Drug legalization

I agree with my opponent's request, and shall confine my arguments to illegal "street" drugs. I agree with my opponent's definition of narcotics. I will now address my opponent's round one arguments: Drugs and crime correlation: "Every major study, has affirmed the link between drug abuse and crime. " There will obviously be a correlation between drugs and crime if drugs are illegal. But aside from that, all mind altering substances including alcohol has an effect on judgment and will therefore increase crime rate. "Just over 40% of of arrestees at the test sites tested positive for marijuana at the time of arrest" To begin, roughly 6% of all arrests are marijuana-related, so you can discount those immediately. But, more importantly, there are roughly 300 million Americans, and 92 million of them have smoked weed at least once [1]. Because there are only about 14 million US prisoners [2], and 40% of 14 million is 5,600,000 people who smoke pot are just barely overrepresented in court, and pot in no way guarantees criminal activity. However, if drugs were legalized, we would actually reduce drug related crime by regulating drug use and, for example, not selling to the mentally ill or those with a criminal record. "Over 86% of people arrested show a dependence on these illegal substances" As this study was conducted in Queensland, the results have somewhat less bearing on America, but aside from that, like your arguments on marijuana and crack, if we legalize it we will be able to regulate drugs and lower these statistics. "With almost every drug, over 50% of arrestees reported failed buys" If we legalize these drugs, then we can completely eliminate failed buys. This argument is entirely in favor of legalization. Marijuana is harmful: All of these arguments are irrelevant, if people want to harm themselves then in a free society they have a right to, and legalization would increase treatment for these problems by empowering people to seek medical help without fear of legal action. However, I will counter your arguments anyway. "Marijuana. .. has been linked to problems with memory, lack of motivation, problems with adolescent development, and is strongly believed to even increase risk of cancer. " First of all, the dangers of marijuana are less than those of alcohol [3]. While marijuana does affect short-term memory, its users have been shown in experiments to have no problems recalling things that they already learned [4]. Although marijuana does slightly damage the adolescent brain, the effect is subtle compared to alcohol, and by legalizing marijuana we could help prevent teens from obtaining marijuana [5]. And as for cancer, marijuana has been proven numerous times to be less damaging to the lungs than tobacco, and not a cause of cancer [3], [4]. Lastly, the damage done to DNA by marijuana is also done by tobacco [6], but aside from that, just because something could be harmful is no reason to make it illegal, as in the case of alcohol and tobacco. In conclusion, although there is a slight drug-crime correlation and some possible dangers of marijuana, it is no reason to make them illegal, and in fact, if these drugs were legal and therefore regulated, we would have less drug related crime and less dangers from marijuana. [1] www. ncadi. samhsa. gov [2] www. drugwarfacts. org [3] www. saferchoice. org [4] www. drugpolicy. org [5] www. norml. org [6] www. ncbi. nlm. nih. gov