiment is invalid, other than the fact that Portugal, like every country, is different from other countries. Not only does Con not offer any reasons that Portugal's differences from other nations would cause its experiment with drug decriminalization to not be valid evidence, it's completely absurd to think that this even could be the case. Are Portuguese people fundamentally different types of human beings? Con made an assertion about the way people respond to incentives—he claimed that if the punishments for drug use were eliminated, drug use would rise significantly. Unless the Portuguese are different kinds of people than everyone else, there's no reason that they wouldn't respond to incentives the way everyone else does. The reason drug use didn't increase is that most people who don't do heroin and crack and meth refrain from doing so, not because of punishments, but because they have no desire to do those drugs. Con could indeed claim that Saudi Arabia proves that the death penalty results in less drug use—if an experiment with that drug policy were done. It isn't enough to say that Saudi Arabia has low drug usage rates (according to the Saudi's official reports) and has the death penalty for drug crimes, and therefore the two must be connected. If they didn't have the death penalty at one time, then introduced it, and then drug usage dropped, then that would be evidence that the death penalty deters drug use. Since that did not happen, the Saudi example is not evidence that the death penalty deters drug use. The Portugal example is evidence because it is an experiment—you can compare drug usage before and after the policy to see that policy's effects. P2: The reason legalization reduces the health problems associated with drug use is that drug users will have more access to medical treatment, since they don't have to fear going to jail. The drugs themselves are also safer. Impurities in drugs can be harmful by themselves if dangerous ingredients are used. Additives in drugs are also harmful because users won't know how much of a drug they're actually using. The purity of drugs bought on the street can vary wildly, so a dose that would be safe at a lower quality sample could cause an overdose if the user has a higher quality sample. P3: Con claims that "all we have clashing here is evidence stating the opposite things." That's an over-simplification. What we actually have is one person whose source is a anti-drug propaganda site, and another person whose sources are journals from well-respected medical and economic journals. Gangs: Con claims that gang violence is unfortunate, but it's better than what would happen if drugs were legalized. The problems he claim would happen are increased drug use, which would supposedly lead to overcrowded hospitals and lower workforce productivity. Setting aside the fact that my opponent never actually provided any evidence that these things would really happen, how could anyone consider tens of thousands of people being murdered in the streets an acceptable price to pay for these things? Saying they're like the drowsiness caused by cold medicine is a colossal understatement—a better metaphor would be if there was a cold pill that caused cancer. Police: Pro is correct that police could potentially violate people's rights when hunting rapists and murderers. So? The police-state tactics used today are the result of the drug war—they weren't used to hunt down any criminals before drug prohibition. There will always be corrupt police that violate the rights of innocent people, but the drug war makes these violations necessary to enforce the law, where they otherwise would not be. In Conclusion: 1. I have shown that there is no evidence that legalization would lead to a significant increase in drug use. Con claimed that removing criminal penalties would lead to this—I have shown that this is false. 2. Con has claimed that increased health costs would be the result of legalization, but has provided no evidence to show this, and has been contradicted by the case of Portugal, where the opposite happened. 3. Con claimed that drug use would hurt the economy through lower workforce productivity, but this is overwhelmingly contradicted by empirical evidence. 4. Con absurdly claims that the tens of thousands of people murdered in the streets because of the drug war are an acceptable price to avoiding an increase in drug use, because of the problems that he claims this would cause: higher health care costs and lower workforce productivity. 5. I have shown that the drug war leads to the violation of the rights of innocent citizens; Con countered by arguing that rape and murder investigations also do this. Setting aside the point that the drug war is the cause of the vast majority of law enforcement caused rights-violations, this is still irrelevant because we aren't talking about legalizing those things. I am arguing that the damage caused by the drug war exceeds the damage caused by drug prohibition, and the harm done to innocent people by the police is part of the damage caused by the drug war. It doesn't matter if the police would do some of those things anyway—the drug war still increases the amount of them, which helps support my argument that the damage of the drug war exceeds the damage legalization could bring. It doesn't matter what the police do about rapists and murderers—it's irrelevant to whether the drug war or drug legalization would cause more harm.