Drug legalization

To begin, roughly 6% of all arrests are marijuana-related, so you can discount those immediately. But, more importantly, there are roughly 300 million Americans, and 92 million of them have smoked weed at least once [1]. Because there are only about 14 million US prisoners [2], and 40% of 14 million is 5,600,000 people who smoke pot are just barely overrepresented in court, and pot in no way guarantees criminal activity. However, if drugs were legalized, we would actually reduce drug related crime by regulating drug use and, for example, not selling to the mentally ill or those with a criminal record." That's all fine and well, but if you notice, my statistics were the result of an annual governmental study, so I am not so sure that these results should be necessarily "discounted". And your attempt to discredit the 40% is also irrelevant, because that too was referring to arrestees from that one particular study. And as far as regulating drug use so as not to sell to the mentally ill, we should probably only be selling it to them as medicine. Medically marijuana can be an amazing drug, and has helped people with things ranging from OCD, ADHD, ODD, PTSD, tourrettes, etc.[1] And yes, considering that over 6 million people have been arrested on marijuana related charges between 1992 and 2001, needless to say it would reduce crime rates.[2] But as for other narcotics, legalizing it would in no way decrease crime rate, other than the obvious amount of people arrested for possession, sales, and manufacturing. And as far as selling to people with a criminal record, what makes you think that this would make marijuana any less obtainable to known criminals? It just means they can't go out and buy it for themselves at the local convenient store, which isn't what they were doing before anyway. "As this study was conducted in Queensland, the results have somewhat less bearing on America, but aside from that, like your arguments on marijuana and crack, if we legalize it we will be able to regulate drugs and lower these statistics." Marijuana is legal in Queensland, Australia. Where do you think the government will be looking when deciding whether or not to legalize marijuana? Governor Schwarzenegger has even said that he believes it is important to examine effects of legalization in other countries.[3] And I doubt that regulating the narcotic or any narcotic would decrease crimes committed while being on these substances, all of your arguments are mere unsupported speculations. '"With almost every drug, over 50% of arrestees reported failed buys" If we legalize these drugs, then we can completely eliminate failed buys. This argument is entirely in favor of legalization.' It isn't. While you could in fact decrease the number of illegal sales in general, there would still be illegal sales of the drug. And these failed buys aren't necessarily crime, they consisted of either the buyer not having enough money, the seller not having enough product, or there not being an ideal meeting, and did not end in violence and arrest. These questions were simply asked to people arrested. "All of these arguments are irrelevant, if people want to harm themselves then in a free society they have a right to, and legalization would increase treatment for these problems by empowering people to seek medical help without fear of legal action. However, I will counter your arguments anyway." While you say you will counter my arguments anyway, you base your own on speculation and no supporting evidence. The debate about whether or not people should be allowed to harm themselves by smoking is a completely different topic. But the DNA damaging effects I cited in Round 1, were not solely from smoking marijuana, but from the smoke itself. So it would be fine if it harmed only the smoker, but it majorly harms the people around the smoke.[4] "And as for cancer, marijuana has been proven numerous times to be less damaging to the lungs than tobacco, and not a cause of cancer." Like I said in the previous round, marijuana is a complex drug, that has yet to be fully understood by researchers. I noted that it was known to strongly increase the chance of cancer, I did not say it caused it. And you can hardly prove that it doesn't cause cancer, with what is left to discover about marijuana. "Lastly, the damage done to DNA by marijuana is also done by tobacco, but aside from that, just because something could be harmful is no reason to make it illegal, as in the case of alcohol and tobacco." That is precisely a reason to make it illegal, and is why so many narcotics are illegal. Some drugs have more severe effects than alcohol and tobacco. "In conclusion, although there is a slight drug-crime correlation and some possible dangers of marijuana, it is no reason to make them illegal, and in fact, if these drugs were legal and therefore regulated, we would have less drug related crime and less dangers from marijuana." Keep in mind that there is more than a slight drug-crime correlation. There is a reason why all of these narcotics are illegal. And restating what I said before, you would naturally have less crime rates due to the amount of people arrested for the pure act of possession, sales, manufacturing. Less dangers from marijuana how? "legalization would increase treatment for these problems by empowering people to seek medical help without fear of legal action." I can't see how it would empower people any more. People that sign themselves into rehabilitation to my knowledge have no legal actions taken against them. [1] http://rxmarijuana.com... [2] http://skeptically.org... [3] http://www.nbclosangeles.com... [4] http://www.sciencedaily.com...