End the War on Drugs...

I will now address my opponent's points. "Let us examine my opponent's points, which are elegant and well crafted, in a simpler light 1. Drugs may be harmful, but that is a person's choice, as drug use does not harm anyone but the user. 2a. Drugs are dangerous solely because they are not pure or regulated. 2b. Organized crime is funded by illegal, unregulated drug use. 2c. Drug Cartels destabilize society 3a. Legalizing drugs ends the war on drugs, saving money 3b. Legality of drugs would diminish arrests, saving imprisonment costs. 3c. Taxes on drugs would bring in revenue. " Here my opponent commits a strawman fallacy, misrepresenting my position. I never denied the intrinsic danger in drug use, I simply postulated that unregulated black market trafficking of these substances greatly adds to the danger, unnecessarily. Other than that, I reluctantly accept this summary, though I believe it is an oversimplification. "As part of my argument, I will give a short summary of what I am about to go over, so that the audience can clearly see how my argument is going to proceed. 1. Most illegal drugs have no medical benefit and lead to psychological and physical dependency. 2. Even in their purified and controlled form, these drugs retain those characteristics 3. Those characteristics on the individual, greatly impact society in general in terms of insurance costs. 4. Thus, full legalization of all drugs would be immoral because all society would be paying massive amounts of money for widespread recreation and irresponsibility. " My opponent only addresses my point about drugs only affecting the user, ignoring all of the other benefits to legalization. "I will first start out by stating that marijuana is already legal and controlled. Tetrahydrocannabinol, the main active ingredient in Marijuana is marketed in a pure isomer form under trade name "Marinol". For the purposes of this debate, we shall ignore Marijuana. " This is completely irrelevant. If I try to grow and sell marijuana, I will be arrested. Thus, marijuana is illegal. Besides, even if this point were valid, it would do no damage to my argument. "The conclusion we have at this point is the following: The drugs my opponent wants to FULLY legalize are extremely, EXTREMELY dangerous to personal health, regardless of control, and will definitely lead to addiction both physical and psychological, with absolutely no medical benefit in the slightest. " Fair enough. Drug use is dangerous. However, I do not personally endorse the use of hard drugs. I merely argue with the welfare of society in mind. I believe our government has a moral imperative to end the war on drugs because it is ultimately more damaging to society than drug use itself could be. In this respect, my opponent offers his only other argument: "Now, the principle of insurance. We all pay health insurance fees that allow us to bring down the costs of medication. Plenty of Americans forego other benefits and even a higher salary purely for a good health plan. Insurance runs under the principle of cost sharing: The healthy pay for the sick, and costs are shared at least semi-equally. When more and more people get sick, the pool of shared money is strained, and everyone has to pay more and more money. In the universe my opponent is setting up, recreational drug use will be as common as alcohol consumption. " I think that assertion is unfounded, but let's move on. "You now have a massive proportion of the population in dire health because of their addiction and the naturally toxic nature of these substances. All these people are covered by insurance, and now, insurance rates skyrocket. " I have several responses to this argument. First, what about all of the illegal drug users right now who have health insurance? They are covered, and yet society is not falling apart. If anything, legalization will help with this issue, because when drugs become less dangerous, people will consume less insurance. Second, alcohol and tobacco are legal in the United States. Users of these two very dangerous drugs are covered by health insurance, and yet the system is not falling apart. What about people who abuse legal narcotics, such as oxycontin? My opponent assumes too much, and his argument simply does not hold water when we consider the facts. "Prices for these drugs become heavily inflated. On top of all that, the government taxes them. Hospitals and doctor's offices are flooded, making insurance rates rise even further. Now, insurance is ineffective because the rates are just as high as the price for the drug. The only alternative? Get your fix without all the red tape. And we're back where we started. Non-purified substances for cheap. No insurance needed, just support all the evil things that my opponent is trying to avoid. Only now, you're sharing drug cartel money with doctors and Big Pharma, and the entire population is trying to recover from what they thought was a legal and healthy recreational habit. " Countries with high alcohol and tobacco taxes do not suffer from this problem. People choose to buy within the legal market because a legal industry is always safer and more preferable. Home brewing of alcohol, along with the black market for it, disappeared for the most part after prohibition ended. When other drugs become legalized, regulated, and taxed, it is not likely that they will cause this problem. Once again, my opponent's unfounded assumptions don't hold water.