New Member Tournament: Drug Legalization

I will be mainly using my last round as a summarization round. 1. Drugs and Crime. 1A. My Opponent's Case. My opponent's case on crime has two main points and one sub-point. I will address all of them. My opponent's first point is "My evidence shows that 24% of the time violent felons commit their crimes while under the influence. This is because drugs cause us to do irrational things, including crimes." I have shown that this is usually a simple case of correlation causation. If drug offenders are usually also criminals. But that does not mean that drugs caused them to be criminals. There is a variety of factors that can be used to predict crime and drug usage, such as poverty and physiological disorders. That means that there is more than just one factor in causing crime. If someone is a poor drug using criminal, why do we ignore the poor part and immediately assume that drugs caused the criminal to commit his crimes? There is a plethora of factors in crime, and there is no reason to assume that it is drugs and not one of the others. Though drugs do cause some people to commit crimes, those people are in a minority. Only three percent of New York's murders were due to the effects of drugs. Here is the math. "An analysis of 218 homicides in New York, committed in 1998 and presumed to be related to drugs, showed that only 14% involved the psychopharmacological factor and that 74% were related to systemic violence resulting from the illegal drug market and related drug trafficking." 14% of 218=31. There was 924 murders in New York during 1998[1]. 31/924=3% There is another reason why criminals are so often under the influence while committing crimes. Most criminals are drug offenders, and drug offenders will probably use drugs the day they commit the crimes (after all, they are a drug offender). A study of marijuana users found that about 50% of the users used drugs daily. If they committed a crime, they would use drugs on the same day that they committed a crime and they probably committed it under the influence. But does that mean drugs caused the crime? The second part of my opponent's case is "drugs have some negative affects on society as a whole (causing crime), and no positive affects, thus drugs should be banned. Why legalize something that produces harm, but no good?" Drugs cause a few murders, and that is the negative effect. However, they do have an unseen positive effect and that is that when drugs are banned, the murders due to the illegal drug trade outweigh the murders due to the effects of drugs. By legalizing drugs, we are avoiding the jump in crime due to the illegal drug trade. There are a few ways in which we can see that the illegal drug trade causes more crime than the effects of drugs- for example, my New York City (74% of drug related crime in NYC is due to the illegal drug trade, while 14% is due to the physiological effects of drugs) example and my chart that showed crime going up during Prohibition. What my opponent has failed to show is that crimes due to the pharmaceutical effects of drugs outweigh those due to the illegal drug trade. If he can not show that, then we can not know if drugs cause violence. If we cannot know, crime can't be used as an argument for drug criminalization. My opponent's sub-point is "a desire to obtain drugs leads to crime." Though my opponent's statistic is convincing at first, what he feels to realize is that crimes committed to obtain drugs are committed for one main reason: criminalized drugs are extremely expensive. It is a basic economic fact that criminalizing something makes it more expensive, due to the risks involved with trafficking. One drug cartel chief actually expressed gratitude at the War on Drugs because the rise in price is "good for business" [2]. If drugs were legalized, they would be so cheap that crimes committed to obtain drugs would virtually disappear. In fact, by criminalizing drugs there is a spike in crime to due to the increased price of drugs. So his point actually works in my favor. When drugs are criminalized, the increased price of drugs leads to more people committing crimes to obtain drugs. 2. Drugs, addiction and society. Addiction In the chart my opponent linked to, only two drugs were more addictive than alcohol and tobacco- heroine and cocaine. All the other drugs (LSD, meth, ectasy) scored lower than tobacco and alcohol. In addition, there is few drug addicts precisely because of how expensive drugs are, and most can only afford them on a sporadic basis. Society This has been the main point of my opponent's argument. He argues that since drugs harm society, they should be banned. However, I have three objections to this. 1. What is the criteria for being harmful to society? Drugs create addicts. So does video games, food, alcohol, tobacco, and adrenaline. There is only two drugs more addictive than tobacco and alcohol. At what point does the level of addiction become too much? Secondly, how does being addicted to something harm society. This is an obvious non-sequiter. I don't think addiction harms society, and you do. Why is your word more important than mine? In addition, banning things and lowering the level of freedom could also harm society. 2. Only some people become addicts. The majority of drug users are not addicts. You are telling a majority of people they can't use drugs because a minority of people abuse them. 3. This is my main objection. Why does it matter that someone becomes an addict? Is it the government's role to stick a gun to everyone's head and force them to be productive members of society? Not only is harming society 100% subjective, there is no reason for the government to enforce it. What is more important- your right to live your life as you see fit without harming others or preventing a supposed harm to society that is 100% subjective? To summarize a) drugs harming society is a non-sequiter, b) why should the government stick a gun to everyone's head and force them to be productive members of society, and c) most everything can be said to be harming society? "Pro attempts to argue that " It appears that it is a large group trampling over the rights of a small group" Unfotunately, this statement falls because we do not, and never have, had the right to harm society." Says who? How does taking drugs harm society? Most people use them for recreation. Does recreation harm society? Not only that, why don't we have a right to harm society? How do drug addicts harm society? If my opponent can't show that a) drugs harm society and b) we shouldn't be able to harm society, I win this point. Exception First off, banning the date rape drug would have little to no effect. Anything that can be used to impair judgement can be a date rape drug (i.e. alcohol). Banning rohypnol would just mean that alcohol would be used as the new date rape drug. Rohypnol also also benefits- for example, it is used as a cure for insomnia. And contrary to popular belief, Rohypnol is actually very rarely used in date rape. It was used in only 1% of reported date rapes. It is used more often for recreation and insomnia than as a date rape drug[3]. Sources [1] http://www.disastercenter.com... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org... [3] http://en.wikipedia.org...