the abuse of illegal drugs should be a matter of public health, not criminal justice

Before I begin, I'd like to correct part of my previous post. Sources [1] and [2] are http://www.druglibrary.org... and http://www.rand.org... respectively. The ends of the links were accidently cut off. My opponent claims that I have no value or criterion for my case, and thus, he "automatically wins." I thought it was extremely obvious that I was arguing that legalization would lead to the best consequences, but if my opponent wants me to explicitly write this out: Criterion: Consequentialism. That is, society is better off under legalization than under the current system. "Better off" refers to a combination of many things, including public safety, public health, crime, etc. My opponent's case: First, he claims that drugs are viewed as harmful by almost everyone in the world. Well, so what? We aren't debating whether or not drugs are harmful or whether or not they're a good thing. Drugs exist and will always exist—we are debating which approach to them will cause less harm, legalization or prohibition. Next, he mentions that laws against stealing and murder are in place in every country. Those laws are universal because they are obviously bad things that should be prohibited. Drug laws, on the other hand, are not uniform in every country. Many Western countries have taken a more public-health oriented approach to drug policy. For example, Portugal decriminalized drugs in 2001 (Criminal penalties for trafficking and production remain, but criminal penalties for drug use were removed). A study on the effects of this policy found that "Although postdecriminalization usage rates have remained roughly the same or even decreased slightly when compared with other EU states, drug-related pathologies — such as sexually transmitted diseases and deaths due to drug usage — have decreased dramatically." [1] [1] http://www.cato.org... My opponent also claims that "The main reason laws are made are one, yes to benefit the government, but also to ensure public welfare." Actually, the main reason these laws passed is racism. In the 1930s, the government began a smear campaign against marijuana. In 1936, the Federal Bureau of Narcotics stated that "prolonged use of Marihuana frequently develops a delirious rage which sometimes leads to high crimes, such as assault or murder. Hence Marihuana has been called the 'killer drug.' . . . Marihuana sometimes gives man the lust to kill, unreasonably and without motive. Many cases of assault, rape, robbery, and murder are traced to the use of Marihuana." [2] They also stated that "50 percent of the violent crimes committed in the districts occupied by Mexicans, Turks, Filipinos, Greeks, Spaniards, Latin-Americans and Negroes can be traced to the abuse of Marihuana cigarettes." [2] Similar campaigns resulted in the criminalization of opium (said to have caused Chinese to rape white women and commit other violent crimes) and cocaine (supposedly caused blacks to rape white women, etc). [2] Bonnie, Richard J. and Charles H. Whitebread. The Marijuana Conviction: A History of Marijuana Prohibition in the United States. New York: Lindesmith Center, 1999 (reprint). As for my opponent's 2nd claim—that 35% of drug abusers end up committing some type of murder—this is obviously false. First of all, there just aren't enough murders for this to possibly be true, even if every murder was committed by a drug user. Second, as my previous link shows, even the Department of Justice found that drug use isn't linked to aggression. Third, he didn't provide a link to this study, and I could find no mention of a professor by this name at the University of Kentucky's faculty directory. On my opponent's critique of my case: He claims that I have no evidence for my claims, and that they are based entirely on my "biased assumptions of who drug abusers are." Actually, my claims are based on empirical facts, including a report from the Department of Justice stating that alcohol is the only drug that has been shown to cause aggression. They found that drug-related violence is generally either violence between rival drug sellers, which is purely a result of the fact that drugs are illegal, and property crimes committed to obtain money to buy drugs. The first source of violence only exists because drugs are illegal, as evidenced by the fact that alcohol sellers and distributers stopped shooting each other after alcohol prohibition ended. The other form of crime is a result of the high prices of drugs, also caused by the fact that they are illegal. The RAND study linked earlier found that marijuana prices, for example, would drop by 80% if marijuana were legalized.