Resolved: The possession, use, and sale of recreational marijuana should be legalized in the U.S.

My opponent starts off Round 3 by mentioning that the U. S. spends $193 billion on illicit drugs. However, he misses the aboluste crux of his own statistics. This $193 billion is BECAUSE the drugs are ILLICIT in the FIRST place. If we were to legalize pot, a huge percentage of this $193 billion would be taxed and therefore would be fueled back into America's economy. All my opponent says is that the economic costs outweigh the benefits. This is due to a misinterpretation of his own statistic. Furthermore, he fails to refute my own contention about economic benefit. The point is that we can tax marijuana to create bilions of dollars in revenue in every single state of the United States. Furthermore, we will save hundreds of billions of dollars by not locking up nonviolent offenders. This is a costly expense that is not worth it. It is not my fault that my opponent completely misunderstands my second contention. As I stated in the 2nd round and reiterated in the 3rd round, police officers can solve other crimes if they do not make "smoking pot" their first priority. If police officers spent their time solving true crimes, like muder and rape, then there would be less danger and violence in society. My opponent has not refuted this contention, either because he misunderstands it or refuses to address it. He goes on about these speculative arguments about why people might or might not be purchasing cannabis, but there is no evidence and no logic. Please let my 2nd contention hold for the rest of the debate. I already presented a statistic from the Drug Policy Alliance, stating that even though blacks are no more likely to use cannabis than their white counterparts, they are 4 times as likely to be arrested for it. My opponent finally comes back with some statistic saying that blacks commit more crimes per capita, but these crimes are not specific to marijuana infractions. They could come from other crimes, such as murder or rape. This makes my opponent's refutation non-topical. My opponent might show that blacks commit more crimes than whites, but he does not show that this is true for marijuana arrests. Clearly, our system of incarceration and criminal justice is very racially skewed against black people, and the only way to fix this is to legalize cannabis so that police officers no longer have an excuse for "going harder on" African-Americans. My opponent actually supports my 4th contention without even knowing that he is doing so. YES, marijuana from drug cartels is certainly more dangerous than marijuana from a licensed recreational store, and that is PRECISELY the point of my argument. By legalizing marijuana, the government can watch after marijuana and take away the incentive of violent drug cartels to enter the country and sell sketchy weed. Keeping it above the counter, in the eyes of doctors and enforcement officials, leads to safer weed The only question that the opposition could ask now is: why legalize it in the first place? And, as my opponent has failed to respond to for now 2 rounds, keeping marijuana illegal does NOT deter consumers from using it. I'm not sure why my opponent fails to refute this. As will be a challenge for my opponent for the rest of this debate, just because the government says that something is illegal does not mean that people will not use it (examples: illegal production of alcohol in the 1920's, while it was still prohibited). So, none of my opponent's initial contentions about the health risks of marijuana hold: even if marijuana was unhealthy, keeping it illegal does not solve for this. My opponent again tries to bring up this ridiculous idea that marijuana can kill you. I already struck down this contentoin when I mentioned that marijuana has led to zero recorded deaths in all of human history. It is not dangeorus as my opponent wants voters to believe. Quite to the contrary, marijuana has powerful medicinal benefits, such as its ability to cure anxiety, pain, stress, insomnia, and the symptoms of cancer. My opponent's claim that any kind of smoke contanis carcinogens is blatantly untrue. I would ask voters to hold him accountable to irrefutable evidence for the next round, however it is too late in the debate for that. My opponent also has no meaningful response to my last contention. Americans should be able to do whatever they want, provided that what they are doing does not infringe upon the rights of others. All my opponent says is that "it goes against the rights of others". There is not a single reason, let alone any piece of evidence, to believe that this is true. Private marijuana use within one's own home should not be the concern of anyone else, because it does not harm anyone else (and, as I have shown, it doesn't even hurt the person who is using it). My opponent makes some speculative argument that cannabis can lead to other crimes, but he has still not shown any viable evidence for this. I appreciate my opponent's effort, however he has failed to maturely or convincingly refute any of my 5 contentions. Legalizing weed creates money, saves money, solves other crimes, reduces institutional racism, creates a safer society, and promotes basic freedoms to which responsible Americans should be entitled. Even though my opponent tries to say otherwise, marijuana is not harmful, and it does not lead to increased crime.