Drugs should be legalized in the United States

Many thanks to my opponent for challenging me to this debate :) Due to the way Pro structured it, I'm assuming I won't be posting an argument in R4. The Role of Government The U.S. government has a monopoly on force. As such, citizens are required to obey the laws enacted by the State with no opportunity to "opt out" and become part of a society with similar values. Because of this, the United States was founded on the concept of minimizing "government intrusion" on the private lives of its citizens. It is not the government's job to ensure that people are moral and upright. It is not the government's responsibility to ensure that people make smart and healthy decisions. Instead, laws are created to resolve discrepancies in the way people live, act and trade - not command people on how to treat their own person. While together individuals comprise of a collective society, it is not one's burden to contribute or be a productive and functional member of that society. As such, 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 or property of another person. History and the War on Drugs Human beings have sought altered forms of conscious via drugs since the dawn of even the most ancient of civilizations [1]. There always has and always will be a market for drugs whether they are legal or not. Because of this, the WOD has not been effective at preventing the widespread use of drugs. For instance, the opium trade flourished during the temperance movement [2]. At the same time, doctors and druggists prescribed whiskey and other alcohol known as "patent medicines" much like doctors write scripts for medical marijuana today. Doctors had made an estimated $40 million dollars in 1928 writing prescriptions for whiskey [3]. Others took a less legal approach to getting around anti-drug laws. Even today, instead of being sold through legal and taxable establishments, gangs and other groups like the mafia have become among the biggest distributors of illegal drugs yielding profits of epic proportions [4]. In other words, it is the criminals who are prospering thanks to this immoral policy that does not accomplish anything substantial. Moreover, there is a plethora of irrefutable proof regarding the United States' own government involvement trafficking illegal drugs. Dan Russell explains, "Illegal drugs, solely because of the artificial value given them by Prohibition, have become the basis of military power anywhere they can be grown and delivered in quantity. To this day American defense contractors are the biggest drug-money launderers in the world" [5]. By the end of the 1980's it was calculated that the illegal use of drugs in the United States now netted its controllers over $110 billion a year [6]. There's also evidence of the drug trade funding multiple government operatives, including the CIA [7]. In short, the War on Drugs has been a failure. Still the government and other criminal agencies have been using it to manipulate and monopolize the market. Impact of Anti-Drug Efforts In the past 40 years, the U.S. government has spent nearly 3 trillion dollars in the WOD. Still, the number of illicit drug users in America has risen over the years despite the ad campaigns, increased incarceration rates and a crackdown on smuggling [8]. The Drug Awareness Resistence Education program (D.A.R.E.) has so far cost 230 million dollars alone, yet study after study reveals unsubstantial results [9]. It's not hard to see that so far our policies have been completely ineffective. This is therefore a gigantic waste of tax payer dollars that could better be spent elsewhere in such a way that actually significantly benefits society. The WOD disadvantages society in other ways too. Scholars suggest that the WOD has resulted in the creation of a permanent underclass of people who have few educational or job opportunities, often as a result of being punished for drug offenses which in turn have resulted from attempts to earn a living in spite of having no education or job opportunities. Penalties for drug crimes among youth almost always involve permanent or semi-permanent removal from opportunities for education, strip them of voting rights, and later involve creation of criminal records which make employment far more difficult [10]. Additionally, the WOD disproportionately disadvantages minorities and the poor in particular. While blacks constitute only 13 percent of all drug users, 35 percent of those arrested for drug possession are black, and 74 percent of those people are sent to prison. Rates of drug use or drug selling are no greater for members of minorities than for non-minorities, yet minorities are stopped, searched, arrested, prosecuted, and incarcerated at far greater rates than whites. They also get longer jail sentences among other discrepancies [11]. Of course putting this many people in jail unnecessarily is a bad idea. Not only is law enforcement distracted from preventing more dangerous crimes, but it costs the tax payers an exorbitant amount of money to perpetuate this failing criminal justice system. Further, children of unlucky inmates also suffer. They are 5 - 7 times more likely to commit crimes than their peers, and are at a much greater risk of educational failure, joblessness, addiction and delinquency [12]. Equally frustrating, the criminalization of drugs has significantly inhibited research of particular substances and how they could be used medically [13]. Health Risks and Other Factors Tobacco kills about 350k people a year, not including the 50k who die from second-hand smoke. Alcohol kills about 80k. All illegal drugs combined kill about 4,500 people per year - or about 1% of the number killed by alcohol and tobacco, both of which are legal [14]. Moreover, products like alcohol and tobacco are considered more dangerous and addictive than illegal substances such as LSD, psilocybin mushrooms, MDMA (ecstasy), marijuana, etc. [15]. In a society that emphasizes the value of life, it is completely non-sensical to wage an unwinnable WOD when the repercussions of said drugs are 99% less harmful than the drugs that are already legal. Drugs and Violence Additionally, of all psychoactive substances, alcohol is the only one whose consumption has been shown to commonly increase aggression. Drug-related violence is not an issue prevalent because of drug use itself, but due to disputes among rival distributors, arguments and robberies involving buyers and sellers, property crimes committed to raise drug money and, more speculatively, social and economic interactions between the illegal markets and the surrounding communities. All major authorities agree that the vast majority of drug-related violent crime is caused by the prohibition against drugs, rather than the drugs themselves [16]. -- Conclusion -- The War on Drugs is a war that is not against a clear enemy, which is why it can never be won. Selling proucts that warrant a profit will continue legally or not so long as there is a demand. However, by forcing it to be done illegally, you are actually putting society at greater risk because of what inevitably comes with the territory (such as gang disputes which requires the recruitment of gang members, etc.). It's reasonable to conclude that the government enacting such useless and wasteful legislation is done so only in the name of their own gain. Meanwhile, economist Jeffrey Miron posits legalizing drugs would inject 78.6 billion dollars into the U.S. economy [17]. On the other hand, criminalizing drugs is an infringement upon our civil liberties, ineffective at significantly stifling the drug market, and overall does more harm than the contrary. Good luck, Con. Sources: http://www.debate.org...