1st DDO Census Debate: Drug Legalization

Secondhand Impact: Con argues that drugs are harmful to others via secondhand smoke. Let's unpack this argument. Con's not saying that drugs are inherently harmful. And Con's not saying drugs are harmful to those who use drugs. Instead, Con's entire argument rests on the notion that drugs are sometimes harmful because of the circumstances in which drugs are consumed. Under some circumstances, drugs have secondhand impacts that harm others. Notably, Con doesn't argue that all circumstances involve secondhand impacts. Only some circumstances do. For instance, smoking in the privacy or your home doesn't have any secondhand impacts. And smoking around folks who consent to secondhand smoke doesn't have any involuntary secondhand impacts. That's why we have something called "smoking zones," which limit where you're allowed to smoke. So Con's argument begs an obvious question: why not legalize all drugs but regulate when, where, and how they're used? That's what we do with alcohol. Alcohol causes more secondhand deaths that cigarettes or marijuana combined. Yet alcohol is legal. What we do is make certain circumstances in which alcohol is consumed illegal (e.g. drunk driving). There's no need to make all consumption illegal. The law should focus on regulating circumstances, not the drugs themselves. Con also fails to offer any non-arbitrary distinction between drugs and everything else that causes secondhand impacts. For instance, guns are legal. And cars are legal. But guns and cars cause more secondhand deaths than all illegal drugs combined. Even worse, properly prescribed drugs by doctors kill more people than all illegal drugs combined. [1] Under Con's logic, we should illegalize anything that has secondhand impacts. Of course, that logic is absurd. Economic Impact: I want to emphasize that economic considerations pale in comparison with the major problems with drug prohibition: crime, corruption, and erosion of civil liberties. These impacts outweigh any purely economic considerations. That said, economic impacts offer strong support for legalization: ending drug prohibition will reduce expenditure on law enforcement, will reduce judicial resources spent on drug prosecutions, will reduce correctional resources spent on drug incarcerations, will produce an increase in tax revenue from legalized sales, and will move profits from the illicit economy to the legitimate one. These economic benefits are indisputable. And they're huge. The study I cited in R1 is a study by Harvard economist Jeffrey Miron. And it estimates savings of $42 billion from the enforcement of drug prohibitions, and tax revenues of $47 billion from sales of legal drugs. Con's response isn't compelling. In short, Con argues that the economic costs of legalization will somehow outweigh these economic benefits. This argument rests on three points (1) regulation costs, (2) productivity costs, and (3) medical costs. Each point of analysis is profoundly flawed. First, regulation costs. There's no way that the costs of regulating drugs outweighs the costs of prohibiting drugs. Let's talk about Colorado. After all, I live here. And it has directly impacted my life. Colorado has made so much money off of weed sales that last week, there was a vote on whether to return that money to taxpayers or whether the government could spend it on education. Voters decided that Colorado could spend the money on education. Con says the cost of legalization in Colorado has been around $103 million. According to Pro's source, that's actually the "proposed expenditure plan for revenue." It's not the actual costs of regulation. It's how the state intends to spend the tax revenue. So of course it's going to be close to the tax revenue number. So let's be clear about how that number breaks down. The costs of "regulatory oversight" is put at $1.8 million for 2013 to 2015, and the cost of "law enforcement" is put at $3.2 million for 2013 to 2015. So the costs of actually regulating and enforcing a legalization regime are tiny compared with the tax revenue. What's the other expenditures to reach $103 million? There's $12 million proposed to be spent on public health. But the vast majority is for education. Around $40 million is for educating kids, and $40 million is for substance abuse treatment. Those aren't costs of regulation. And in my scheme, I wouldn't educate kids the way Colorado's doing it. Let's also be clear about what the numbers in Colorado show. The $118 million number that Con cites is for 2014 to 2015. But his cost estimate comes from 2013 to 2015. So the numbers are deceptive. Con's source also doesn't take into account any of the savings from reduced expenditures on drug prohibition. That includes savings on judicial resources, police resources, and prison resources. And Harvard economist Jeffrey Miron puts those numbers roughly around the same place as The Awesomeness of Drugs: Krokodil is fvcking great. That's why people do it. Intense pleasure. Similar to heroin. But doesn't last as long. You can move on with your day quickly, instead of being out for hours like with heroin. Nothing Con argued shows that drugs aren't great when used properly. Con only argues that drugs are harmful when used improperly. But the same could be said about driving cars, shooting guns, and other dangerous activities. Lots of people do drugs because they're awesome. And we should be letting people weigh the utility of using drugs subjectively, since ultimately valuing pleasure and education and life-experiences is a subjective thing. Harms of Prohibition: Con basically concedes most of the stuff about crime, terrorism, safety, erosion of liberties, unpredictable markets, and so on. Con's stuff about prisons is bullsh!t. The point is that most crime in our country is committed because people can't afford black market drugs, so they resort to crime. And Con dropped my point that the cost of illegal drugs drives people to commit crime. So that shows a massive increase in crime, not just from drug possession, but crimes committed so that they can buy drugs. And then they go to prison because of those crimes. The root cause is prohibition. And Con drops my point that this disproportionately affects poorer neighborhoods, poorer people, and minorities. Con seems cartels will somehow still exist when drugs are legalized. But that ignores the fact that cartels simply won't have any funding. There won't be any profit to be made with drugs, as the legal market is going to drive prices down to competitive (rather than monopoly) costs. And Con's DEA source is biased as fvck... and completely untrustworthy. And it doesn't actually say what Con says it says. It says drug demand is down among high school students (not the general public). And it doesn't say anything about drug prohibition or the drug war causing a decrease in drug demand. What it says is that they took a survey of high school students and found that drug demand is down. What caused the decrease in demand? Who fvcking knows... I'd venture a guess that it's education efforts, not drug prohibition. And nothing I argued prohibits educating people on how to use drugs. On the contrary, my whole argument turns on education. And keep in mind that Con's source is a survey performed by the DEA... and that's as biased as it gets. After all, they're trying to justify their own existence. And Con's source doesn't say the methodology, the number of people surveyed, there's nothing there to show it's trustworthy. Sources: 1. http://articles.mercola.com...