The U.S Government should legalize recreational marijuana.

For my final round I will affirm my own case and attempt to group the responses to Con’s rebuttals within my contentions. Contentions 1. Freedom of autonomy By taking an idealist interpretation of Mill’s quote, Con’s plan would result in absurdities such as banning cars, Con does not respond to this problem. I take a position of a *realist* interpretation of the quote, as does the U.S government. Both me and the U.S government understand the differences between *direct harms* and *potential harms*. That’s why murder is illegal (results in a direct harm), and smoking tobacco isn’t illegal (potentially harmful). I am not claiming that the harms of marijuana aren’t real or don’t exist, I’m simply stating they could be a *potential* problem depending on the user. This sort of statement can’t be used against laws that prohibit murder though, because murder will *always* harm someone regardless of the user. Like having a glass of scotch at night, smoking a bowl of marijuana does not guarantee any specific harm-to-others will occur. Even if it did, the status quo already permits these harm-to-others, and unless Con demonstrates that marijuana possess a greater harm-to-others than alcohol, it is *illogical* to say marijuana shouldn’t be legal. This means Con *must* refute my chart I have provided in R2. (This contention stands so long as I win my “Low Level of Harm to Self and Others” contention, something which is standing extremely strong as of R4.) 2. Low level of harm to others. So far Con has chosen not to address my chart. I can only conclude that he agrees with it and that alcohol is significantly more of a net-detriment to its users and those around them. This alone is overwhelming justification for the legalization of marijuana. Con does make an attempt to *cherry pick* a case in which someone had bought marijuana infused candies and hour later ends up murdering his wife However his very source betrays him a paragraph or two down saying: “The vast majority of the state’s medical and recreational marijuana stores are living up to stringent state rules, they say. The stores have sold marijuana to hundreds of thousands of customers without incident.” [1] This case is not the rule, it is the *exception*. My entire purpose of my second contention is to demonstrate that if we were to weigh the risks of all the *potential harms* on a scale, alcohol would *drastically* weigh more. The chart I provided takes into consideration the cases like the one he provided and adds into the “harm to others” bar. Which as we can see is much large than that of marijuana. This contention has in *no way* been refuted. 3. Benefits from Regulation I have thus far proven that the benefits of legalizing marijuana would *greatly* outweigh is harms, in the forms of freedom, taxation, safety, and job creation. Con’s job was to demonstrate that the potential harms outweighed these benefits, he has yet to show they may possibly do this. In his rebuttals he suggests that neither alcohol nor tobacco should be legal because their potential harms apparently outweigh their benefits, but this is a *bare assertion*. The U.S federal government has already recognized that freedom and taxation, along with the slew of other benefits outweigh these “1 in 10 deaths among working-age adults” that alcohol potentially causes. This is the status quo. Even though I personally also find these potential harms to be rather great, the harms of marijuana simply cannot begin to be weighed in comparison. It’s amusing that Con would bring up how the status quo allows for a possible risk of losing about 500,000 people *every year* from tobacco. This only validates my position even more! The chart below demonstrate the staggering difference between the deaths from tobacco and that of marijuana. [2] As we can see, if the U.S federal government is willing to allow this many casualties from these substances, it is exceedingly obvious they would believe that a substance like marijuana would have its benefits outweigh its harms. Conclusion: I have shown that marijuana possess a lower level of potential harm than any of the current legal substances. Not only that, but whatever miniscule harm that was there is *greatly* outweighed by the benefits of freedom, taxation, safety, and job creation. This is all excellent justification that shows that recreational marijuana should be legalize. [1] http://www.nytimes.com... [2] http://www.vox.com...