Recreational Marijuana Legalization

If somebody wants to effect a change, that person need bring forward evidence. I do not want to effect a change, thus I do not need evidence. My opponent does, and so he needs evidence. As I will go on to demonstrate, he has none. I will deal with his five bits of non-evidence (for want of a better word) in order, below. First, my opponent makes the standard libertarian case - every adult should have the personal freedom to put substances into their body. This fails for three reasons. First, it ignores the fact that many substances are addictive, therefore removing the choices of the user. It is illogical to use choice as a ground for legalizing something that removes choice. Second, it ignores the cost of that liberty. Non-marijuana smokers do not want to pay for the medical bills of marijuana smokers, and that problem is compounded if cannabis is legalized. Third, why? Why should adults have the "personal freedom" to do harm to themselves? This is probably the most important causal link that my opponent needs to demonstrate in order to complete this argument, yet it is never made! Fraud is a non-violent crime, yet it is frequently associated with very high punishments. My opponent's (second) argument that non-violence is a good measure of whether something should be legal or not is quite silly. He then links this with the emotional appeal that people are jailed for simply smoking a joint. The punishment is irrelevant to the legal status. Next my opponent concedes the health risks of using cannabis. While there are safer alternatives, the fact is that people do not use them. Looking to countries with legal cannabis, smoking still remains the most popular form of cannabis use. My opponent later criticizes a few of my sources, but if he isn't doubting their overall message I guess there is no point in arguing over them. However, he denies gateway drugs are gateway drugs if they are legal. So let us take the Amsterdam scenario - legal cannabis, illegal most harder things. Amsterdam is only a small country, yet it has about 7000 addicts. Not one dollar has been raised in taxes from drug sales - indeed, with all the law enforcement costs, the drug policy is causing the Dutch a great deficit. Over the same period that drug use worldwide fell (a 75% decrease in reported cannabis use in the USA) drug use in the Netherlands increased widely (from 30 to 300 "cannabis coffee shops"). Similar statistics are obtained from almost every source. An overview of the subject is given here: . http://www.druglibrary.org... What's really interesting, though, is that in Amsterdam there is still a large and thriving "black market. " As David Raynes puts it: "There is the big lie that legalising drugs will take the criminality out of supply. What nonsense. Illegal traders who pay no taxes of any sort can always undercut legitimate traders" (see . http://www.justthinktwice.com...). Crazy fact, but it is still a gateway drug. No wonder that more arrests are made each year for drug trafficking in Amsterdam than any other European state - even among only the "hard drugs! " So drugs have been a failure when legalized. My opponent's fourth argument is comparing marijuana to tobacco and alcohol. My opponent doesn't seem to grasp the fact that marijuana is a whole order of magnitude removed in terms of the severity of effects. However, both of these are really irrelevant. That's because I actually oppose the sale of cigarettes and believe alcohol should be more heavily restricted. Obviously, arguing that would be outside the scope of a cannabis debate. In the same way, tobacco and alcohol may be legal (in some jurisdictions). However, arguing that is another debate entirely. Ultimately what it comes down to is my opponent arguing that because they are legal, they should be legal, and thus cannabis should be legal. I deny, however, that everything that is legal should be legal. My opponent's fifth and final argument was to say that it is not the user's perception of the drug that is important, but society's. All I can say to that is that society's opinion is just as subjective as any individual member of that society. It's no surprise that more people support cannabis than heroin - largely because there are more cannabis smokers in society! After all, heroin users have a tendency to die much faster than cannabis users, as my opponent eloquently argues. Does this mean that society's subjective judgment is the best way of arriving at decisions? No! Again we see my opponent missing the most crucial part of his argument and beautifully stating the rest. What this case is really about is whether society's decisions are always justified, or if, as I argue, they may be harmfully biased. In conclusion, my opponent continues to fail to prove his claim that marijuana should be legalized.