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

You do not have the burden of proof, granted. But if you let my points slip by uncontested, then you are making a big mistake! As I see it, you have let quite a few of my points slip through without a whimper, and you are losing ground with every one of them. Whether or not you support a staunch drug policy is irrelevent. You took the con position to my title which includes that wording, so you must defend that position whether or not you decide half-way through the debate that you no longer want to! 1) You still, as of yet, have not even come close to addressing my first point. At this point, I am not going to have an opportunity AT ALL to rebut your answer, so I am just going to have to count it as a win. I stated that the war on drugs has not been effective in slowing drug use at all. I would have liked to let this point evolve through 3 rounds of synthesis, other than just stake this naked claim the way it is, but you have left me no other choice. 2) So you didn't think my second point was WORTH rebutting. Well that's a new debating technique to me... Anyway, my point was that by making drugs illegal, kids are well-initiated criminals before they even turn 18. Since our drug war isn't helping the situation (point 1), all it's doing is making them bonified criminals. Again, since you refuse to address my point, no productive synthesis is possible from the debate and my point is left rather bare and simple. I already discussed the implications of this mistaken policy in the first two rounds, so I will simply extend my second contention argument through. 3) You made an attempt at least, albeit short, to rebut my third point. I wouldn't suggest legalizing every other crime known to man just because I believe this one to be unjust. If you saw a law to be unjust, would you consider legalizing other things that are completely unrelated as evidence to support your decision? This makes no sense. If I thought the government illegalizing interracial marriage (which once was true) to be unjust, I wouldn't just say "well should the government just roll over on murder as well?" Now I have made some pretty decent arguments, if I must say myself, to justify the complete legalization (with subsequent strict government controls) of illicit drugs, at least enough of them anyway to warrant a response. But your attitude towards me reflects society's: drugs are immoral, and let the government throw whoever uses them in jail. This same argument has been used to justify the following, in the past: a) persecution of racial minorities b) persecution of homosexuals c) persecution of different religions d) persecution of women e) persecution of people demonstrating free speech (prior to the rev. war) as well countless other unethical activities... 4) I was waiting for you to bring up these good points, and I wouldn't expect a productive discourse on the matter without them" a) how does making drugs legal make people stop using them? b) what about the issue of people getting high and driving thier car into the side of the soccer-mom minivan filled with kids? My answer to a)- First of all, I have made the point already that the drug war is not stopping people from using drugs in the first place. I can make this point a third time, that the War on Drugs is a complete failure, but at this point I have to just assume you agree with me because you haven't technically disagreed with me on this point yet. Now with that point established, I will move to say that people are not just going to start using drugs just because they are legal. I mean, are you, paradigm lost, going to start shooting up morphine if and when prohibition ends? I think not. The people who are using will continue to use after prohibition ends (which I know it will eventually, it's just a matter of time), and when it does end we will have much more leverage to get them out in the open and get them some help. Druggies are usually in hiding (from the law) as it is now, and those pictures you posted are a good example of what happens when people have no access to professional help because they are persecuted by the law. You think those people in those photos are being helped? Helped into a jail cell maybe! Ask them how the war on drugs has treated them! It's not a war on drugs AT ALL, it's a war on drugGIES. Those faces are the faces of people who are criminals simply because they have an uncontrollable addiction. Those faces have been pushed away by society because society doesn't want to deal with them. You can judge a society as a whole, simply by analyzing how they treat the poor, the helpless, and the meek. Why don't you ask those people how society has treated them? Maybe the officer said hi to them before he put his knee into their backs while they layed on the ground with pavement in their face. And then those people have to deal with YOU, telling them they are not victims of drug addiction, a psychological disease, but that they are criminals who should be locked up behind bars so that you don't have to deal with them. I want YOU to take a good look at those faces, because those faces reflect the results of your precious war on drugs. My answer to b)- Drinking is legal. Drinking and driving is not. Any questions? Driving under "the influence" whether it be someone who is drunk, high, coked up, or medicated up on legal drugs, is DUI all the same. It is punishable by the law because it is not a private act, it is an act that puts other people in danger. I totally support and endorse laws against this. Furthermore, the fact that alcohol's influence on driving is well documented, coupled with the fact that alcohol is 100% legal and acceptable in society, works to show that the only answer to societies' problems isn't simply prohibition. We tried prohibition with alcohol once. Look what happened. What is the fundamental difference between alcohol and other drugs? Tradition? How does tradition help the green soccer-mom minivan filled with kids, exactly? I think that dropping the drinking age to zero would help our cause quite a bit. Kids are drinking anyway, and we might as well make a last-ditch effort, in order to save those DUI victims, to allow people to stay on the RIGHT side of the law by having the legal right to drink, but not having the legal right to drink and drive. This will allow (sorry for beating the dead horse) everyone to experiment, without driving, and NOT BECOME CRIMINALS. I think that the "not becom[ing] criminals" part is essential to my argument. It gives society the chance to explore its psychological urges RESPONSIBLY. What other choice do we have? Don't we owe it to the victims of DUI's, both past and present, to try and find a strategy to stop the needless deaths? Don't we owe it to them to scrap a worthless and innefective policy in order to persevere to find success? 5) You attempt to refute this point at the end of your argument, but none of it is really that relevent to my argument. Drugs are not inherently costly, so it wouldn't cost us much at all to produce them if need be; the only cost comes with distributing them illegally. It is clear we would save much money under my plan. I already outlined how in earlier rounds, and my evidence was pretty clear. 6) you do not address this contention. extend my argument 7) your arguments kind of beat around the bush to refute this point, but you don't meet it head-on. The hypotheticals you presented don't seem very likely... 8) you do not address this contention. extend my argument 9) you do not address this contention. extend my argument 10) you do not address this contention. extend my argument 11) I just made this one for fun, but those commercials really irk me! You attempt to straw-man me with the title. If voters vote for bad policy, then they should shoulder the burden of the result and start thinking about changing the policy.