Instigator / Pro
7
1538
rating
11
debates
81.82%
won
Topic
#4145
All psychoactive substances should be legalized for adults to purchase, possess, and use.
Status
Finished
The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.
Winner & statistics
Better arguments
3
0
Better sources
2
0
Better legibility
1
1
Better conduct
1
1
After 1 vote and with 5 points ahead, the winner is...
Mps1213
Tags
Parameters
- Publication date
- Last updated date
- Type
- Standard
- Number of rounds
- 5
- Time for argument
- Two days
- Max argument characters
- 10,000
- Voting period
- One month
- Point system
- Multiple criterions
- Voting system
- Open
Contender / Con
2
1587
rating
182
debates
55.77%
won
Description
I contend that all drugs, from heroin to cannabis should be legalized and sold in dispensaries like alcohol and nicotine are today.
Round 1
Pro
#1
This argument is controversial for some reason that I’m not too sure of. I think it has to do with media, bad science and awful journalism. Drugs are inanimate objects, conglomerates of Hydrogen, Carbon, Nitrogen and Oxygen. They are not some object that hops out of their bag and into our bloodstream. Drugs are not the cause of the 91,000 deaths we saw in America in 2020.
When we are talking about drug deaths it’s important to ask many questions. 1: how many substances were in the system? The average number of psychoactive substances found in drug deaths in 4-6. The next question needs to be: do any of these substances bring greater risks to the user when combined? 3: was the person aware these substances were risky to combine? 4: did the person even know they took so many substances.
These questions are of serious importance, the last 2 being the most important by far. Let’s say this person who died was being completely irresponsible and combining multiple substances at once and he didn’t know what was dangerous to mix. That is 100% an education issue. People use drugs every day without dying, in fact most drug users do not even have addiction. That has been proven by the work of a chairman on the National Institute of Health, Dr. Carl Hart from Columbia university. His work came to the conclusion that 80-90% of drug users in the US do not have addiction or use drugs irresponsibly. He himself an accomplished pharmacologist uses heroin and is open about it. He’s able to use heroin safely because he is very educated on how the drug works, how not to develop addiction, how to stay safe. All the way back in the 1890’s there were studies done with diacetylmorphine (heroin), heroin is simply a modified morphine molecule to have acetyl bonds at the top left and bottom right of the molecule. Making it more polar, which leads to higher potency. Not higher addictive potential.
The studies in the 1890’s I mentioned have to do with tolerance and addictive potential. Even back then they knew about tolerance and addiction, yet were able to work with the drug without causing withdrawal or huge tolerance build ups: A doctor treated 48 different patients that were dealing with various things heroin could treat. He was one of the first people to record a tolerance in his patients. I am going to quote his findings here, this was written after he had to increase the dosage on his patients. “No harmful results, especially as I observed no abstinence symptoms whatsoever. Generally it appeared that in all cases in which period of time was allowed to elapse the full effect could again be obtained with small doses ... It may be concluded that, regarding tolerance to heroin, certain individuals react peculiarly and it is recommended that in the case of old and feeble persons, the initial dose should not be over 0.005 g.”(Taurnier, 1899)
No abstinence symptoms is referring to withdrawal. My point here is that we have known a long time hire to properly use drugs of all kinds, including heroin. It just takes education.
Drug users like Dr. Carl hart and myself would never mix an opioid with a benzodiazepine or alcohol or antihistamines or any other CNS depressant. Because it is well recorded that mixing opioids with depressant greatly increases the chances of respiratory depression and death. if someone is not educated in that they can get into trouble quickly.
Now let’s talk about question 4. Not many people are aware of this. There is a website called Drugsdata.org You can send your drug sample into their lab and they will test it and put the results on the website. Keep in mind there is a lot of bias in the results simply because the drug users sending their samples in for testing are very very responsible drug users and not junkies who don’t have the money to spend on these tests.
I’m going to list the results of the first 3 samples tested for heroin that pop up.
Sample 1:
Heroin
6-Acetylmorphine
6-Acetylcodeine
Morphine
Codeine
all of these are powerful mu-opioid receptor agonists than can cause respiratory depression when combined or taken in high doses. But the lethal dose for the average participant (LD50) of drugs drop dramatically when combined with other substances. Making these drugs illegal and forcing people to buy off the streets, causes this, Making drug use infinitely more dangerous than it should be.
Here is sample 2
- Fentanyl
- 4-ANPP
- Phenethyl 4-ANPP
This was sold as heroin. I’m gonna break this down very simply. The IV LD50 in mice is 21.797mg/kg. It is not as simple as taking that at applying the mg/kg to your own body weight a conversion must be done to account for different metabolic rates and surface areas. The conversion factor with mice is to divide the dose by 12.3, or multiply it by .081. This will put the LD50 for humans at 1.77mg/kg.
For a 150 pound person they would have to take 122.4 mg of heroin to reach the lethal dose for the average user their weight. To put that into perspective even the heaviest users consider 25mg injected a heavy heavy dose. So essentially no one is taking that dose. But, that lethal average dose drops dramatically when mixed with other substances as I said early but that’s not the point I’m making right now.
After the conversion is done the human LD50 for fentanyl rests at .47mg/kg. Compared to heroin’s LD50 by IV sitting at 1.8mg/kg it’s easy to see why this would be an extremely dangerous combination. An average 150 pound male only has to take 31mg of fentanyl to reach lethal doses. I said earlier a heavy dose of heroin is 25mg. Some addicts take more. When mixing these two substances the LD50 for both drop significantly making it only take one bad batch to kill people.
The other two substances in that test are precursors to fentanyl that are used for synthesis which brings me to another point. Street chemists do not know what they’re doing. Do you remember the famous Krokadil drug scare? A drug in Russia people injected and it caused profound necrosis. Well it turns out, as it always does, that the drug was not the problem. The problem was street chemists not getting the chemicals used for synthesis out of their final product. One of the chemicals used for synthesis of the drug desomorphine (the drug krokadil actually was which is still used medicinally all over the world) is phosphorus. So we weren’t looking at the effects of any drug but instead the result of injecting phosphorus into your veins. Professional chemists do not make these mistakes.
The third sample is more likely what you would find if you went and bought heroin.
Heroin
Tentative Identification - See Note
Fentanyl
6-Acetylcodeine
Procaine
4-ANPP
6-Acetylmorphine
Phenethyl 4-ANPP
Acetylfentanyl
Caffeine
Diphenhydramine
Xylazine
LidocainE
How can someone responsibly and safely use this product? It’s impossible. And again we see the street chemists left precursors in the final product
Xylazine is a veterinarian analgesic usually used on felines.
Lidocaine is a topical pain killer and derivative of cocaine.
If anyone used this product they likely died.
So this brings me to my final point. If we legalized all substances you would be able to go into a dispensary and buy pure heroin or any other drug you like to use. It would also get rid of close to 75% of people in jail on simple possession charges. Drug use is dangerous, to say that’s not true is to lie, cannabis has risks, caffeine has risks, heroin and fentanyl have risks. But our government is actively making it more dangerous by their laws and enforcement. Danger isn’t even the point in my opinion. Adults in this country are free to do all sorts of things, shoot guns, race cars, cliff dive, sky dive, etc. we just assume adults embarking on those tasks are aware of the risks before hand and are making their own decision to do these activities. Drug use should be no different. There will still be addicts and still be idiots who kill themselves. But if we re design our drug education to not be about abstinence from drug use and actually tell young people bad adults about what makes them dangerous and how to lower the risks as much as possible a lot less of that would happen. If we treat drug education like modern sex education which is basically “we know you’re going to have sex, this is how you do it safely” it would save many lives.
Drugs are not the problem, our government is the main issue because they actively make drug use more dangerous. This is my final statement. Our government not only makes them more dangerous laws but even have a history of poisoning drugs to scare people away from them. For example the government killed 10,000 people during alcohol prohibition by paying bootleggers and giving them freedom to sell alcohol as long as they left the highly toxic substance methanol in some of their products. Under Raegan the United States poisoned cannabis plots in Georgia and Mexico with a neurotoxin called Paraquat which induces Parkinson’s disease. Luckily and funnily enough they didn’t go to any chemists before doing this be wise Paraquat has low thermostability and would break down when lit on fire.
Our government is the reason drug deaths are so high and the reason peoples lives get ruined by their father or themselves being in prison for wanting to get high.
Con
#2
BOP
The resolution addresses 'should', implying that there is a moral obligation to legalize psychoactive substances.
Fundamentally, Pro must answer two questions to win this debate.
- Who is obligated to legalize psychoactive substances?
- Why should we?
Intro
- Frankly, I am seeing a lot of bold claims made by Pro. The one thing that is missing is evidence. He uses no sources and if a person is making assertions without evidence, who are we to take said statements seriously?
Rebuttals
These questions are of serious importance, the last 2 being the most important by far. Let’s say this person who died was being completely irresponsible and combining multiple substances at once and he didn’t know what was dangerous to mix. That is 100% an education issue. People use drugs every day without dying, in fact most drug users do not even have addiction. That has been proven by the work of a chairman on the National Institute of Health, Dr. Carl Hart from Columbia university. His work came to the conclusion that 80-90% of drug users in the US do not have addiction or use drugs irresponsibly. He himself an accomplished pharmacologist uses heroin and is open about it. He’s able to use heroin safely because he is very educated on how the drug works, how not to develop addiction, how to stay safe. All the way back in the 1890’s there were studies done with diacetylmorphine (heroin), heroin is simply a modified morphine molecule to have acetyl bonds at the top left and bottom right of the molecule. Making it more polar, which leads to higher potency. Not higher addictive potential.
Pro doesn't source this claim, so I will dismiss it but not before I entertain the idea.
Let's assume for a moment that the problem is a lack of information. All this proves is a need for Drug Ed101. This doesn't demonstrate a need or a reason to legalize drugs.
So this brings me to my final point. If we legalized all substances you would be able to go into a dispensary and buy pure heroin or any other drug you like to use. It would also get rid of close to 75% of people in jail on simple possession charges. Drug use is dangerous, to say that’s not true is to lie, cannabis has risks, caffeine has risks, heroin and fentanyl have risks. But our government is actively making it more dangerous by their laws and enforcement. Danger isn’t even the point in my opinion. Adults in this country are free to do all sorts of things, shoot guns, race cars, cliff dive, sky dive, etc. we just assume adults embarking on those tasks are aware of the risks before hand and are making their own decision to do these activities. Drug use should be no different. There will still be addicts and still be idiots who kill themselves. But if we re design our drug education to not be about abstinence from drug use and actually tell young people bad adults about what makes them dangerous and how to lower the risks as much as possible a lot less of that would happen. If we treat drug education like modern sex education which is basically “we know you’re going to have sex, this is how you do it safely” it would save many lives.
So as long as we provide education, then there is no need for education? Where is the evidence that it is the laws contributing to these deaths?
This argument is like me saying.:
- There is a risk to owning pit bulls because they kill people but they're legal to own in the state of Utah. Therefore, we should allow people to safely buy lions, zebras, and tigers as pets. As long as the animals receive proper training, it could save lives.
This argument doesn't mean we need to legalize drugs, it just means we need to reform the education system. Listing the risks of other substances doesn't mean we should legalize drugs; it's just a reason to ban the other substances.
Drugs are not the problem, our government is the main issue because they actively make drug use more dangerous. This is my final statement. Our government not only makes them more dangerous laws but even have a history of poisoning drugs to scare people away from them. For example the government killed 10,000 people during alcohol prohibition by paying bootleggers and giving them freedom to sell alcohol as long as they left the highly toxic substance methanol in some of their products. Under Raegan the United States poisoned cannabis plots in Georgia and Mexico with a neurotoxin called Paraquat which induces Parkinson’s disease. Luckily and funnily enough they didn’t go to any chemists before doing this be wise Paraquat has low thermostability and would break down when lit on fire.
I hope Pro provides a source for this claim that the government is contributing to the dangers of drug use.
Not that any of this means we should legalize psychoactive substances even if this is true anyway.
Round 2
Pro
#3
Con starts with this:
“Fundamentally, Pro must answer two questions to win this debate.
- Who is obligated to legalize psychoactive substances?
- Why should we?”
1: the government is obligated to legalize psychoactive substances. In my opinion drug use is covered under the pursuit of happiness clause in the constitution. That states we are able to pursue happiness in any way we see fit as long as I am not preventing someone else from doing so, or harming other people. Also to cut down mass incarceration.
2: I listed three reasons why. Less death, less people in prison, less families ripped apart by parents and children going to prison for simple drug possession. Which accounts for about 45% of people in prison. there are other reasons as well. We allow alcohol and tobacco to be legal and purchased by adults. Why do those drugs get a pass? It’s not because they’re safer. Alcohol is metabolized into acetaldehyde which is a known carcinogen and toxin. It also causes severe achte withdrawal, AKA the hangover. It also destroys your liver. Tobacco has over 70 carcinogens when smoked. It is the leading cause of lung cancer. If you support those drugs being legal, at least be philosophically consistent with your view and apply it to all drugs.
https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/alcohol-metabolism Alcohol metabolites
https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/publications/healthy-living/carcinogens-tobacco-smoke.html Tobacco carcinogens
While we are here Why don’t we look at countries who have decriminalized/legalized everything.
Portugal has decriminalized all drugs their drug overdose death rate per 1,000,000 is 6
The EU’s average? 23.7
I’m Scotland which has some of the strictest drug laws in the world: 300
That should be very telling, but that’s not all.
“Portugal has some of the lowest usage rates in Europe among those between the ages of 15-34.17. In the first five years after drug policy reform, use of illegal drugs rose slightly among the general population but fell again in the following five years. Use among 15-24 year olds fell throughout the decade, and among the general population was lower in 2012 than in 2001.”
Con points out I did not source the work Dr. Carl Hart has done. I will post the links below this paragraph. Context is needed for these studies. When the first drug addiction studies were done on rats there were huge flaws with the studies that led to the current “use until addiction or death” dogma that has dominated public opinion on drugs.
The study forced stressed rats into small cages with only two options, normal water, or water that had cocaine or heroin dissolved in it. The rats always chose the water with heroin or cocaine and developed an addiction and all of them ended up dying. That intensely flawed study is what has powered the anti drug rhetoric in this country since 1970 when the study was done. There were then more studies done that fixed these flaws. They put rats in large cages, with many different options. A sugary treat, a sexually receptive mate, a plain cup of water and then water with drugs in it. The rats almost never chose the drug. In fact they began only drinking the normal water.
Then more studies began happening, with the same idea. The results were repeated by many different studies all done by different people independent of each other.
https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/what-does-rat-park-teach-us-about-addiction Original flawed study compared to more well done studies
https://nida.nih.gov/news-events/nida-notes/2019/08/rats-prefer-social-interaction-to-heroin-or-methamphetamine One independent study showing the same results.
This information was interesting to Dr. Carl Hart, who as I said is a chairman on the NIH and a professor of psychology and pharmacology. He then began doing similar studies with human beings. He would offer people $20 or a baggy of lab made, chemically pure, heroin and methamphetamine that was worth more than $20. 90% of the people took the money. He continued this study for some times, repeatedly checking in and offering the people this question. Only 10-20% of them developed addiction over time depending on which drug was offered.
His studies are hard to find and usually buried in pharmacology text books or his own books. However this is one of the studies mentioned above, but with cocaine. The same results were present in this study.
“Let's assume for a moment that the problem is a lack of information. All this proves is a need for Drug Ed101. This doesn't demonstrate a need or a reason to legalize drugs.”
The point I made does actually call for drug legalization. Over 98% of drug deaths in NYC involved 4 or more substances. You saw the results on drugsdata.org how many of those people knew they were taking more than 1 drug. If it was made by professional chemists and sold in regulated climates it would eliminate that problem entirely. There will still be people who mix drugs they shouldn’t, there is no way to control that. We can only educate them to the best of our abilities, which we are not doing. We are simply preaching abstinence, which is not a good form of education. That is exactly why sex education has modernized. We need to the same with drug education, and also legalize drugs.
Less families would be ripped apart by their parents going to prison simply for possessing drugs. I’ve done cocaine, amphetamine, MDMA (ecstasy),Ketamine, hydrocodone, I’ve done everything you could name. And guess what? I’m not an addict, I’ve experimented and enjoyed some weekends, and then gone back to work, took my kids to school, done my job as a citizen. Work at an environmental health company. If you were to decide you wanted to try alcohol, you have the privilege of going into a store and buying your drug of choice with 100% confidence there is no contamination that could literally end in your death. And 100% confidence that If you get pulled over on the way home and they see the unopened bottle of alcohol, you will drive away a free man. I didn’t get those privileges when I wanted to go try those drugs. I had to spend hundreds of dollars on testing equipment, waste product on tests, etc. Why do you deserve that peace of mind and safety but I do not? People ruin their lives and others with alcohol all the time, but you guys get to be as safe as possible with your dangerous and risky endeavors, but illicit drug users do not?
“Where is the evidence that it is the laws contributing to these deaths?”
I listed a lot of evidence in my first post. That’s why I brought the drugs data website. Laws that keep it illegal and force you to purchase off the street, from people who also probably don’t even know what they’re selling, causes wild contamination. Not many people in the US make heroin. they order it off the dark web, get it from overseas, and have no way of accurately testing their product. They have to trust the vendor. If we legalize drugs, that problem goes away. So do most of the drug deaths.
“There is a risk to owning pit bulls because they kill people but they're legal to own in the state of Utah. Therefore, we should allow people to safely buy lions, zebras, and tigers as pets. As long as the animals receive proper training, it could save lives.”
This is possibly the worst take on this topic I’ve ever heard honestly. How is an inanimate object anywhere near related to an animal with teeth that has a brain? Heroin isn’t jumping out of baggies and into the needle, the heroin doesn’t pick up the needle and inject it into your arm. That’s not related at all, and that’s not even close to what I’m saying at all. Also there is no way to save lives with a zebra. However there is a way to save lives by offering pure drugs to people who use them so they don’t have to worry about contaminated substances.
“I hope Pro provides a source for this claim that the government is contributing to the dangers of drug use” I have already listed how they are doing that.
I will source information on them being willing to poison drug users. I will cite them poisoning alcohol and cannabis. I already spelled it out, but if you’d like a link to the stories here you go.
They were willingly allowing bootleggers to leave methanol in the alcohol which causes blindness and death. That is no longer a worry, because we legalized alcohol. That’s what would happen with other drugs. The second link is the whole Paraquat pot fiasco.
“Not that any of this means we should legalize psychoactive substances even if this is true anyway.”
Do you have any reasons to keep them illegal? So far you have provided none, just disagreeing without providing any reason why.
I have provided many lines of evidence as to what ending prohibition would help. I have listed why prohibition causes more harm than good. I have also listed a philosophical and political reason when talking about the constitution. I also pointed out that we are free to do many risky things in this country. Race cars, drive motorcycles, shoot guns, sky dive, snowboard, ski, etc. we assume adults are aware of the risks when embarking on dangerous tasks. That needs to be extended to drug use, and be paired with good drug education, not the programs we have now because they don’t work. Also we already have laws protecting people from bad behavior. Abandoning your kids is illegal, whether you’re an addict or not. Punching someone is illegal whether you’re drunk or not. There is no need to criminalize drugs, just criminalize criminal acts. Just because some people do bad things with drugs doesn’t mean I shouldn’t be allowed to use them.
Con
#4
If it isn’t broken, don’t fix it.
. It is the leading cause of lung cancer. If you support those drugs being legal, at least be philosophically consistent with your view and apply it to all drugs.
Who said I support nicotine, caffeine, and alcohol being legal? I just pointed out that them being legal isn’t justification to legalize MORE dangerous substances.
Just because people own pitbulls doesn’t mean we should legalize people owning lions as pets.
So Pro states that less deaths would occur by legalizing drugs but having gone through his links, there is no evidence to support this. Now while it is true there would be less people in prison, there would also be less people in prison if they just followed the law.
Pro did successfully prove the historical accuracy of the government contributing to the fear of drugs, but this doesn’t mean the dangers aren’t real.
So, in conclusion.:
- Pro answered the Why of the BOP, but hasn’t proven it yet. The question still remains, how do we know less deaths would occur? Could we resolve this problem by providing drug education without legalizing it?
- Pro answered the Who.
Round 3
Pro
#5
What evidence do you have that the current system we have isn’t broken? Death rates by contaminated drugs going up yearly? Addiction rates increasing yearly? What’s your evidence that our current system isn’t broken?
Also i have supported many lines of evidence as to why legalizing all substances would be better for society and make drug use safer. I shouldn’t have to spell them out three separate times for you to understand them. Less contamination will was to less death. Did you even read my argument? Did you see the results on drugs data? How would buying pure drugs not be safer than ingesting the results you saw on that website. Which is what everyone encounters when they buy drugs that are currently illegal.
Also I never said that you supported alcohol being legal, I said “if you do…”
Also pointing out risks doesn’t give more evidence or power to the argument of prohibition. As ive pointed out (and you have refused to engage with) we are free to do many dangerous things. Why should it stop with drugs?
again you have provided 0 reasons to keep drugs illegal. You have only disagreed with my position without any reason for doing so. You are complaining about my evidence while providing none to compliment your case.
“Pro answered the Why of the BOP, but hasn’t proven it yet. The question still remains, how do we know less deaths would occur? Could we resolve this problem by providing drug education without legalizing it?”
I have answered how it will lead to less deaths many times now. I hope the voters realize that. Lowered contamination, knowing exactly what you’re getting, I also listed statistics of Portugal which drives the point home. I will list them again:
In 2001, Portuguese drug death rates were very similar to the EU average. While rates fell in Portugal following reform, they increased across the rest of Europe in the same timeframe. From 2011 onwards both Portugal and the rest of the EU have trended similarly, rising until 2015/6 — however, the gap between the two remains considerably wider than it was pre-reform. In real terms, drug death rates in Portugal remain some of the lowest in the EU: 6 deaths per million among people aged 15-64, compared to the EU average of 23.7 per million (2019). They are practically incomparable to the 315 deaths per million aged 15-64 experienced in Scotland, which is over 50 times higher than the Portuguese rates. By the way Scotland has some of the strictest drug policies in the world, I don't think that's a coincidence.
Another thing I'll say about the downsides of drugs being illegal is that police officers use drugs as an excuse to implement police brutality on people they believe are high. Then in court they use drugs to excuse their behavior. George Floyd is a perfect example. He was clearly high on something, an amphetamine if I had to guess. The officer can be heard saying "I'm afraid he's in an excited delirium." He used the fact he was high on drugs to do whatever he wanted to that man. Then in court they brought up he had fentanyl in his system. They said he had lethal doses in his system. There is no one lethal dose, it changes with body weight and tolerance, and they're not toxicologists. When you die the amount of drugs in your system begins to raise immediately after death due to the fact no more blood is circulating to clean out the drug. So he most likely did not even have that much fentanyl in his system, and he was a large guy. So our government constantly uses drugs being illegal to abuse people and that is just wrong.
There are many downsides to drug prohibition. You have yet to point out a single benefit of drug prohibition. You have only made erroneous comparisons to animals. What do pit bulls and lions have to do with drug use? How are you making this comparison between a domesticated dog and an Apex predator to drug use?
Con has yet to provide any reason to keep drugs illegal, and doesn’t seem to have the ability to cross reference sources and make conclusions about this topic. All of the evidence I have provided has shown most drug users are not addicts, most deaths are caused by contamination, and that legalizing drugs will allow people to use drugs in a safer manner. Just like we did with alcohol. He has also refused to engage with the philosophical aspect of it, the idea that we are allowed to do many dangerous things that all end in human deaths every year, we should extend our freedoms to drug use as well.
Voters should realize I am the only one providing any sort of evidence for any claim, peer reviewed studies, context to those studies, NIH statistics, statistics from other countries, pharmacological evidence of why contamination is so dangerous, etc. my opponent has provided nothing except illogical comparisons and opinions that were not thought out. It doesn’t seem like he has been considering anything I have said and has just been looking for ways to set traps that don’t hold up when confronted with evidence.
I will ask him a few questions I would like him to answer.
What are the benefits of drug prohibition? Do they outweigh the benefits I have listed for legalization?
Who does it benefit to keep drugs illegal besides politicians and owners of private prisons? Who are they protecting? Who are they saving? Surely not the 91,000 people who died last year.
Why is it ok for the government to continued a failed excitement? It failed with alcohol and it has failed for other drugs. It has landed people in prison, ruined lives, ruined reputations, and ruined families. Why is that ok? Why should we accept that from our government and allow them to continue to Throw drug users in cages for years at a time?
Con
#6
What evidence do you have that the current system we have isn’t broken? Death rates by contaminated drugs going up yearly? Addiction rates increasing yearly? What’s your evidence that our current system isn’t broken?
Legalizing drugs won't fix these problems. And there's nothing here to correlate the current laws with the death rates by drugs.
You've shown that historically, the government poisoned the drug supply to create a false narrative, but this still doesn't mean we should legalize drugs just for the sake of it. None of your evidence so far seems to indicate that legalizing drugs would solve these issues.
If anything, you've only proven why we should call for more laws. Specifically, laws that ban caffeine, nicotine, and alcohol.
And why we should implement drug education.
Also pointing out risks doesn’t give more evidence or power to the argument of prohibition. As ive pointed out (and you have refused to engage with) we are free to do many dangerous things. Why should it stop with drugs? again you have provided 0 reasons to keep drugs illegal. You have only disagreed with my position without any reason for doing so. You are complaining about my evidence while providing none to compliment your case.
On-balance was never specified.
You're required to prove that the law should legalize psychoactive drugs.
Also i have supported many lines of evidence as to why legalizing all substances would be better for society and make drug use safer. I shouldn’t have to spell them out three separate times for you to understand them. Less contamination will was to less death. Did you even read my argument? Did you see the results on drugs data? How would buying pure drugs not be safer than ingesting the results you saw on that website. Which is what everyone encounters when they buy drugs that are currently illegal.
There's still one more question that remains unanswered.
Would the benefits of implementing drug education be the same without the legalization of drugs?
Going back to your words from the previous round where you state the legalization of drugs would reduce the body count,
I listed three reasons why. Less death, less people in prison, less families ripped apart by parents and children going to prison for simple drug possession. Which accounts for about 45% of people in prison. there are other reasons as well. We allow alcohol and tobacco to be legal and purchased by adults.
When I clicked the links, I couldn't find any evidence that legalizing drugs would contribute to less death.
As for the other examples, there would be less people in prison and less families being ripped a part if people simply decided to follow the law and not abuse drugs.
Round 4
Pro
#7
My opponent does not seem to be able to grasp the what I am saying about legalization and reducing the number of deaths.
It is very simple and very clear. I have given many lines of evidence for it, he is either willfully ignoring them or doesn’t have ability to understand them. I will spell them out very clearly here.
The average amount of substances found in the autopsy of a drug death is 6. This is likely because of the drug market not being regulated. I posted the results of drugsdata.org to show just how serious the contamination and ignorance is. Some products sold as heroin literally did not have heroin in it. Legalization would fix this issue. As they would be sold in a regulated climate much like alcohol and tobacco. There is no possibility of alcohol containing fentanyl in America today. That is because it is legalized and regulated. There is no possibility of tobacco being contaminated by PCP, because it is legalized and regulated. If heroin was legalized and regulated in the same way, there would be no chance of it being contaminated with fentanyl or codeine, or xylazine, or cocaine. Because it would be legal and regulated. Just like cannabis today is sent to analytical labs to be tested for contaminants and THC concentration, these drugs would go through the same testing. Guess what there is 0 chance cannabis in legalized states will contain other drugs that are not produced by the plants, can you guess why? Because it is legal and regulated, but guess what? In my home state of Arkansas there have been many cases of cannabis being contaminated with synthetic cannabanoids, dangerous pesticides, and even fentanyl, can you guess why? Because it is illegal and not regulated.
that should not be hard to grasp.
“You've shown that historically, the government poisoned the drug supply to create a false narrative, but this still doesn't mean we should legalize drugs just for the sake of it. None of your evidence so far seems to indicate that legalizing drugs would solve these issues.”
Obviously the governments past isn’t the only reason to legalize drugs. I never even said that was the case. I was simply pointing out another downside of keeping drugs illegal, and the length to which the government will go to push a narrative. Never did I say this is the only reason to legalize drugs.
If you don’t believe I have presented evidence that legalization would solve these issues then you are not reading or not comprehending what I’m saying. Which is why I spelled it out to you like I would to some one in high school in this argument.
“If anything, you've only proven why we should call for more laws. Specifically, laws that ban caffeine, nicotine, and alcohol.
And why we should implement drug education.”
If this is the approach my opponent would take, at least he is philosophically consistent. However if he takes this approach he must apply this to everything. Cars kill people every year, should we make those illegal because they are dangerous and often end in human deaths? Should we make sky diving illegal because it is dangerous and often finds its way into a human death? Should we make guns illegal because they are dangerous and often find a way into a human death? Everything on planet earth, literally everything can be dangerous if used incorrectly. Water has killed people, we can’t make everything that has risks illegal, or we would not be allowed to do anything.
Should we not allow Desoxyn to be prescribed to people? Desoxyn is the name brand for methamphetamine and is taken by thousands of Americans a day. Should that not be allowed? What about the 16 million Americans who take amphetamine type stimulants every day should they be told they’re not allowed to take those drugs because they can be abused and end up killing the user?
https://amp.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/apr/16/16-million-us-adults-prescription-stimulants-study/
Assuming you disagree with those previous statements (as anyone should) Why does a piece of paper determine whether or not someone should be able to use a drug? Why does a piece of paper determine whether or not someone would benefit from using a drug? Especially if that piece of paper has to come from a visit to a clinic that isn’t cheap. It is simply wrong to throw some people in prison for taking a drug others are perfectly fine to take legally.
“There's still one more question that remains unanswered.
Would the benefits of implementing drug education be the same without the legalization of drugs?”
This is actually a good question. The benefits of drug education would be useful if drugs were kept illegal. However unless we legalized drugs, the full potential of the education would not be reached.
This is because no matter how educated you are on the topic of safe drug use, if you don’t know what you’re taking, the education is useless. And that is what most drug users face today. As i pointed out, many results on drugsdata.org for products sold as heroin, literally did not have heroin in it. So no amount of education could save you from that.
Just like no amount of sex education could save you from a condom breaking, and no amount of sex education could save you from getting STDs if the person didn’t tell you they had one or didn’t know themselves.
“When I clicked the links, I couldn't find any evidence that legalizing drugs would contribute to less death.
As for the other examples, there would be less people in prison and less families being ripped a part if people simply decided to follow the law and not abuse drugs.”
You clicked the links, but you didn’t actually consider what I was saying about the links. I can link you to many Ted talks given by credentialed people, many podcasts with credentialed people, who are saying what I am saying. I have a feeling you would still argue with a PhD in pharmacology and psychology on this topic, even though you know nothing about either of those topics. So I will post a couple of links to videos for you to watch.
Both of those links are talks done by Dr. Carl Hart, who is a chairman on the NIH and a PhD in psychology and neurochemistry. He agrees with me. Is the evidence he presents (even though it’s the same as mine) somehow more convincing to you?
The only thing you have proven to me, and hopefully the voters are picking up on it, is that you don’t have the ability to cross reference different results and come to a logical conclusion. You can’t even grasp how getting rid of contamination will drop the risk of death in drug users, and that’s probably the most straight forward point there is.
And yes you are correct that families wouldn’t get ripped apart if they didn’t do drugs. However doing drugs should’ve never been a reason to rip families apart in the first place. Like I said millions of Americans use drugs every day. Whether that’s prescriptions, alcohol, or nicotine. Why do those people deserve to keep their families if they’re being responsible, but cocaine users do not? Only abusive parents who abandon their children or assault them should have them ripped away from their families. Whether drugs were in the system or not. Parents who take care of their children and are productive members of society should not be ripped away from their children, whether they have drugs in their system or not. If people were being thrown in jail for having sex out of wedlock would your only answer really be “well they wouldn’t be in jail if they would just follow the law” or would it be “these are unjust laws that need to be changed.”
the approach you are taking to this debate is all wrong in my opinion. You are not able to grasp why what I am saying is evidence. You have ignored Portugal entirely, you haven’t truly thought about the points I’ve made about the befits of legalization, your only argument seems to be “I disagree.” You’re saying why you disagree, but your reasons make no sense and are simply not true. Not because I think your opinion is wrong, which i do, but because you are saying I haven’t provided any evidence to support my side. I have, you just either won’t engage with it, are willfully misunderstanding, or can’t grasp the complexity of the topic.
I hope voters realize that and do more thinking than my opponent has for the entirety of this debate.
Round 5
Pro
#9
I believe my opponent forfeited because none of his points have been able to compete with mine. I don’t think he has anything to offer the debate anymore.
Good debate, I hope you can bring some points next round.
Good debate, I hope you can bring some points next round.
Con
#10
As this is the last round, I cannot bring forth any new arguments, so I will show you what I already know so far.
Conclusion:
We knew the job of Pro right from the start of the discussion. The burden of proof requires him to prove the need to legalize all psychoactive substances. I gave him an easy way to demonstrate this by asking two questions.: Who and why?
He answered both of these but the latter question wasn't replied to sufficiently enough to demonstrate a need to legalize psychoactive drugs for two simple reasons.:
- He mentions that legalizing psychoactive substances would reduce the amount of convictions, but less convictions would happen if more people followed the law. And there would also be less convictions for murder if we legalized murder.
- He says less people would die. I challenge him on this by asking him to provide evidence because nothing in his sources seem to prove this claim. He implies I must draw this conclusion on my own by checking his sources.
The only thing you have proven to me, and hopefully the voters are picking up on it, is that you don’t have the ability to cross reference different results and come to a logical conclusion.
But none of his links explicitly back his claim or seem to support it. So I simply can't give the point to Pro here. Now the example about Portugal is a profound one, but it still doesn't sufficiently prove his case. Pro hasn't shown any peer-reviewed studies which prove that the lack of drug restrictions in Portugal have contributed to less deaths, and as we all know, correlation is not causation.
With this in mind, it seems Pro has failed to demonstrate the need for psychoactive substances and not met the BOP. If this had been an on-balance discussion, then I would have been required to offer more support for my side.
It would now seem that despite being civil, my opponent has become condescending,
If you don’t believe I have presented evidence that legalization would solve these issues then you are not reading or not comprehending what I’m saying. Which is why I spelled it out to you like I would to some one in high school in this argument.
My opponent does not seem to be able to grasp the what I am saying about legalization and reducing the number of deaths.
It is very simple and very clear. I have given many lines of evidence for it, he is either willfully ignoring them or doesn’t have ability to understand them. I will spell them out very clearly here.
I hope voters realize that and do more thinking than my opponent has for the entirety of this debate.
Just to reiterate to voters, it is not up to me to disprove the resolution but for Pro to prove it. And since Pro has not done so, I believe this wins me the point for arguments.
Criterion
Pro
Tie
Con
Points
Better arguments
3 point(s)
Better sources
2 point(s)
Better legibility
1 point(s)
Better conduct
1 point(s)
Reason:
"All psychoactive substances should be legalized for adults to purchase, possess, and use."
That's the topic. The topic is not "All psychoactive substances MUST be legalized for adults to purchase, possess, and use." As Con himself states, there must be some moral obligation to legalize these drugs, but that moral obligation can be achieved in multiple ways. If something should happen because it achieves a certain net benefit, that is sufficient reason to say that we "should" do it. So, while Con keeps arguing throughout the debate that Pro must meet some arbitrary threshold that, as he put it, "demonstrate[s] the need for psychoactive substances," it's neither clear that the resolution demands that threshold be met, nor is it clear what the threshold is. The two issues of "who" and "why" aren't thresholds, so it remains unclear throughout the debate.
So, yes, while the burden of proof is on Pro, I think the problem for Con is that the burden doesn't set the bar high enough to functionally make it unnecessary for Con to argue his side of the debate. Sure, Pro is required to present some reason to legalize psychoactive substances, which he does: correlative data shows a reduction in overdose deaths (just saying that it's only correlative doesn't invalidate the point, it only makes the link more tenuous), which likely result from a more consistent composition and better education (admittedly the latter point is non-unique since both sides claim they can do it), as well as the benefit of having fewer people rotting in jail (not a lot of impact built off of this, but Con's response that it can also be a reason to make murder legal isn't particularly convincing - it's a point that's meant to contrast with the harms of allowing the activity, which was a point Con never made). That's something, it's a non-zero reason to believe that legalizing psychoactive substances produces a genuine benefit. There are points to be made against this, but just denying that there's a solid point here isn't enough. As such, I vote Pro. Also, sources to Pro, since he backed up his points with substantial sources (even if they didn't fully prove his case, they proved aspects of it), whereas Con's responses to those sources were highly generalized and he didn't present any himself.
I will, it is my second priority behind a debate that goes out in like 22 hours.
Guys drop a vote on this debate doesn’t have any yet
Sounds good, ty
I've been quite busy, but I should be able to get to it sometime in the next few
Would you like to vote on this?
Rat-Man has me blocked for mental health reasons and is opting to ignore me.
I have you blocked for a different purpose and it's temporary. The shit-talking between you and I will resume normally.
Beyond that, you can sulk in your misery until then.
I want you to take a look at your comment and how hypocritical you are lol. Only thing I’ll say you today. Just let it marinate and sit with you a while. I have an oil spill to go work on while you’re doing that.
Rat-Man is too big of a bitch to respond to me or you. That’s why he makes these jabs behind block.
Rational madman
I don’t even know what you’re talking about. And no in my opinion Lancelot didn’t do better than you. But you also didn’t do better than him because both of you are wrong. Also you two have a really hard time combatting the evidence I have, and have no evidence to bring forth on this topic.
So stop with your weird arrogance because you’re not as smart as you think you are.
Also you still have me blocked because you’re a sore loser and cry baby.
The forced laughs are your biggest cope ever.
hhahahaha he thought he could do so much better than me! LOL!!!!
Care to drop a vote