Resolved: Alcohol should be prohibited in the United States.

Let's start by looking at what's left of my opponent's case. My opponent argues that there are "benefits of alcohol", such as helping reduce heart attacks. Time and time again I have refuted this contention. Other methods to reduce heart attacks exist; the fact that alcohol kills over 50,000 Americans every year outweighs any "health benefit" my opponent tries to make. He claims that alcohol will prevent 600,000 heart attacks. However, anyone with any logic can tell this isn't true. First, Alcohol is currently legal, and these deaths are still occurring. Second, Alcohol is only said to REDUCE the threat of heart attack, not eliminate it. And finally, alcohol will never replace actual medication. We haven't seen the "benefits" of alcohol in preventing heart attacks in the past 50 years, and we won't ever see such benefits in the future. Thus you can wipe this contention off your flow. As stated previously, my opponent's second contention regarding "pleasure" has been refuted and dropped. My opponent claims that 3.9 million jobs will be lost by a prohibition. However, if a prohibition were to occur, it wouldn't be an overnight change; although some job losses would occur, the alcohol industry would turn to other beverage industries to stay afloat. The claim that these jobs would disappear overnight is both outlandish and false. As of this point in today's round, my opponent no longer has a case, and thus he loses by default. I will continue by extending my arguments to show why the pro clearly wins the debate. My first contention remains unrefuted at the end of today's round. No legitimate need exists for alcohol, and my opponent concedes this point. Let's look at my second contention by doing some math. There are 26,000 alcohol-related accidents every year; this means 26,000 incidents related to alcohol, not 26,000 deaths. The actual death toll is much more massive; in 2009 alone, alcoholic liver disease killed 14,406 Americans. Other alcohol-related deaths, EXCLUDING accidents and homicides, was 23,199 [1]. The number of deaths due to alcohol related car accidents in 2008 was 13,846 out of a total 37,271 car-accident related deaths that year. That means alcohol-related car accidents amount to a whopping 37% of car accidents every year [2]. With a new Prohibition, the number of Americans dying each year from car accidents will be reduced by a massive 40% - almost reduced by half. Furthermore, alcohol is involved in the deaths of 75% of all homicide victims, 40% of rape victims, 50% of those who commit sex crimes, 80% of suicides, 70% of family violence, 45-55% of all fire fatalities, 25% of boating deaths, and 30% of drowning deaths. In juvenile delinquency, 82% of delinquent adolescents had at least one alcoholic parent. [3] These numbers are out of control – and they're all because of alcohol. My opponent tries to respond to these facts by saying "that there are other harmful activities out there". Take notw that this isn't an actual response to the argument; my opponent is merely trying to side-step having to actual respond to these facts. Furthermore, the fact that America should be working to prohibition "other harmful activities" such as smoking is non-topical, and should not be considered in today's debate. Banning alcohol would prevent over 50,000 deaths from occurring every year, would significantly reduce the number of homicides, rape victims, and juvenile delinquents. Thus, you can extend my second contention, noting that it has the greatest impact in today's round. My third contention, that states that Prohibition-era conditions no longer exist, also remains unrefuted. Corrupt law enforcement and bad national security lead to a catastrophe during the Prohibition of the 1920s. However, with national security at it's highest in American history and with the absence of large-scale corrupt law enforcement, such a catastrophe will never happen again. The impact of this argument is massive considering security after a new Prohibition, and thus you can extend this at the end of the round. My fourth contention stated that the use of alcohol will eventually dissipate after a Prohibition, much like the use of marijuana has dropped from nearly 40% to a mere 11% in thirty years. Data from the Office of National Drug Policy supports this argument, which remains unrefuted by my opponent at the end of the round. Thus, because no legitimate need for alcohol exists, because the toll alcohol takes on American lives is immense, because current security conditions make a 1920s-Prohibition-like catastrophe impossible, and because drug use will inevitably decrease in forthcoming generations, I strongly urge an affirmative vote on today's resolution. References: [1] http://www.cdc.gov... [2] http://www.alcoholalert.com... [3] http://www.extension.umn.edu...