Kleptin Brand "Pick Your Own Debate"!!!

I hold no objection to the definition presented by my opponent. My opponent said: "I agree with nearly all my opponent's contentions, complete prohibition is doing more harm than good. However, the answer is *not* as my opponent contends, to legalize ALL recreational drugs." However, if he truly understands the points I made, he would recognize that they apply to any such prohibition, be it alcohol, LSD, or heroine. It is irrelevant which recreational drug is under consideration, my contentions apply to them as a class and every one individually. I have not, as my opponent suggests, forgotten about drug users. Rather, I addressed them at the very beginning of my argument, making the point that people have the right to do whatever they want to their bodies. Unless my opponent makes the contention that people do not have a right to control their bodies in this way, taking up the position of slavery, his arguments regarding the negative personal effects are irrelevant. Many things that we have a right to do are harmful to our own person - eating poorly, not exercising, self-mutilation, suicide, it is all a mere matter of degree. Why drugs should be arbitrarily excluded from this is the question I pose to my opponent. My opponent says: "Although most of those other nasty things my opponent spoke about would certainly drop, the amount of drug addicts would skyrocket, purely from use." But this is a mere assertion. My opponent brings forth no evidence to suggest that drug use would rise as a result of legalization. It ignores the fact that much of the allure of drugs is the very fact that they are illegal. They are "cool" for the same reasons that cigarettes and alcohol are "cool" to high schoolers. Those types who enjoy breaking rules overlap very much with those prone to drug use, both groups are made up largely of high time preference, risk-taking people. There is no evidence that legalization would increase drug use, nor that its prohibition has caused a decline in use. Something my opponent seems to be forgetting, however, is that the danger of drugs comes largely from the effects of prohibition. Beyond what I mentioned in my first argument regarding impurities, it is also the case that prohibition leads to the increases in potency. The reason for this is that it is easier to conceal smaller quantities, and so to maximize profit opportunity, the potency is increased so the yield per unit is higher. For instance, crack cocaine is completely a product of the War on Drugs. It is prohibition itself which makes drugs more and more addictive and dangerous. In the free marketplace, there is always a strive towards higher quality, and with inherently dangerous products, that means making them progressively safer. Tobacco companies, where allowed to do so, have made safer products which significantly reduce the harm compared to traditional cigarettes. Car companies strive for better and better safety features on their vehicles. And so on, and so forth. In the free market, we would see safer and safer ways to use drugs. But, as stated earlier, in the prohibited market, things only increase in danger. Again, these arguments apply no matter what drugs are made legal until they are all legal. Half-way measures will not be sufficient to solve the above problems, full, total, and unconditional legalization must be adopted.