Resolved: the United States Government's War on Drugs should be continued in it's entirety

Thank you, THEBOMB, for your response. 1-. Unconstitutional The majority of the court is not always right. I need point no further than Plessey v. Ferguson or Twining v. New Jersey. Therefore, the constitutional interpretation for this debate must be, as it should be, up for debate. My opponent and I have both stated our cases. My opponent claims that because my claims have no basis in the dissenting opinions, it must inherently lose, although this is a fallacy by appeal to authority, as my arguments were written based on the dissenting opinions of Justices O'Connor and Thomas [15], although they were no less correct before. To summarize my contention, Congress has no power via the Constitution to regulate personal activities, and have no right to preserve the principles of federalism and limited government. 1+. Unhealthy Inanimate objects cannot be enemies by definition [9]. My opponent never established drugs to be a "threat" to society. He claimed that drug use could destabilize society, although both legal and illegal drugs are already being used, and society still stands with stability. My opponent claims that for some unknown reason, illegal drugs would be more dangerous, although he gives no explanation for this distinction. The point is, most illegal drugs are no worse than legal drugs, and should be allowed by the government. My study said that nicotine is about 75% addictive, matching my opponent's cocaine study. My opponent seems rather ambiguous about Prohibition. It seems that he believes that alcohol and nicotine should be illegal, although he isn't willing to actually make an argument against them, although he is perfectly willing to for already illegal drugs, suggesting that my opponent is not opposed to the drugs as much as he is opposed to change. 2+. Decreased use The data table to which my opponent linked suggests that drug use fluctuates in various age groups much more than he lets on. Claiming that decreased drug use today is due to government intervention is like claiming that the sun rose into the sky between 6:00 and noon because you woke up. Back to Prohibition, medical care was much different back in the 1920s. People did not have cell phones to quickly contact emergency medical care, and quite likely could not because they were drunk while dying. Additionally, a speakeasy wouldn't want to report an alcohol-related death on its premises to the authorities, with quite a conflict of interest. My source indicated that alcohol use actually went up during Prohibition, contrary to my opponent's claims. My opponent claimed to have gotten his information from a book, although he did not even bother to provide the book's title or the actual data. My opponent lists quite a few cultural differences between America and Portugal, but I cannot even begin to guess why any of these would cause the two countries to respond to drug legalization in completely opposite ways. My opponent points to failures in drug policy of other European countries, but he uses a source with 1994 data, and doesn't even provide that data. I will provide better sources that actually give evidence for the opposite with more recent data. Switzerland: http://www.reuters.com... (2010) "Switzerland's innovative policy of providing drug addicts with free methadone and clean needles has greatly reduced deaths while cutting crime rates and should serve as a global model, health experts said..." Britain: http://www.guardian.co.uk... (2011) "But in the UK we have already seen that health-led approaches, such as heroin treatment centres, have better outcomes than criminalising approaches." Sweden: http://www.unodc.org... (2007) <- official United Nations paper "'[B]ased on available information on trends in drug misuse there are no clear indications that criminalization and an increased severity of punishment has had a deterrent effect on the drug habits of young people or that new recruitment to drug misuse has been halted.' On the contrary, the Council found that drug experimentation among young people, increased throughout the 1990s, a trend, which was similar in Sweden to that in other countries." Netherlands: http://www1.ucsc.edu... (2004) "Dutch drug policies do not increase marijuana use, first rigorous comparative study finds" In every case, the softer approaches are more effective than the harder ones, the United States' War on Drugs being one of the hardest policies out there. Clearly, we need change. 3+. Crime Cartels organized for only kids and pregnant women would be insignificant compared to their current form, no joke. Note that my opponent conceded that legalization would drop prices, which would decrease crime. While marijuana DUI's may have gone up, my opponent has not contended that marijuana legalization would decrease alcohol use or that alcohol is more dangerous on the road than marijuana, so the policy is quite likely better for the road. Even if it didn't, my opponent exaggerates the issue; the roads wouldn't become "much more dangerous," and while roads affect more people, drug cartels do significantly more damage to those that they do affect. My opponent claims that "considering we have seen no third variable here, correlation does equal causation until provided another variable," although there may easily be a lurking variable [16]. Perhaps criminals who are already breaking the law also tend to use illegal drugs in rebelling against the state? The report never said that using the substance increased crime; my opponent merely inferred that with his poor experience in statistics. Regarding beer theft, the brochure does not at all suggest that beer is stolen more often than other items. It's definitely not an epidemic, like theft for illegal drug money. My opponent falsely claims that "the overall economy is the greater good." I'd say that well-being is more important, and that can't always be measured in money. If people prefer being high to being rich, you have no right to tell them otherwise, and people have no obligation to work for any more than they need. Individuals pay for their own medical bills, and people have the right to their own productivity, and hurt themselves when they don't produce; government can't tell them that they must produce more. My opponent claims that because "domestic abuse is linked to drugs, that's enough to not legalize." There's no evidence that any drug besides alcohol actually causes domestic abuse (and certainly not all drugs do), and even then, the claim is ridiculous. Shared living quarters are linked to domestic abuse, too; should we criminalize those, too? 4+. Treaties See "Unconstitutional." 5+. Prison populations See "Crime." 6+. Trafficking It is true that if the legal drug age use age is set to 18, then children would still participate in the black market. However, as I pointed out, they're children, the weakest demographic economically in the entire nation. The majority of trafficking would be destroyed, putting this contention in my favor. In conclusion, I have established that the War on Drugs is unconstitutional. I have established that a drug's negative side effects are not enough to justify criminalization; see alcohol and nicotine. I have provided evidence of decriminalization working in other countries, and harsher measures that imitate our own failing. I have provided evidence that our actions do not inhibit drug use but instead empower the cartels; in fact, it is "good for business" for them. The War of Drugs must be fundamentally weakened, especially regarding weaker drugs. Thank you, THEBOMB, for this debate. I hope you've learned something from this. I sure have! 15. http://en.wikipedia.org... 16. http://www.stat.berkeley.edu...