Drugs are bad

We believe that in order to win the debate any side should prove that drugs are harmful / not harmful and that the state could / could not restrict individual liberties. So our burden of proof is to prove that drugs are bad (otherwise, there would be no reason for banning them) and that the state is a legitimate actor to ban them (i.e. restrict personal freedom of choice). We will do this by two arguments and here comes the first one proving that drugs are bad in general. On the side of opposition we believe that drugs are inherently evil. They have tremendous negative consequences for the health of a person using them and for society, since a person could commit crazy actions under the influence of drugs. Moreover, part of taxes paid by residents of a country are spent on treating drug users from their addiction, which results in a loss for the welfare of the state. The argument is structured in a manner to point out harmful health effects from the usage of different drugs, and explain how work the mechanisms causing lose for society overall. 1. Negative effects on health. a. Heroin Among all drugs, heroin sometimes is encountered as the most evil. Scientific research shows that people using heroin suffer from serious health problems and have a higher mortality rate than others of the same age who do not use drugs. The increased number of injections plays as a catalyst in developing some infections like endocarditis, cellulitis and abscesses. It has a clear positive correlation with the usage of heroin, since this drug is usually consumed by injections [[http://www.santepub-mtl.qc.ca/Publication/pdfppm/ppmapril2005-2.pdf]]. Also heroin causes serious mental disorders like anxiety and personality disorders. [[http://www.santepub-mtl.qc.ca/Publication/pdfppm/ppmapril2005-2.pdf]] Drug addicts also have a higher rate of suicides, which is proven by some recent studies [[http://bjp.rcpsych.org/cgi/content/abstract/175/3/277]]. Some research suggests that heroin addicts are 14 times more likely to commit a suicide than their peers who do not use this drug [[http://www.med.unsw.edu.au/NDARCWeb.nsf/resources/DI_ResearchProject/$file/Methadone+Project+sheet.pdf]]. The most popular way of committing the suicide is by deliberate drug overdose. We could propose a mechanism to describe this phenomena. A person, whose mental and physical health were undermined by heroin, who is completely desegregated from society and has no sufficient stimulus for living, under the influence of depression caused by the end of heroin "high" decides to commit a suicide. There are numerous examples of such people. There is also a high rate of non deliberate deaths from overdose among heroin users. Tolerance towards this drug develops very fast, which requires an addict to use the substance more frequently and at higher doses. About 10-20% of users develop such a significant dependence and tolerance that they have to use heroin every 3-4 hours [[http://www.santepub-mtl.qc.ca/Publication/pdfppm/ppmapril2005-2.pdf]]. This makes overdose very likely to occur. Moreover, overdose could occur because of inability of the user to calculate the optimum dose for him while he is "high". We have shown at least some serious problems connected to heroin. We believe that there are much more, but we need to move on to our next points. b. Cocaine, crack cocaine. Cocaine also causes several harmful effects. It damages brain by taking control over the cells in the "pleasure center" of brain and thus causing high biological addiction towards the drug. It significantly increases blood pressure, heart rate. Could cause strokes, brain seizures, respiratory failure, heart attack, convulsions and death. It also diminishes the desire for sleep and food, thus leading to malnutrition, significant weight loss and the devastation of the user. It also has negative effects on liver, reproductive system, lungs, throat and basically every single organ of the user. Moreover, it causes several mental disorders like increased irritability and anxiety, panic attacks, confusion, depression, non-stop babbling, sleeplessness, chronic fatigue, short tempers, bizarre, aggressiveness, violence, suicidal behavior, delusions, paranoia and hallucinations. [[http://www.drugaddictiontreatment.ca/news.php?include=133996]] We believe that all these symptoms are enough to regard cocaine as totally unacceptable. c. Marijuana. There are some people stating that marijuana in general is not harmful. May be it is the least harmful among all the drugs, but there is still evidence in favor of its harmfulness. The immediate effect from the usage of marijuana involves increased heartbeat, which leads to heart problems in the future. Intensive usage of marijuana makes a person dull, slow moving and inattentive. It harms memory, reduces concentration, swift reaction, coordination and alters the sense of time. [[http://www.drugaddictiontreatment.ca/marijuana-addiction.html]] Some studies showed that smoking marijuana is especially harmful for pregnant or breast feeding women, since it could affect their fetus. [[http://www.mydr.com.au/babies-pregnancy/cannabis-pregnancy-and-breast-feeding]] But the most crucial argument against even such "light" drug as marijuana is that the usage of marijuana leads to the usage of other drugs. It is hard to find a heroin addict who has never smoked weed in his life. Since under the plan all drugs will be legalized there will be no deterring effect to prevent people who started to use less harmful drugs from moving to more harmful ones. Under the status quo less harmful drugs such as marijuana are more available than those like heroin. It is much harder to buy heroin from drug dealer, because it involves more restrictions. This prevents people who tried marijuana from trying other, more harmful, drugs. If we legalize all drugs, this prevention will disappear. By the way the arguments of the government about no harm of marijuana fails here once again, since the usage of marijuana leads to the usage of other drugs, which under the plan will be legal. 2. Harms to society. a. Crazy behavior of drug addicts. There were many crimes committed under the influence of drugs, since the usage of drugs puts a person into "another reality", it makes it impossible for him to behave adequately in the real world. The Office of National Drug Control Policy states several facts supporting the positive correlation between the usage of drugs and committing crimes. In the US the drug test of arrested showed that from 43% in Anchorage to 79% in Philadelphia of male arrestees showed a positive result on the test of the usage of any drugs. [[http://www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/publications/factsht/crime/index.html]] After the plan is implemented and drugs become legal, the significant increase in the crime rates could follow. There are already some states putting restrictions on the sale of alcohol (like Sweden or Latvia), because they find it easier to restrict such substances rather than deal with the evil consequences. The only reason we can't put restrictions on all alcohol is because of traditions. Traditionally people got used to alcohol and tobacco so much that the ban of these substances will cause a huge response in public. Fortunately, there is no such traditional dependence on drugs, that's why it is great that we can ban them. There was an argument from the proposition that such laws allowing alcohol and restricting drugs are "unfair". We believe that there is no such thing as "fair" or "unfair" relating to drugs and alcohol, and we believe that we should try our best to protect our citizens. If we can't ban alcohol because of traditions, it doesn't mean that we should allow also drugs. We believe that we should protect people from as many harmful things as we can. b. Economic loss. The social costs of drug use are estimated at 0.2% of Gross National Product in the US. The costs to society of a person with opioid dependency are 45,000$ per year. This includes costs of him not working, but living on social benefits; costs of crimes he commits; and costs of medical treatment he needs when he is under the overdose. [[http://www.santepub-mtl.qc.ca/Publication/pdfppm/ppmapril2005-2.pdf]] It is clear that economically it is much more beneficial to ban drugs and avoid this loss.