The United States Federal Government's War on Drugs should be ended.

Thank you, 16kadams, for your response.Contention 1-: The War on Drugs has workedMy opponent's first claim is that Portugal's decision to end its own war on drugs, replacing it with decriminalization and treatment, worked. This gives no reason to believe the war worked; in fact, it's quite the opposite, because if ending the war improves things unexpectedly, then continuing the war will not.He also gives statistics on our own War on Drugs, pointing out that drug abuse went down about a third in twenty years, which is unimpressive compared to Portugal's 50% reduction in only ten years [1]. In fact, many countries see reduction in drug abuse after decriminalizing laws on particular drugs [2][3]. The seemingly important fact about cocaine usage dropping is more likely due to trends in drug use than any particular policy, being replaced by other drugs such as herion [4].I find the fact that 95% of Americans do not use drugs unimpressive, as there is no indication at all that this was due to any action of government and countries without such massive wars on drugs have similar statistics. My opponent points to the (notably illegal) production of marijuana in the Netherlands, but it means nothing. Just because 100 tons were grown in one year doesn't mean that it is grown more than before, especially not relative to the rising population. My opponent is drawing a line from a single point; this is just bad math [5]. The "normalization" argument is just about the only legitimate objection to legalizing drugs, although it evidently does not occur in every society that decriminalizes drugs, but this is most definitely outweighed by the immense societal and economics costs of continuing the War on Drugs.Contention 1+: The War on Drugs is expensiveMy opponent claims that drug abuse costs so much money to American society, but the important question is, how? It is impossible to refute the claim without knowing what calculations went into it. Did they include what people could have been producing, but didn't, because they were high? If so, they made the mistake of disregarding psychic income (personal statisfaction from an activity [6]) and only focusing on monetary income; there is no reason to take their priorities over those of the American people. The sum also most likely includes the $110 billion "lost" to job productivity, even though my opponent tries to recreate this as a separate contention.While law enforcement costs may be lower than the total cost of the War on Drugs ($2.6 billion per year a few years ago [7]), that's still a lot of money, and there's no reason that the federal government should be involved in prevention and treatment when the states can handle that perfectly well if they so choose.My opponent also failed to address my concerns of the economic loss of jailing non-violent offenders, which includes both the cost of prison and the loss of production later in life and can lead to more damage to society by creating criminals. This does not offer the psychic income alternative, as I doubt anyone prefers being in jail to leading a productive life. Contention 2+: People have a right to drugsMy opponent's examples of where we can't do anything we want with our bodies miss the point. Nudity is only illegal in public; no just government will outlaw being nude in your own house. Additionally, people can yell "hijack" all they want in their own homes; on airlines, however, people voluntarily give up their right to yell "hijack" so that the airplane industry allows them on the planes. There is no rights issue with an airline annoucing that those who ride on their planes may yell "hijack" to their hearts' content.He then demonstrates that he has quite likely never read the United States Constitution. He first claims that all American rights are listed in the Constitution, but nothing could be further from the truth; the Constitution even specifically states that there are rights not listed in the Constitution through the Ninth Amendment, which was appropriately enough written to avoid the very implication for which my opponent argues [8]. I have also never read anything in the Constitution stating any generalities about rights, although my opponent is free to show us where such a statement exists. In any case, the Tenth Amendment prevents the federal government from being involved, period. Drug policy is up to the states.I should add that states retain the right to continue the war on drugs within their own borders; this debate only concerns the federal government. The states can continue to inhibit drug use to prevent whetever concerns my opponent chooses to raise, but this would at least return that power to the individual states instead of the federal government. If the people of California think marijuana should be legal, then such is their right, and they shouldn't be forced to pay for drug enforcement in Massachusetts. My opponent claims that drugs hurt people, but this is false. People hurt people. Non-violent people can become unintentionally dangerous when they use cars, matches, power tools, guns, alcohol, and some other drugs, but does that mean that we should wage war on all of these things? Not at all. We tried Prohibition, but that failed miserably [9], and we see the same effects today. My opponent also points out that drug use can have negative effects on others, but so can going skydiving, joining a rock band, giving up a diet, not showering, overworking, or going without sleep for extended periods of time, but it would be a folly to introduce government regulation to stop these private decisions. The effects mentioned are all either negative effects already consented to by the party taking the drug, peer pressure that is still up to the individual to follow or not follow, and driving under the influence, which would still be illegal even if the federal government abolished every activity it currently performs.Contention 2-: Drugs promote crimeMy opponent's source actually suggests that the relationship between drug use and crime is very complex and not fully understood, but my opponent in spite of it concludes that drug use causes crimes. Milton Friedman observed that crime committed by addicts is necessitated by their addiction combined with the high cost of drugs resulting from criminalization, so less regulation would lead to less crime. Ending the drug war would also lower the profits of black markets and greatly reduce their ability to bribe policemen [10]. Therefore, it is not drugs, but the War on Drugs, that promotes crime. Contention 3+: The War on Drug has many unintended consequences I already pointed out how the War on Drugs kills many innocent bystanders [11, my previous link broke through a glitch]. Some of them were model citizens, and none of them deserved to die. I also pointed out how the War results in a plethora of other social problems and even strengthens the most powerful drug cartels. My opponent has apparently neglected this contention; I should hope he addresses it next round.Conclusion: The War on Drugs is an unconstitutional barrage on our rights that degrades society and kills many good, innocent people, and should be ended as soon as possible.1. http://www.forbes.com...; 2. http://www.reuters.com...3. http://www.guardian.co.uk...;4. http://www.infoplease.com...5. http://demonstrations.wolfram.com...;6. http://www.unc.edu...7. http://www.cnbc.com...;8. http://civilliberty.about.com...;9. http://www.cato.org...10. http://www.druglibrary.org...11. http://www.drugwarrant.com...