New Member Tournament: Drug Legalization

I sincerely hope my opponnt isn't offended by the poor quality of my argument. Time has NOT been on my side recently, but I thought everyone would much prefer a response rather than a forfiet. Drugs and crimeMy Opponent concedes that the affects of drugs can cause crime, even if they are a minority it still shows a negative affect on our society. When I asked if drugs have an societal benefits, he dodged the question. Since he's admitted that drugs to have some negative affects on society as a whole (causing crime), and no positive affects, than I wonder-why are we debating this at all? As a society if certain things are more harmful than positive we ought to ban them. My evidence shows that 24% of the time violent felons commit their crimes while under the influence. Truly, that is a massive percentage, and my opponent wants us to just ignore it? How absurd. Indeed, he's dropped my statements about drugs causing us to do irrational things, including crimes. At this point it should be recognized that drugs can influence people to commit crimes.As for the statistics brought up by my opponent, "only" 30 murders were drug related in New York. First of all, he hasn't cited his source, secondly we now have 30 innocnets dead..for what? What justification can we POSSIBLY use to condone this? Drugs have no stated positive affects societally, so why legalize them? Why legalize something that produces harm, but no good?Pro misunderstands his statistics. There were 111 BRAWLS induced by drugs which resulted in death. The evidence he himself linked provides the following information:"24.5 percent (24.5%) of Federal and 29 percent (29%) of State prison inmates reported being under the influence of drugs when committing violent offenses""Among State prisoners, drug offenders (44%) and property offenders (39%) reported the highest incidence of drug use at the time of the offense. Among Federal prisoners, drug offenders (32%) and violent offenders (24%) were the most likely to report drug use at the time of their crimes."The same evidence also states: "According to Substance Abuse and Treatment, State and Federal Prisoners, 1997, nineteen percent (19%) of State prisoners and sixteen percent (16%) of Federal inmates reported that they committed their most current offense to obtain money for drugs " So even if we accept that drugs rarely cause crime on there own merits, a desire to obtain them leads to crime.Government's role"Drugs cause people to put their time and oney to a harmful use."My Opponent argued against that statement, saying it was subjective. He is quite wrong. Drugs can truly destroy a person, look to any meth or herione addict to support this. It takes what was once a functioning person, and destroys them. His video game analogy fails for two main reasons: 1. Video games are not chemically destructive and addictive like drugs are, and 2. the true problem from videogames lies in bad parenting, not the games themselves. "Should we ban casinoos annd bars?"- Who cares? We aren't discussing that. My Opponent argued that few people actually develop addiction, and his evidence comes from the..parliment of Canada? According to the lanclet (although most people cannot see the whole article, so I will also link the wikipedia page as well), on a scale of 1-3, three being the highest, the illicit drugs scored very high on addictive properties. To make a comparison, tabacco which we all know to be highly addictive scores a 2.2. None of the illicit drugs fall below half that number, showing them to be highly addictive.[1][2]. His objection falls.OppressionPro attempts to argue that " It appears that it is a large group trampling over the rights of a small group" Unfotunately, this statement falls because we do not, and never have, had the right to harm society.ExceptionPro states that he doesn't car so long as people dont use the drug against another person. However, if they don't have the drug they cannot use it against another. It should be illegal because it is used harmfully the vast majority of the time.In response to his question: My opinion on alcohol bears no relevance in this debate. If you are truly interested, PM me and we can discuss it.Sources:1. http://dx.doi.org...2. http://en.wikipedia.org...