illicit drugs should be legalised in Australia

My opponent is a misinformed person but that's ok because it doesn't harm society in this level of debating. His claim amounts to a single point: >People are fully aware of the consequences of a decision before they make it. This statement although true, does not advance my opponents claim due to the fact that there are various other components that weigh on different sides of the person's desicion to start taking drugs. Consider this scenario: there is a homeless person named Scott who lives on the street. Everyday, Scott is abused and assaulted and has trouble getting food or water. He has various friends who are in the same state that he is in, but they are less than honorable. These friends introduce him to drug use. immediantly, Scott's reaction is that the drugs will not make him happier, he knows the consequences of drug use and that it will hurt him. But Scott agrees to try the drug out and is later hooked, addicted to the drug which releases copious amounts of dopamine in his brain, shutting down his euphoria receptors. Scott becomes depressed and when he cannot find a way to acquire more of the drug himself, he kills himself. Now, everything about that scenario is reflected in tens maybe hundreds of thousands of alike people, but what I want my opponent to realise, is that it completely disproves the basis of his claims. Scott was not influenced by his own reasoning as my opponent would claim he was, his normal state of mind was already impaired by: >His friends >His state of living The same situation can be applied to every drug user in the country, humans are not capable of doing things without reasoning and so any reasoning that leads a human to do something against his/her nature is unnatural. My opponents view is that we are not morally obliged to stop someone from harming themselves even though they do not want to. There is no such thing as a human who wants to harm themselves in their correct state of mind. The incorrect state of mind is like a prison, it tortures the person even though they don't want it, but they will continue living in that prison because we have neglected them. That disproves my opponents claims that people who are in the right state of mind can make the decision to harm themselves. Completely false, if they make that desicion, then obviously they are in the impaired state of mind. Allowing them to make their desicions using an impaired conscious is completely inhumane and cruel. Looking at my opponents claim that we have freedom of choice, Its pretty plain to see that he didn't properly read my post at all. He completely failed to defend it from a rebuttal that was waiting for him to arrive. Lets go through his unorganised slab of text and refute each point as it arises: 'he is assuming that every person on this earth from the richest tycoon to the poorest man follows this theory of philosophy.' What my opponent says is accurate here, although the implicit straw-man is not welcome. All creatures follow some form of the philosophy of utilitarianism as a default. in animals, instead of looking for happiness they look for survival and different ways to survive and eat. Humans are not so worried about survival as animals, so we look for a purpose, happiness. Everything ever done by humanity with reason has been done for the reasons of 'a greater good,' a 'better place,' or simply for happiness. Why do we search for things to satisfy our curiosity? Its makes us happy. Why do we kill millions of each other in wars and battles? For greed, why are we greedy? For happiness. Everything boils down to happiness eventually, drugs are no different. In fact, drugs are the closest to failed pursuits of happiness than nearly anything else. 'he judges everybody with a standard model he says that if everybody in the world was given the full information about drugs, if they knew it was going to hurt them in the long run then they would not take.' Until an exception can be found to the rule, it shall stand. My opponent is very closed minded when he sees an ordinary person deciding to take drugs for the first time. However, we need to balance the motives. If there is peer pressure shoving the individual on one side, then we need to provide information to discourage him proportionate to the level of peer pressure he or she is experiencing. This way, we can negate the disruptive influences that negatively impact someone's choice. All decisions should be able to be made by an individual without exterior negative interference. That is called freedom of choice. But where all the information comes from a single party, eg, a friend or criminal dealer, the choice has been negatively affected and cannot be called 'free.' So who is going to provide the other half of counterbalances to dispute negative influences? The government. His ending statement seeks to misinterpret my previous arguments. I said that all humans living in society have: >The duty to protect society >The duty to progress society >The duty to maintain society I was wrong to assume my opponent had a shred of common sense. Ill explain it in simple English: The duty to protect society means that all members that benefit from society are obliged to help prevent or intervene with an attack on society if it is within their power to do so. The duty to progress society means that any opportunity that will advance any aspect or capability of society is not to be turned down unless it conflicts with a person's privileges (rights). Eg. Thou shalt continue working that extra 5 minutes that will allow a discovery of the cure to cancer even if you have a sore toe. The duty to maintain society is actual a duty to not tear it apart. If you are born into the world and live of welfare for your entire life, you are a drain on society and are in the wrong. The laws of Australia that prevent drug use also prevent a complete massacre of the younger generation. We both know that adolescent children have an impaired ability to determine risk. Well known fact. Considering that making it illegal for teenagers won't stop it getting to them, I would like to challenge my opponent to propose a method in which drugs can be made legal whislt our teenagers stay safely out of its reach. I would like to raise some previous points that my opponent completely failed to address in the probably vain hope that he might see them. >there is no way to harm yourself in society that doesn't harm someone else. >Drugs destroy your duty of care to society >Would you force someone to stop doing something if they are not in their correct mindset? I would like to finish up by quoting my opponent from outside this debate, after a different argument I asked him why he still supported his claim, he said: 'I am irrational.' This wasn't a joke or anything, he said what he meant and meant what he said, so my question, which I never got to ask him, is something that is irrational worth supporting for the purposes of this debate? The resolution is negated, now lets see what else my opponent has to say...