Resolved: Alcohol should be prohibited in the United States.

I will cover my arguments, then my opponent's arguments. First, I find it surprising that my opponent states that "the ends justify the means" because that is false. In history, various political leaders have used this philosophy. Take the Vietnam War; the ends were to contain communism and the means were to questionably instigate a war that killed 5.4 million people, 58,000 of whom were Americans. Then my opponent claims that we should legalize cocaine to tax it. That is precisely what is happening in California right now. Proposition 19 legalizes marijuana because the government knows that it cannot win a war against marijuana, but it can generate billions in tax revenue. Furthermore, he states that all harmful substances should be banned. Guns are used to kill people. Should we ban guns too? Cigarettes lead to deaths, should we ban that too? Finally, it is unfortunate that my opponent believes we should ban alcohol "even if Americans themselves must be taxed." My opponent literally wants to raise taxes by $5.6 billion during a recession. In a rare occurrence, both Democrats and Republicans agree that raising taxes during a recession is a BAD thing. Furthermore, my opponent disregards the cost of an additional war: the war on alcohol. Remember that the War on Drugs costs over a trillion dollars and has failed to show any results [1]. A war on alcohol will do the exact same thing. I ask my opponent, where will the money come from? Moving to the next contention, it is ironic that my opponent claims that I do not provide "any solid numerical data to support this point" because in his entire case, I do not see a single number. Anyway, since there is no statistical data on the effects of banning alcohol on usage, I will use the next best thing: what happened to illegal drug use when the War on Drugs started. In 1969, only 4% of Americans tried marijuana; in 1973, the number tripled to 12% [2]. The War on Drugs started in 1971. We can expect the same increase if we ban alcohol. Onto my opponent's first contention, he claims that a more applicable analogy would be illegal drugs. Even after banning cocaine, there are 1.5 million cocaine users in the US; after banning heroin, there are 600,000 heroin addicts; 4.7 million for methamphetamine; 9.8 million for marijuana [3]. Also look to tobacco or drugs. Both are not "legitimate necessities," but neither are illegal. Once again, banning problems does not solve them. Next, my opponent claims that since the police were not bought into the drug war, they will not be bought into the alcohol war. My response is simple: crime syndicates would not need to buy US police. Right now, drug dealers do not buy out US law enforcement, and alcohol dealers would not either. However, drug cartels have risen to power. I'm sure everyone knows of the Drug War in Mexico that is fueled by illicit drug use in the US. 28,000 people have died since 2006, and the drug lords openly fight the police [4]. If we ban alcohol, we would just create alcohol lords in some other country, and ravage its prosperity. That is irresponsible and immoral. I apologize to my opponent if i misconstrue what he states, but he says "like drug-abusers, these incidents will be rare and obvious." I contend that these incidents are the opposite of rare: they are common. Remember that nearly 20 million Americans have tried illegal drugs. My opponent then claims that "unlike a marijuana plant, large-scale production of alcohol would be impossible to disguise." This makes no sense. Vodka looks just like water. Even when national security is at an all time high, millions of Americans manage to get their hands on illegal drugs. The same will happen with alcohol. My opponent needs to explain how come alcohol production would be impossible to disguise. Finally, my opponent wrongly claims that drug use has dissipated. According to his own site, "in 1999, the survey methodology changed, therefore making data from previous years incomparable." Looking from 1999 onwards, drug use for all age groups have increased since 1999. There has been an across-the-board increase in marijuana usage from 1999 to 2001 by 4.2% [5]. The most recent trend that's happening right now, is increased illegal drug use. My opponent's own evidence shows this. I send my condolences to my opponent, but banning alcohol will not solve this problem; instead it would only fuel more alcohol use. We must learn from history. Under Prohibition, crime skyrocketed. Under the War on Drugs, more people use drugs now than ever before. Banning alcohol makes these problems worse. [1] http://mjperry.blogspot.com... [2] http://www.gallup.com... [3] http://www.ncjrs.gov... [4] http://articles.cnn.com... [5] http://www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov...