Homeopathy should be banned

I will be arguing throughout this debate that homeopathy should be banned. Homeopaths should have their businesses shut down, and the government - in tandem with medical establishments - should both actively discourage people from going to homeopaths, and actively attempt to find any practicing homeopaths to ensure that they stay out of business. Whilst specific countries - and institutions within these countries - will probably end up being used as examples and case studies, this is a principle that extends globally. As I am uncertain which parts of my argument my opponent will focus on, I will spend this round briefly laying out the structure of my argument alongside brief specifics of my argument. As it becomes clear how my opponent is approaching this debate, I will end up bolstering the argument accordingly, and reserve the right to present new arguments to re-inforce the principle of any part of my argument if necessary. As such, my argument is essentially as follows: 1) Homeopathy does not have a sound view of how medicine works. Any benefit that does result from using such treatments must therefore be down to the placebo effect alone. - As my opponent pointed out in his opening round, a key tenet of homeopathy is that high dilutions of the active ingredient within water intensifies the effect of the cure. This does not seem to make medical sense, given perhaps the closest medical example of innoculations, which clearly do not infect the patient - an innoculation precisely being a diluted version of the disease. Another key tenet is that water is able to hold a "memory" of the active ingredient, and so somehow provide the benefits of the active ingredient by proxy. Even leaving aside the question of how this "memory" works, exactly why this is better than directly giving someone the active ingredient itself - especially when giving the ingredient directly is proven to work in traditional medicine - is uncertain. 2) Whilst the placebo effect is very useful on a small scale - for headaches, colds, etc. - and occasionally has its moments on a larger scale, it cannot be relied upon to treat people in their hour of need in the same way that other medicine can. - The placebo effect is very much dependent upon the psychology of the person involved, in addition to the precise nature of the illness/disease being suffered. For example, if I am bleeding profusely from a primary artery, any amount of psychological assurance that I will be fine will inevitably fail and I would die within minutes. In addition, the uncertainty behind the level of psychological assurance required will always be an imprecise art - how sure need I be that my doctor knows what she's talking about, or that the medicine will work? - and so the placebo outcome cannot be ensured with any reliability. 3) People taken in by homeopathy are less likely to use conventional medicine in general. This causes huge harms when it comes to life-threatening diseases - malaria, cancer, etc. It is in this harmful consequence that the main harm of homeopathy can be seen, which is why it should be banned. - The kind of people who turn to alternative medicines are those who are disaffected with traditional medicine, and are considering other forms of treatment. When homeopathy appears to work for them - perhaps due to the placebo effect on the small scale, or because of other treatments (deliberately or otherwise) given alongside the homeopathic remedy - they are therefore more likely to use homeopathy to the exclusion of other treatments. This becomes a problem when the patient suffers more serious illnesses, where a placebo alone cannot help. - This is how a seemingly harmless remedy (which, given the level of dilution, essentially removes any active ingredient in many remedies - as my opponent pointed out - and becomes nothing but water) can lead to incredibly harmful consequences, meaning that it should be banned. As I said earlier, as it is not clear what parts of this argument my opponent will focus on (for instance, it would be a reasonable approach for him to concede entirely that homeopathic remedies are not medically viable, whilst maintaining that it nonetheless shouldn't be banned), I will for now leave my argument at this level. I await my opponent's response. . http://www.1023.org.uk... . http://en.wikipedia.org... . http://homeopathyworks.org...