Legalization of recreational marijuana in the U.S. would benefit the economy

Contention 1: Employment When looking at the debate at face value, we obvious harms in employment when legalizing marijuana. We are considering the effect of drugs on one’s ability to succeed in school, as well as prospects in the job market diminishing. The St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank states in 2011, we can see clear signs of drugs being highly correlated with unemployment. The article utilizes a graph showing that the most popular drug of choice for those unemployed is marijuana. The article goes on to explain that the unemployed are more likely to report having consumed some form of illegal substance within the previous month. My opponent may ask, what if the user is a casual one who does not abuse the drug and simply consumes it recreationally for the desired effect without an addiction. This idea is optimistic and deeply flawed. If we were to observe Al Jazeera in 2013, we would see that 1/6 unemployed Americans are abusers of drugs and alcohol. Given the popularity of marijuana, as shown from my last statistic, among the unemployed we can assume that is the main issue. What needs to be realized is that the working class is the backbone of our economy which creates products and services for consumers to buy. This is the basis of the economy, and with higher rates of marijuana use, we can see less productivity in the workplace, which will inevitably affect the GDP and the amount of revenue that is generated from income tax. Not only this, but there would also be another detrimental economic factor in today’s debate. The factor would be the dependence on welfare. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, there has been a recent study conducted in the Netherlands that shows that drugs in that region actually led to less scholastic achievement for those with the addiction to marijuana. Less scholastic achievement means fewer people entering the workforce and more people dependent on welfare to live. Welfare is costly, considering the fact that the government is basically paying for someone to live off of. According to the Cato Institute, the amount of money spent on welfare is over 600 billion dollars. With people becoming more dependent on the drug, this number could easily rise to a huge figure. However, I do understand that my argument at this point depends on whether marijuana rates will increase by affirming the resolution, which it clearly will. Let us look at CNBC in 2010 where we see an article that describes the legalization of marijuana in a specific state, which was Alaska. What occurred next was that marijuana use jumped to twice the national average. This is a problem because if we were to see a jump like this in use nationwide, we would see mass unemployment and less productivity nationwide, which produces a sour effect on the economy. Because of the many problems associated with the employment rate, vote con. https://www.stlouisfed.org... https://www.stlouisfed.org... https://www.stlouisfed.org... http://america.aljazeera.com... https://www.drugabuse.gov... http://www.cato.org... http://www.cnbc.com... Contention 2: Health Care Health care today is a heavy price. However, if we were to legalize marijuana, we would be seeing heavier prices on the system as well. Remember, marijuana is illegal for a reason. That reason specifically being that the danger of marijuana is high. In fact, if we were to look at a USA Today article published in 2014, we would see some disturbing results. The statistics show marijuana to have nearly three times the THC in the status quo than in the 70s. This leads to complications within the body. In fact, if we look at the other graph in the article we would clearly see that the number of emergency visits has increased till today, where there have been nearly half of a million marijuana-related emergency visits to the hospital. Not only this but according to the same article cited, there are also increased chances of heart disease when one ingests marijuana. Why does this matter? Well, I will get to that quite soon. But first, I am going to guess my opponent has a clear counter-plan already. You want to regulate drugs, don’t you? If not, then pretend you do. This is because it is easier to see the cost to society estimated if we were to tax marijuana. I will directly quote it as well. “Increased consumption leads to higher public health and financial costs for society. Addictive substances like alcohol and tobacco, which are legal and taxed, already result in much higher social costs than the revenue they generate. The cost to society of alcohol alone is estimated to be more than 15 times the revenue gained by their taxation.” This quote is directly from the White House and shows exactly the amount of public costs that go into the health care system that targets drugs. If we are going to look at the debate with understanding, then we have to know exactly the costs to our government, and how harmful they will be to the everyday American. When the amount of health care needed goes up, so does the price of health care, leading to an already large price for health care to grow even bigger for the consumer. If my opponent would recall, we nationalized the health insurance industry partly with Obamacare. The reason for this was to give people health care who were unable to afford it. However, the program is paid through taxes which cover all of the costs for people who do not have health insurance, as according to CNS News in 2015. What we see by this is that increasing the amount of people who need health care for actions such as using marijuana would mean that everyday Americans are paying more for the medicine and care of others through taxes and premiums. To prevent this, we have to incentivize the private health sector, yet leave enough of a social safety net for those who cannot make it on their own. After all, according to the Keynesian system of economics, more taxes mean less money in our consumers pocket to buy things with, decreasing the purchasing power of the American citizen with unneeded taxes. Negate. http://www.usatoday.com... https://www.whitehouse.gov... http://cnsnews.com... Rebuttal 1: Taxes I have already used a statistic directly refuting that notion in my second contention where I sight the White House stating the following: “Increased consumption leads to higher public health and financial costs for society. Addictive substances like alcohol and tobacco, which are legal and taxed, already result in much higher social costs than the revenue they generate. The cost to society of alcohol alone is estimated to be more than 15 times the revenue gained by their taxation.” Even if we were to accept my opponent’s plan for taxing and regulating marijuana, there would be harms. Rebuttal 2: Incarceration This is where my counter plan comes into play. Why don’t we decriminalize the use of marijuana instead and try to prevent use through education and therapy for those who need it? We would decrease incarceration this way while still not having the poor effects on other things I have mentioned. Rebuttal 3: Crime/ Corp. My opponent is under the assumption that there are no other ways to decrease drug crime. We could end it with my counter plan by making drugs seem less attractive to people. Post your sources.