Resolved: Just governments ought not persecute victimless crimes.

I also value utilitarianism as the best means of determining morality. Thus, this debate will be about whether prosecution of victimless crimes under a just government is of net benefit to society; I will demonstrate that it is. As the current status quo is already prosecution, the resolution advocates for a change in the status quo, and the BoP is shared. What is “Just”? To fully analyze the effects of prosecution at the hands of just governments, we must discern what a just system is. I propose that, in line with the accepted framework of utilitarianism, any just government, “guided by truth, reason, justice, and fairness,” with justice being “the moral principle determining just conduct,” (1), a just government must make the decisions that are always create the most happiness for the most people. As such, I propose that a truly just legal system cannot be punitive. The most compelling evidence for this is the recidivism rate of the current punitive system in the U.S., as more than three-quarters of released prisoners in a study of hundreds of thousands of them landed back in prison within five years (2). Clearly, the system is operating ineffectively and thus immorally if it releases prisoners back on the street, only to see the overwhelming majority of them break laws again and return to the system. The two systems of punishment that come as close as possible to efficiency are reformatory and highly-punitive. The former can be seen in places like Norway, with access to the outside world, educated prison guards, education, healthcare, and reintegration, culminating in a 20% recidivism rate (3). The latter can be seen in places like Singapore, where “drug traffickers” (in quotations because of their liberal interpretation) may be hanged (4), resulting in a recidivism of about 30% (5). Since more reformatory systems tend to produce lower recidivism than harsher systems, a just government must reform offenders rather than punish. With that established… Contention 1: Victimless crimes create an inefficient allocation of societal resources As drug use/possession is the most well-known victimless crime, I will focus on it. I only need to show that just governments should prosecute offenders of one victimless crime in order to affirm the principle set forth in the resolution. Most criminalized drugs are illegal because of extremely harmful effects and abuse that often accompany them. Despite a lack of the more extreme effects of cocaine or other hard drugs, even marijuana is abused or depended upon by 4.2 million Americans (6). Even disregarding the well-known physical effects of drug abuse, which marijuana advocates attempt to mitigate in their arguments, the fact still remains that abuse and dependence are harmful to the overall well-being of a person, due to several common economic concepts. The concept of opportunity cost states that, essentially, to get one thing requires giving up something else. Doing homework carries the opportunity cost of time that could have been spent with friends. Buying drugs carries the opportunity cost of anything else that money could have been spent on. Now, an assumption of economics is that humans tend to make rational choices. That is, if humans buy drugs, it is because it will provide them with the most utility for their money, which would be moral by the framework of this debate. However, drug dependence and abuse, which is wide-spread, as shown before, circumvents this notion by imposing a future negative utility when the drug is not consumed. Coupled with the law of diminishing marginal returns, which can be verified by the numerous testimonies of people who never could achieve the same pleasure of their “first high”, dependents of drugs are faced with two unattractive options—incur an increasingly negative utility by not consuming the drug, or incur an increasingly smaller marginal utility per dollar for drugs. The optimal short-run choice for the user will always be to take the drug again, but in the long-run, this results in far less utility. While quantification of utility is nearly impossible, a hypothetical example will be of some help in illustrating the situation. Let’s say that a new video game for $60 dollars provides 5 util, while $60 worth of cocaine provides 10 util. The seemingly optimal choice is the cocaine. However, on the strong chance that the user becomes dependent (17%) (7), a new situation arises. Not taking the drug will incur frustration and other negative emotions and perhaps physical effects. We shall say that not taking the drug incurs -1 util. Meanwhile, the next dose of cocaine is not as pleasurable due to the law of diminishing marginal returns, and we’ll say it provides 9 util. As dependence increases, so does the penalty for not using. Following a linear pattern, we will eventually reach a point where video games still provide 5 util, cocaine provides 4 util, and not using cocaine incurs -6 util. Cocaine now provides less utility than games would under normal circumstances, but because of addiction, it is still the optimal choice, because it has made every other option less optimal. This reduction of overall possible utility is what makes drug use immoral. Thus, just governments have a clear obligation to stop this inefficiency and maximize total happiness. Contention 2: Legal intervention is cost-effective and helps society make optimal choices Let us compare the costs of reformation to the costs that drug use imposes on society. Substance abuse results in a cost of about $700 billion to society each year, more than $160 billion of which is due to healthcare costs (8). Norwegian prisons cost $93,000 per inmate, compared to $31,000 per inmate in the US (9). The US has about 2,200,000 prisoners currently (10), so, even disregarding the probable drop in recidivism rates, the increase in spending would be about $136 billion. As the difference in recidivism between Norway and the US is at least 30%, we can calculate that the drop in drug use will result in a savings of at least $210 billion, more than the cost of increased spending on prisoners. Thus, prosecution of this victimless crime of drug use results in inherent net benefit to society, even disregarding the benefit it brings to drug users. The resolution is negated. Sources: 1. http://dictionary.reference.com... 2. http://www.nij.gov... 3. http://www.nytimes.com... 4. http://www.therichest.com... 5. http://www.todayonline.com... 6. http://www.drugabuse.gov... 7. http://www.nytimes.com... 8. http://www.drugabuse.gov... 9. http://www.nytimes.com... 10. http://news.bbc.co.uk...On to the rebuttals!