illicit drugs should be legalised

Rebuttals: O1. Users of drugs harm other people involuntarily a. My opponent once again ignores my texting-while-driving example. b. My opponent once again ignores my argument that fetuses are not life. c. My opponent once again fails to adequately rebuttal the fact that people are to blame, not drugs. He declines to address that ordinary users should not be punished for what violent, harmful users have done. O2. Users of drugs harm themselves involuntarily My statement about one's right and responsibility to learn from their mistakes is not naive. It is reality. If the damage is permanent, that is tragic, but it is not the business of the rest of us to prevent it. People need to be more afraid of the very real health consequences, not arbitrary legal consequences. O3. People take drugs thinking it will make them happy My opponent's numbers of 10 million, 400 thousand, and 95% are arbitrary and should not be taken seriously. I know that there are now more drug fatalities than car fatalities. I read the article. My point is that the numbers are so similar that saying drugs guarantee death is the same as saying cars guarantee death. O4. Teenagers My opponents talks about lowering the percentage, but his original challenge clearly stated that drugs needed to be completely away from teenagers: "Furthermore, I challenge my opponent to propose a model in which drugs can be legalised where teenagers cannot use drugs. Teens have a flawed risk vs reward system of judgement due to an underdeveloped frontal lobe. We cannot allow drugs to be available to teens due to this impairment of free choice. So how do you legalise it without them getting any? " This was his challenge. Not that teenagers need to take less drugs. My opponent once again ignores my argument about the source of the drugs. Defense: C1: The act of taking drugs does not violate rights I have no idea where my opponent got the idea that I assume happiness is pleasure and that "no one has it. " Of course it is possible, but I don't understand my opponent's claim that it is harder to be happy in a rich country. I think he is talking about recession. It is not that one does not have the right hurt other people. It is that one does not have the right to violate the rights of other people. There is a big difference. Competing businesses might hurt their competitors, but they certainly aren't violating any rights. My whole argument is my opinion. That's the point of a debate. My opponent's next point is trying to change the subject by using a different law, but in a debate about the law, the law is not a valid argument. C2. The failure of prohibition My opponent's comments about losing jobs, falling out of school, etc. .. take place in a world where drugs are illegal. I explained why all this happened in my last argument, but my opponent again chooses to ignore my argument in favor of a straw man. By regulating ephedrine and pseudo-ephedrine to regulate meth, they might as well just regulate water to regulate alcohol. This would of course be ridiculous. C3. More power to gangs/cartel My opponent says that gangs would get a new source of illegal income, but cannot come up with an example of one. Even if this did happen, nothing could possibly get them the same revenue as the War on Drugs. If gangs continue to commit crimes, then there is still a problem, but why would they commit crimes when they have turned legitimate? It would be terrible for their business. C4. Users cannot be helped if they are scammed The point is that if Criminal A scams 'Criminal' B, Criminal B is an innocent in the situation. As an innocent victim, he should be able to receive help after being stolen from, but instead he will be arrested for drugs. My opponent says that "people are only encouraged not to do drugs due to the law being against them. " This is wrong in two ways. The first is that drug users are not discouraged to do drugs, and the second is that non-users are discouraged by the possible health problems caused by drugs. I know that if drugs were legalized, I still wouldn't do drugs. This debate started off well, but by the end my opponent grew extremely disrespectful, and ignored many of my arguments. He constantly told me my arguments were hilarious. As for math skills, I just so happen to be in AP Calculus.