All drugs should be legal

Thank you for your arguments.I look forward to this debate.I will go through each of my opponents arguments.1. The act of taking drugs does not violate rightsHere my opponent asserts the role of the government is to protect the rights of its citizens. Civil servants take an oath to protect and defend the country from all enemies, foreign and domestic. Drugs and alcohol represent a domestic enemy simply because they cause harm to the user, to other individuals, and, ultimately, to society. Government ensures that we are safe. When delegating power to a central authority, the people are giving up their right of self defense. Under the social contract, one gives up certain rights to form a stable society, one of your duties as being a member of society is to, in certain cases, give up your right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. "It is important to recognize that although individuals have a right of self-defense in the state of nature, when they enter into society under the social contract, the pooling of that right transforms it into a duty to defend the community…to risk or sacrifice one's life, liberty, or property if such defense should require it" (1). Widespread drug use and drug production destabilizes society, "the emergence of a drug economy can result in the destabilization of the state, the political system, the economy and civil society." (2) To preserve society, under the social contract, one MUST be willing to give up their right to harm themselves for the preservation of society. Either that, or drug users must remove themselves from society. Since many people are unwilling to perform their societal duty; the government holds the responsibility of preserving society and illegalizing drugs to preserve the state, which, in the end, benefits all of us.2. The failure of prohibitionHere my opponent makes many blanket statements about prohibition. I mean during Prohibition alcohol use declined 30-50%, deaths from cirrhosis fell, between 1911 and 1929, from 29.5 deaths to 10.7 deaths per 100,000, alcohol psychosis fell from 10.1 in 1919 to 4.7 per 100,000, suicides decreased 50%, and alcohol related arrests dropped 50%. Prohibition was an achievement when it comes to the field of public health (3). My opponent mentions organized crime saying that alcohol led to the organization of crime and smuggling rings, but quite honestly, much of the reason for this rise to power was because of the inability of the government to enforce its own laws. Furthermore, my opponent asserts that organized crime began in the United States solely because of prohibition. Let's be honest, the mafia are directly linked to crime in the United States since the 1800s (4) and the mafia were heavily involved in the organization of labor unions, casinos, rackeetering, among many other things. Quite honestly, the illegalization of alcohol gave one buisness to the mafia. But, due to the fact the mafia was present in the United States regardless of the legality or illegality of alcohol means they would have been involved in these other, seemingly legitamate, ventures. A criminal organization will find ways to survive unless forced to stop through imprisonment and/or death.3. More power to gangs/cartelMy opponent holds that since the War on Drugs illegalized drugs, this caused the drug cartels to rise. But, my opponent misses one causal link, the users. The only reason the drug cartels have power is because people buy their product. If no one bought their product, they would have no income. Thus, they would have no power. Since legalizing drugs increases drug use, which for reasons mentioned above would be bad for society as a whole, illegalizing drug use would be the best option. Between 1979 and 1992, drug use was dropping exponentially. When Bill Clinton was elected president he slashed to office of Drug Control Policy by 80%, dropped the war on drugs from 3rd priority to 29th out of 29, and cut the number of ships and aircraft responsible for drug interdiction 50%. Drug use by children ages 12-17 increased 106% as a direct result. (5) This rate has been on a slow decline ever since. Drug use overall, dropped exponentially due to increased drug prevention efforts (6, 7). I would hope my opponent would agree that a society of non drug users would be better than a society of drug users simply due to lost productivity as well as other factors (societies destablization, etc.)4. Users cannot be helped if they are scammed.Let's be honest, my opponent's entire contention is based upon the fact that a dealer might sell a product that is "much less potent that what they were told." Let us clear one thing up, without an objective measure of what constitutes a "good high" (something that is good to one person may be bad to another), how can we say for certain that it was good or bad? In other words, you cannot return food (or get a refund) to a supermarket because it was not what you expected it would be or it did not taste good enough. My opponent has not provided a clear cut definition of what would consitute fraud in this regard. Unless you plan on sueing them for health problems that arise from drug use. Quite honestly, that is like sueing McDonalds because you got fat from their products. Drugs cause health issues.1.http://constitution.org...2. http://www.incb.org...;3. Mark S. Gold, The Good News About Drugs and Alcohol (New York: Viliard Books, 1991). 4. http://www.crimemuseum.org...;5. http://www.childtrendsdatabank.org...;6. http://archives.drugabuse.gov...;7. http://www.drugabuse.gov...