Drug Legalization

Counter-Case I: The Role of Government I: "The U. S. government has a monopoly on force. Citizens are required to obey the laws with no opportunity to opt out of the majority’s limitations. Thus, the U. S. was founded on the concept of minimizing government intrusion on the private lives of its citizens. Pro has begun the debate by presenting personal views on Government and it's roles, and expecting it to be treated as an objective view. She has spoken in a way so as to exagerate the extremety of the situation, making the Government appear to be an all controlling force against which no appeal can be made. Pro has also spoken about how the US Government was founded on a concept, and presents the straying of that concept as inherintly bad, giving only conjecture and personal views as proof, and ignoring that the Government has evoled into it's level of power over time as it finds it's miniscule power to not be sufficient to deal with the problems the citizens held. II: " It is not the government's job to ensure that people are moral and upright, assuming proper standards could even be assessed. .. . Laws imposing on one's body are intrusive and immoral. The government does not have this right or obligation. Nobody should be punished unless they have infringed upon the rights (agressed against) another person. " Pro has again presented a personal view as an objective. Laws are not necesarily about morality and being upright, but rather about ensuring people are not subject to suffer from the actions or intents of others, and to establish stable rules needed for a society to smoothly work and live together. {1} That is a necessity due to the fact that we live in a society where we are impacted by even the smallest aspects of others actions, and human nature tends to lead to the need for such laws. Now while some may question whether some laws fit that, or not. But this isn't about the laws in general, this is about Drug Laws, and that is what we will be discussing. Pros insistance that nobody can be punished unless they are infringed the rights of another is again personal conjecture, though it doesn't do much good for her here, since many of the drugs she is arguing for have noticable second-hand affects on those around the smoker, not the least of which is failing a drug test. {2} Many would argue that Governments Role in society is morally far greater then what Pro is wanting, however this debate isn't about Governments role in society, it's about Drug Legalization, so I won't press the matter too far.1] . http://www.oas.org...2] . http://www.hightimes.com...Counter-Case II: History and the War on Drugs I: "The WOD has not been effective at preventing the widespread use of drugs. For instance, the opium trade flourished during the temperance movement. At the same time, doctors prescribed whiskey and other alcohol known as "patent medicines" much like doctors write scripts for pharmaceuticals today. Doctors had made an estimated $40 million dollars in 1928 writing prescriptions for whiskey. Criminalization does not eliminate demand. " Pro is telling us that the failure to properly perform the war is cause for removing the war altogether. The problem here though is that it makes a drastic decision, rather then first considering more reasonable decisions, such as simply reforming how we go about deal with the Drug War. She also mentions how much Doctors made off prescribing whiskey in 1928, and again says that if it didn't work, remove it, rather then reform it by presenting tighter regulation of the Prescibing of drugs (which can be regulated). II: "Prohibition {had} not only failed but had damaging results, as evidenced by our government’s decision to decriminalize alcohol. " Now in this example, pro first failed to point out that the appearent lack of success for Prohibition was due mostly to weak enforcement (though images may mislead). Pro has also made the mistake of saying Criminalization of Alcohol Failed. In truth Cirhosis Rates showed that Alcoholism actually decreased during the prohibition, some say up decreased to about 60% of it's pre-prohibition levels, though for a while it had hit as low as possibly 30%. {3} Now we must remember that prohibition was horribly enforced, and there are stories of politicians all but giving alcohol to their constituents. Signs of bad enforcement. Had enforcement been more efficiently applied, it may very well have been a better success. III: "Poverty stricken Mexicans illegally seek asylum in the U. S. due to terrible conditions in Mexico for which our policy is largely responsible. " Pro has told us that illegal immigrants come over due mostly to the mexican drug war. This is not quite true. They come over due to poor living conditions (in contrast to the US' high living standards), which certainly didn't start with the Drug War, and is related more to the lack of good jobs, {4} and lack of proper investment of infrastructure. {5} Pro also works on the premise that we should get rid of the illegality altogether instead of attempting better enforcement on it, in this case using better tactics in the Mexican War of Drugs. IV: "Still the government and other criminal agencies have been using it to manipulate the world and monopolize the market. The U. S. government has used the criminalization of drugs to harm its own citizens, while benefiting friends of politicians in particular industries who profit from anti-drug laws (see: Prison and Military Industrial Complex). " This argument and well as the Russel quote falls short in it's effort to explain why drugs should become legal. What this argument does is show that the government is corrupt. It's an argument that we must work to prevent our government from engaging in illegal activities behind our backs, but it doesn't necessarily show why the drugs being distributed should be made legal.3] . http://patterico.com...4] . http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu...5] . http://siteresources.worldbank.org... Counter-Case III: Drugs and Violence I: "Of all psychoactive substances, alcohol is the only one whose consumption has been shown to commonly increase aggression" Let's get out of the way that this is not in fact true. Meth has been shown to increase aggressiveness and abusers, {6/7} and Cocaine has shown to induce increased agression in long-term abusers {8}. Pro's argument in the rest of this section revolves around the idea that the actions of criminals should determine their products legality. They act aggressively, therefore we should make their actions legal. It is bad practice to allow the aggressive behavior of criminals to cause us to go against a law. What we should do is devise new tactics for dealing with the criminals, many of whom are likely to continue illegal activity of another sort after legalization, because onces it's legal, profits drop. We need look no further then the Mafia, who have certainly not gone legitimate after Alcohols relegalization.6] . http://www.jcsd.org...7] . http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov...8] . http://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au... Counter-Case IV: Health Risks and Public Safety I: "Tobacco kills about 350k people a year, not including the 50k who die from second-hand smoke. Alcohol kills about 80k. " This argument, though it may seem good, in truth reason to make tobacco and alcohol illegal, not make the other drugs legal. It assumes that the legality of one incredably unhealthy thing obligates the legalization of anything less healthy. It's akin to saying your parents must let you play God of War because they let you play Mortal Kombat, which is far bloodier. Again afterwords Pro references the "unwinnable" war on Drugs. Again I point out the issues with the war is an argument not for legalization but for us to work to find a more efficient means to deal with druglords. One could point out the war on crime in general is failing, because people are still raped, murdered, and robbed, and many times the rates increase for awhile. Does an increase in those crimes or any other for that matter show that we must legalize them? No it does not. It shows we must find better means by which to combat them. Pro ends by restating that we should not arrest people if their actions doesn't impede on others freedom, which is a personal view that is not held by all people. Especially the final lines "Arresting or penalizing someone on the basis that they could hurt you is nonsensical and aggressive. ." is based off personal views. Others may argue that it is very sensical thing to do. ==Unitomic==