Drug Legalization

In this round I will refute everything my Opponent has said.Self OwnershipPro argues that " Every man, woman, boy, and girl have full rights to their own body, unless it harms the people around them." I will address both parts of this claim seperately. First of all, Pro has shown niether legal nor moral reasoning for this. No doubt that people have intrinsic self autonomy, however part of living in a society means that you have to give up some rights in exhcange for the benefits society brings. Unless my opponent is arguing that we ought to abandon society (a very tall order) than he must explain why drugs are covered under self autonomy in the United State, or else this argument lacks a warrant and must be dropped. The second problem with Pro's claim is that governments have an obligation to protect their citizens. Drugs are harmful and so they fall under the governments power to prohibit. It may bee objected that many things (such as junk food or television) are harmful, so the government would have to ban literally EVERYTHING! This objection falls very quickly however, because drugs are things that are intrinsically harmful and ought to be banned because of the extreme damage they do to people.The second claim falls because drugs DO harm others, quite a lot. My first contention shows that drugs cause crime, and my second argues that they harm ALL of society by dehumanization. Are drugs really all that bad?The short answer: Yes, they are just as bad or worse than most people think. However my opponent is using this for his side, so as he's the one making a positive claim if I disprove his statements than this argument can be deemed irrelevant. The first half of this lacks literally everything that makes an argument compelling and valid (that is, it lacks an impact, warrant, and evidence) and as such I won't waste my time adressing it. My Opponent brings up a few statistics of merit. There are, however, a few problems. For one thing he claims that there is a 650 per 100,000 death rate for cigarettes (obviously attempting to show that since legal drugs supposdely cause mor deaths that illicit drugs should be legalized) however we all know that cigarettes are HIGHLY dangerous, so the 200 per 100,000 death rate from heroine is still highly significant. Furthermore, cigarettes are used far more often than most illicit drugs (explaining the higher mortality rate attributed to them, as well as supporting the Con side that use would increase after legalization). It can be argued even further that since cigarettes were considered safe until th 1960's. I looked at pros source and could not find these statistics. That is not an accusation, rather an acknowedgement of my limited time. Anyhow, since these statistics are from the liberal think-tank CATO the methodology is very likely flawed. So I ask my opponent, how were these statistics found? I highly doubt that they accounted the criminal affects of drugs in these stats.Crime rates?Pro argues that cartels would go away if drugs were legalized. First off, this is highly illogical. It makes far more sense that drug cartels would simply move on to other (and more damaging) crimes such as robbery of human trafficking. Further, my mcdonough card has pre-empted this. He writes:"Looking only at crime and drugs, it is apparent that drugs drive crime. While it is true that no traffickers, dealers or manufacturers of drugs would be arrested if all drugs were legal, the same could be said of drunk drivers if drunken driving were legalized. Indeed, we could bring prison population down to zero if there were no laws at all. But we do have laws, and for good reason. When we look beyond the crime driven by drugs and factor in the lost human potential, the family tragedies, massive health costs, business losses and neighborhood blights instigated by drug use, it is clear that the greater harm is in the drugs themselves, not in the laws that curtail their use." [Emphasis mine]CostAh yes, 23.44 billion, also known as .0017% of our GDP.* Besides, it's well worth the money to enforce laws.ProhibitionProhibition and drug criminalization may be comparable in a very broad sense, but something about comparing today to things that happened 80 years ago seems a bit off. Besides, even if you view this point as compelling, it just shows that we need to re-form our methodology (for instance, decriminalize instead of legalize).===My Case===He's essentially dropped it all. C1. CrimeMy Opponent drops the logic that drug use causes crime, therefore conceding to it. You can vote Con. This concession absolutely justifies the crimialization of drugs, and any downsides to drug criminalization prove that our methods need to be reformed, not the entire law. My Opponent brings up a weak counterplan, but this falls because an aggressive campaign against drugs is ALREADY HAPPENING. We've all seen the "above the influence" commercials, so Pros advantage cannot be applied (because his counterplan is already in effect, and is not enough.)C2. DehumanizationAgain my opponent concedes. Drugs destroy what makes us human and he admits to that. His objection that " Choice and self-ownership are rights that all people have. " falls because if we lose our humanity, than rights (a uniquely human idea) cannot apply! Besides, absolute liberty leads to the destruction of society; the social contract specifies that we need to give up some rights to allow soceiety to function. Thus, you negate.* found using a GDP of 14 trillion dollars, so the actual percentage is slightly smaller