Deaths caused by drunk driving can be attributed, in part, to people who support staunch drug policy

Thank you for accepting my challenge, paradigm lost. Points unanswered in round 1: Contention 1) Con did not provide ample evidence that drug war is working Contention 2) Con did not contest that kids are "eased" into a life of crime by harsh alcohol/drug laws Contention 3) Con did not address how easily drugs are procurable by children in school under the current system Contention 4) Con did not address how once children are on the wrong side of the law, they are more likely to skirt DUI laws and go out there and kill someone Now to deal with your points. About letting the nine year old smoke crack, and the 4 year old drive a car: I believe you are seriously exaggerating my argument, to say the least! Your point seems to be "Imagine if we simply let children make all decisions for themselves..." First of all, my point was that if drugs were legal, parents would have the ability to be involved in the children's decision to experiment with drugs. Of course, there will always be those rigid parents who will be too rigid and alienate their children, but they will do that in any case. But the parents who are smart enough to intercept their children's curiosities in this matter would have the option to. A nine-year old girl smoking crack? I don't think this scenario is very likely, but if a nine-year old girl wanted to smoke crack she probably could get it from school as it is anyway, without the parents ever finding out (until it's too late of course). I'm not saying this scenario is "simple", because it really isn't simple any way you slice it. But I would like to see the parents have more options, other than sit by helplessly while the teenagers go out and do whatever they want to do anyway. Am I dreaming? Perhaps I am. Perhaps I am wrong, and making drugs legal won't take some of the appeal away from them. Perhaps the kids who see crack-heads openly in the streets everyday, instead of NOT seeing them (or their effects) will not be a good thing. But I think that I have a good point. Legalized drugs will get them out into the open. When I was a teenager, all I really knew about cocaine was that my friends really liked doing it. All I knew about LSD was that it was a cool thing to do, and the people who were having fun partying were procuring these substances whenever they could. I never saw crack-heads in the street, because the crack-heads were hiding out. I never saw anyone go on a 3 day coke binge, because if they did then they did it in as much privacy as possible. You see, all the bad attributes are hidden when you keep the drugs illegal. I don't really expect that parents are going to have to actually DO the drugs with their children in order to acheive the desired effect. I will get back to this point shortly, as it is hard to set up my points without first explaining the policies that could take effect if drugs were legal. Let's get to your point about the cost of the legal drugs. "in order to subsidize this measure, it requires money from taxes... would cost a small fortune..." I totally disagree. Drugs are relatively cheap and easy to manufacture. The "cost" comes with the illegality part of it. First, we spend one-thousand-million dollars a week to combat drugs, in a completely futile attempt to "control" them. Second, the illegals who manufacture and distribute them have to take risks to do it, because they are illegal, so the price of the drugs sky-rocket. Gold is at an all-time high at $1,000 an ounce, and cocaine isn't very much behind it! Marijuana is also pretty expensive, with the more potent varieties costing about $300 an ounce. Your argument about cartels making trillions is utterly worthless; cartels will not only become useless, but the drugs themselves will become as cheap as baking soda and laundry detergent. Would you go to a foreign illegal cartel and pay $1,000 for a quart of laundry detergent if you can get it at wal-mart? You go on to talk about drug dealers, which will also be all but obsolete. Do you need a dealer for laundry detergent? Here are the policies that we could implement if drugs were legal labeled as my further contentions 5-8, and I will cover the point I left hanging at the end of the last paragraph here: 5) once legal, legitimate businesses under government control will take over production and distribution of the substances. This will lead to: ---A) Illegal manufacturers of drugs will go out of business ---B) drugs will not be cut with dangerous agents ---C) drugs will go down in price because they are legal ---D) drugs can be controlled MUCH more effectively. The gov't could control where the junkies have to go to get the drugs (marijuana excluded). see contention 7 6) with drug users out and in the open, kids will see first-hand the effects of drugs. There may not ever be a time when the teenager becomes fascinated with them; he/she will have been exposed to junkies their whole life and they will understand them a great deal 7) Junkies could go to safe-houses, where the drugs are readily available. Under the supervision of professionals and medical doctors, they could get the help that they really need without fear of being prosecuted (don't you think they have enough problems already?) 8) Parents/teachers could visit the safe-houses WITH the children. Show the children what junkies look like. Let the children watch as the junkie hits the pipe, shoots up, etc. I guarantee they won't try it after that! So you say I am a dreamer. I respect your analogy to communism, but I insist that every dream is not analogous to communism simply because it is a dream. Your analogy to tobacco is relevent. But it also serves to invalidate your entire stance: how could keeping something as provenly dangerous as tobacco legal and legitimate be the right thing to do while the US is currently involved in a "War on Drugs?" Alcohol is the same way. A drug is any substance, other than food, that affects the way the body works. Alcohol is certainly just as dangerous as any drug and there is no chance of it being included IN the war on drugs. This makes absolutely no sense. As far as pointing out the ineffectiveness of tobacco being legal, imagine if tobacco WASN'T legal. It would be super-expensive, highly sought after, and people would be going absolutely nuts with tobacco addiction trying to get thier fix. Our prisons would be even MORE overloaded and our entire economy would be strained out of control. Go tell your co-workers and friends that their cigarettes will be illegal tomorrow, and see how they respond. Sound like a good idea? I think I have provided ample evidence to refute your claim that my ideas are "too idealized to have any practical application". Some more contentions for you to address, if you are feeling bored: 9) Overloaded Prisons. Our economy is devastated by this phenomenon. It costs as much as a harvard education to keep a person in prison every year. One third of inmates in prison are there for drug offenses. 10) Civil rights violations. The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment protects our right to privacy. The first amendment protects our religious freedom. So the government has the right to raid an indian tribe, using peyote in a religious ceremony, and arrest them all on drug charges? 11) Bad commercials. I mean the WORST. Anti-drug commercials are possibly the worst marketing practices the world has ever bore witness to. These commercials are completely ineffective against the people who are actually using drugs. They are corny, they are unrealistic, they are a waste of money. They portray the STUPIDEST situations, like a kid sitting on a couch in a kick-@ss party all mad and looking at the camera because there mother didn't stop them from coming, or a friend calling another friend telling them they won't talk to them until they quit smoking weed. Happy contesting!