Drug Legalization

Remember that no legalization is unconditional -- drug legalization would be accompanied by measures to minimize the frequency of harmful drug abuse. For example, stringent FDA regulation would be enforced (e.g. overseeing the manufacturing process to make drugs less harmful, mandating the inclusion of warning labels & instruction manuals, et cetera). Also, government-funded drug addiction rehab therapy would be made widely available, and there would be restrictions on using drugs in public places. Therefore, even if it can be shown that legalization would result in a significant increase in drug usage, that wouldn't necessarily imply any increase in aggregate harm. == Pro Case == (1) Legalization would produce a whopping $88 billion in brand-new public funds. This is because legalizing drugs automatically saves us the $41.3 billion that we're currently spending on the failed "War on Drugs" (i.e. hunting down & punishing drug-users), and sin taxes would bring in $46.7 billion of additional revenue [http://www.cato.org...]. That's $88 billion which could be used to work on other important policy initiatives like education reform, welfare reform, etc. (2) Legalization would substantially reduce violent crime. Two reasons for this. Firstly, numerous criminal gangs and terrorist organizations are funded almost exclusively by illicit drug trade, and the US is one of their main customers [http://www.cfr.org...] [http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com...]. Legalizing drugs would be a huge financial blow to them, because legal producers/distributors will inevitably replace them (case in point -- black markets for tobacco & alcohol are virtually non-existent). Secondly, drastic decreases in drug prices following legalization mean that drug addicts will no longer be going broke; that's important because the BJS reports that "17% of state prisoners and 18% of federal inmates said they committed their current offense to obtain money for drugs" [http://www.bjs.gov...]. (3) Legalization would improve circumstances for socioeconomically-disadvantaged groups. The mass-incarceration of low-income individuals for non-violent drug offenses has profoundly negative impacts on those groups' socioeconomic prospects -- for many young adults, it smashes any chance of them having a decent future, and it serves as a massive impediment to the proper development of low-income youth by facilitating absentee parenting (because one or both of the parents gets arrested). Legalization would drastically reduce incarceration rates among low-income individuals, which would represent a major step forward in the fight to alleviate our country's extreme income inequality. (4) There's no reason to keep drugs illegal. A ban on drugs is fundamentally unjustified, because there's nothing distinguishing the consumption, production, and distribution of drugs from the consumption, production, and distribution of any other product. Like any other product, drugs have the potential to bring pleasure & satisfaction to customers, and also have risks of harm associated with them. There's no coherent justification for keeping drugs illegal while simultaneously keeping things like alcohol, tobacco, junk food, and handguns legal. == Con Case == Con doesn't really have any case yet. All he's done is assert that we need a more nuanced approach to reforming drug policy than full legalization. He still needs to explain which specific "nuances" he thinks should be included and why they would be beneficial. Until he does that, nothing he's said so far holds any weight.