LSD Legalization

My opponent, Pro, has forfeited the final round. Because of this, I extend all rebuttals I raised against his Harm Principle argument, as they currently remain standing unchallenged by Pro. I will now respond to his own rebuttals aimed at my R1 arguments, and regardless of his forfeiture will be upholding my own burden here. Self-harmWhile self-harm wasn't relevant in my rebuttals towards Pro's harm principle due to it being a non-issue, it's certainly an issue under my own case - in which I am arguing in support of the status quo by showing how the harms outweigh the benefits of recreational legalization. For instance, Pro attempts to rebut my individual cases of self-harm by claiming that I exaggerate the harms which is, according to him, evidenced by the fact that I only shared cases of individual harm rather than any kind of "group harms". Yet, there is a very popular case of the potential group harm that can be made evident if we merely look at the historical use of LSD. A excerpt from an article titled, 'The History of LSD' states:While the ‘60s counterculture used the drug to escape the problems of society, the Western intelligence community and the military saw it as a potential chemical weapon. In 1951, these organizations began a series of experiments. US researchers noted that LSD “is capable of rendering whole groups of people, including military forces, indifferent to their surroundings and situations, interfering with planning and judgment, and even creating apprehension, uncontrollable confusion and terror." [1]While the tests did yield positive results in altering the mental state of soldiers, it resulted in too many deaths and harms in the test subjects, including a popular case involving the suicide of a CIA agent who was unknowingly dosed during the testing process. This ultimately led the army to publicly state that the substance was too uncontrollable and unpredictable for use in battle. If the army itself concluded that the drug was too potent for military use, then it is not reasonable to assume that the general population can use it recreationally. I've already provided the empirical harms that it can cause in R1, and we can now see that it does indeed cause potential harms in cases where more than one individual was involved. In short, the governments move to make it illegal was highly justified because of the nature, the misuse, lack of clear medical opinion, and spread to the lay public. Pro is also mistaken in claiming that there are no aggregate statistics about it. The problem is that the medical community was so inconclusive in their independent findings that there was no standard which could be set. [2] Regardless, it'd be incredibly difficult to find any accurate statistics due to the very nature of the drug as an illegal substance and the lack of willingness for our population to admit to acts that break the law. Facts, as often reported, may be based on statistics. Statistics are based on data — data which is inherently based on a collection of opinions. The danger of statistics is that what we often see reported as fact may not be as reliable as we are led to believe. Thus, the best we can do, as responsible individuals weighing the pros and cons would be to rely on empirical evidence, which in this case wouldn't be statistics, but rather real cases found in the news and studies, both of which I've provided throughout this debate. Pro's reliance on the study he listed as source #3 is incredibly flawed as well. For starters, it only surveyed 22,000 people, and in that sample the people could have used any type of psychedelic be it peyote, mushrooms, or lsd. So, we have no way of determining just how many of those 22,000 were LSD users, which would be the only people in that sample applicable to the debate here. Furthermore, the study basis its findings from another poll done between 2001 - 2004, so it's over a decade old. The studies and sources I provided are much more recent, cover actual cases rather than basing its finding on opinions collected in polls, and relies solely on LSD users as evidence. For all we know, only 400 of those 22,000 were LSD users, which is an incredibly small sample for such a generalized conclusion to be reached. More so, Pro relies on Timothy Leary to negate my empirical evidence, which is an appeal to authority fallacy, as Timothy Leary is, by no means, the ultimate authority on this subject. In fact, Dr. Leary himself was quoted saying, "LSD may be creating a new race of mutants." A report by the Crimson Times expands on this: In a talk at Manhattan Town Hall in New York, the former lecturer in Clinical Psychology, Dr. Timothy Leary said, "I am going to stop using the drug, and I am going to ask you to stop." Because of possible harmful side-effects of the drug, he advised development of further methods to produce the psychedelic effects without using LSD. "By simply using lights, combinations of sound, and the stroboscope we can get the marijuana effect, the mescaline effect and the LSD effect," Leary explained. Thus, any benefit we could potentially gain from psychedelic experiences brought about by LSD can be achieved by non-harmful means that don't depend on LSD usage, as Pro's own source, Timothy Leary, claimed. [3]Thus, we can see that Pro's own "source" actually was against the use of LSD at later points in his life. Harm to OthersThe first half of this rebuttal from Pro discusses the lack of statistics again, which I have now covered above. I will thus focus on the second half of his rebuttal from this section. Pro argues that the incidents I cited occurred despite LSD being illegal. He additionally argues that it'll always be around and that the people who use it are those who are willing to break the law like the ones I cited. This is incredibly misleading though, as none of the cases I utilized featured "criminals". They featured college students, high-school students, and one young man who was already mentally ill before taking LSD. The reality is that these are not criminals, but rather the population we should be protecting the most. Laws exist to dissuade chaos and put a system of order into effect for civilized societies. LSD was, and still is, seen as a substance that challenged that system of order and safety of both the users and those around them, without these laws, we would only see more cases of these unfortunate situations playing out. Pro's ultimate point here was that we should just legalize it so that law-abiding citizens reap the benefits. But Pro has literally listed no benefits whatsoever. His entire case was based on the Harm Principle, there were no medical or personal benefits given by Pro. The truth of the matter is that we, as a society, have come to develop a system of dissuasion, with our laws acting as those agents that dissuade law abiding citizens from causing chaos. This is the most effective measure we have in place right now to dissuade people from opening themselves and others up to the potential harms that LSD brings about. It's for this reason that keeping LSD illegal makes the most sense, it's the most effective tool at our disposal for lessening that harm potential. There is no legal or moral obligation to legalize itPro never rebutted this argument, thus I extend it. In closing, I've presented my counter-arguments to Pro's rebuttals, and believe that these arguments soundly defeat any and all rebuttals he raised against my case. I previously defeated his only affirmative argument - the harm principle - and was left standing unchallenged due to Pro's forfeiture of the final round. For these reasons, Please vote Con. Sources[1] http://www.drugfreeworld.org...[2] http://www.mibba.com...[3] http://www.thecrimson.com...