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Legalization of drugs

Debate Information

My starting position: Pro making all drugs legal (but hopefully by the end of this debate we can come to an agreement on which ones should be, because think i can make a better case for certain drugs than for others)

Context/debate parameters: We can debate this in the case of the just the USA to make it more simple

Okay, ill try and be brief because and sum up my main 3 arguments for legislation and we can start the debate with that:

The personal liberty argument: I think within a society in order for it to be functional and ethical individuals within that society should have maximum personal liberty provided that personal liberty doesn't take away the liberty of others with in that society. And i think a person should have the right to put whatever they want in their own body as long as it doesn't result in them directly harming others to a to high extent that it cancels out that liberty in moral value.

For example i don't support people eating C4 or something that makes them go rabid and harm other people. But the vast majority of drug usage in America has no net negative effect on society as it mostly recreational and not a problem. In something like 90% of cases of a person taking a drug its recreational. So putting someone in jail for putting a substance into their own body that doesn't hurt anyone else is very unethical to me.

The harm argument: This only applies for some illegal drugs but its still very important to consider. The argument is basically that many activities in society are legal that cause a lot more harm to people than most illegal drugs. For example tobacco per capital kills more people than every other drug class except opiates. So its not constant to argue that smoking should be legal but drugs should not. But even you think tobacco should be illegal, junk food, alcohol, going skiing, going mountain climbing, taking part in MMA, the list goes on... none of these activities are banned but they all have negative health risks higher than many illegal drugs. For example MDMA, cannabis, LSD, mushrooms and other illegal drugs are much less deadly than alcohol and some of these have negligible negative effects.

I just don't think its consistent to ban say MDMA when junk food is like 5billion times as deadly.

The practicality argument: I find this the most compelling as no matter what you think about drugs or your politcal ideology this argument is legitimate. The main point of this argument is that making drugs illegal does not reduce the harm from drugs, it has never worked. And in addition it hurts US society and the world in the process in many ways. First when a drug is made illegal the demand doesn't go away, all it does is pushes the supply underground. This gives power to criminals in the US and results in the drug market being very dangerous and not regulated. This alone is very negative as it creates crime and the money used to arrest users and crack down on suppliers is massive and could be used to improve society instead. The war on drugs has lost the US billions and has not worked in reducing drug related harm. It has pushed supply to the 3rd world that has led to cartels and corruption and massive crime rates all over Latin America. Which in turn creates migration to the USA.

And all this for nothing. When drugs are made illegal the deaths related to them never goes down. This is because the supply still remains and in addition due to the fact the supply is in the black market the drugs are not regulated and dealers mix substances and don't tell you the quantities. This means for a substance like MDMA or LSD, which normally can never directly kill you, unless you take like a tone, much more deadly because they can be laced with a more dangerous drug like cocaine or worse, rat poison.

Lastly these markets are not taxed, policing drugs costs a lot of money and so does fighting Cartels hence if they were all legalized the massive economic and social benefits non related to the actual consumption of drugs, would be vast.
Akashinda



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Votes: 0


Voting Format: Casual Voting

Rounds: 3

Time Per Round: 12 Hours Per Round


Voting Period: 24 Hours


Round 1

Round 2

Round 3

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