Please Read My Rebuttal for My Class Debate. How Good Would You Say It Is on a Scale From 1 to 10?
Question by Joshua Coulter: Please read my rebuttal for my class debate. How good would you say it is on a scale from 1 to 10?
•Legalization of Drugs will Lead to Increased Use and Increased Levels of Addiction. Legalization has been tried before, and failed miserably. Legalization proponents claim, absurdly, that making illegal drugs legal would not cause more of these substances to be consumed, nor would addiction increase. They claim that many people can use drugs in moderation and that many would choose not to use drugs, just as many abstain from alcohol and tobacco now. Yet how much misery can already be attributed to alcoholism and smoking? Is the answer to just add more misery and addiction? It’s clear from history that periods of relaxed controls are accompanied by more drug abuse and that periods of tight controls are accompanied by less drug abuse. During the 19th Century, morphine was legally refined from opium and hailed as a miracle drug. Many soldiers on both sides of the Civil War who were given morphine for their wounds became addicted to it, and this increased level of addiction continued throughout the nineteenth century and into the twentieth. In 1880, many drugs, including opium and cocaine, were legal — and, like some drugs today, seen as benign medicine not requiring a doctor’s care and oversight. Addiction skyrocketed. There were over 400,000 opium addicts in the U.S. That is twice as many per capita as there are today. I want to leave you with something my mother has told me since I was 3. “The definition of insanity is doing something over and over and expecting a different result.” –Author unknown
Best answer:
Answer by Saul
I would say that it isn’t supported enough by facts.
For instance, instead of just saying that something is absurd, reference Denmark’s addiction and abuse rates. See the first link, for instance. Given those numbers, the case could be made that legalization leads to very high instances of abuse. But that’s not enough – offering those statistics mean nothing without contrast, so compare them to the US statistics, for instance (second link).
Of course, you might not want to mention that the rate of those in the US who have tried marijuana is 30%, while only 25% in Denmark. =)
It also doesn’t make sense to say that addiction “skyrocketed” after these drugs were created? On what basis do you make that claim? That kind of data wasn’t collected very thoroughly, so you’ll have to do better on supporting that claim if you want a good rebuttal.
If I was rebutting your rebuttal, I would immediately quote crime statistics from the pre- and post-Prohibition. Might want to be address that, too!
What do you think? Answer below!
Drug Addiction- Part 1 – Part 1 – Donny discusses his battle with drug addiction.
Find More Cocaine Addiction Information…