Drugs must be made legal

Thank you for the opportunity to debate this topic. A brief note: It should be assumed in this debate that any reference to "drugs" means illicit drugs, such as marijuana, cocaine, heroin, LSD, and other similar drugs. If this does not jive with my opponent, he can let me know next round.___"Give you a feeling that you are in paradise and tricks the mind depending how strong it is and makes you commit crimes and die."Whoa, whoa, whoa, there. That's a tad exaggerated, don't you think? Let's take that piece by piece..."(Feels like) you are in paradise..."So far, so good. Something that makes you feel like that can't be too bad."...tricks the mind..."Much like the effects of alcohol. Again, nothing too bad."...makes you commit crimes..."Typically, the only crime being committed is actually buying the drugs. If drugs were legalized, this would obviously not be an issue."...and die."I'm not gonna say drugs have no recorded fatalities. I would be a liar. But the fact remains that deaths as a result of alcohol and illegal drugs are almost exactly the same-- give-or-take five people per 100,000 (1). Tobacco, on the other hand, kills over 100 more people per 100,000 (2). These are startling numbers... how can something that kills almost 150 people a year in America alone be perfectly acceptable and illegal drugs be condemned? And, if this debate were just about marijuana, I could pull the almighty trump-- marijuana has no recorded fatalities (3). ___There are very few legitimate reasons for a government ban of such drugs. The argument that it's potentially dangerous only goes so far... after all, sky-diving, bungee-jumping, mountain climbing, surgery, or driving a car are all potentially dangerous activities too, but all perfectly legal. Abortion literally kills what is (arguably) a child, and that happens over 3200 times a day in the U.S. alone (4). Now, with all of these truly dangerous activities, how do drugs even compare?One of the reasons I've heard for keeping drugs illegal is due to their addictive properties. This is somewhat misleading, too. After all, tobacco, alcohol, gambling, and even sex are all addictive things as well. Banning these things would be ludicrous, and we should treat illegal drugs with that same mentality.Legalizing drugs wouldn't cause harm to anyone else. Well, at least not directly. Drugs are only as dangerous as alcohol is to other people. ("So, let's make alcohol illegal too.") Nah, remember Prohibition? Crime rates were sky-high, and not just because of drinking. Organized crime hit a new high and moonshine and black market alcohol were causing all sorts of problems. Just as it was at the end of Prohibition, it'd be in our best interest to legalize it at this rate.If this is a morality debate, you'll be hard-pressed to find any reasoning for how it's immoral. That, and the government can't make any decisions based on morality. So, this kind of falls flat.I'm not saying drug use is a good or a bad thing. That's up to the individual to decide. But in a world where we can drink, smoke, gamble, and sky-dive to our heart's content, it seems unreasonable to criminalize drugs.1. http://www.popsci.com...2. http://www.realclearscience.com...3. http://www.huffingtonpost.com...4. http://www.all.org...