Change My Mind: The War on Drugs is Justified

I'm ardently opposed to legalizing drugs. While I don't necessarily see anything wrong with marijuana,  the more serious drugs like heroin, cocaine, opium and meth should not be legalized because of the harm that they can cause to our society. Take the China Opium War, for example. It nearly collapsed because of opium addiction, and the British Empire flooding them with opium when they refused to do trade tea and other goods with them. That in itself should show you the harmful effects .

Without the war on the drugs, we could create many more addicts than what we already have. My brother has struggled his whole life with addiction. I don't think that we need more stories like that where people get addicted to drugs.

The punitive actions law enforcement takes against these individuals has sometimes had a positive effect when these people want to make an actual change. Going behind bars, many drug addicts will tell you how that is where they got clean. Take the example of Joseph Guerrero from "After Prison Show." He talks about how he never did drugs in prison because of how he didn't want to make his circumstances worse and get his level upped. That should show you how prison can actually be helpful to drug addicts in overcoming their addiction.

The war on drugs is justifiable because it protects people from these harmful substances. If you do heroin one time, you can die of overdose or suffer permanent disability. 

All of these drugs rip apart wholesome American families. I'm aware that my opponent could argue, "Well, what about alcohol? Prohibition made that worse!" That always comes up in this fight in an argument on drugs. Here's the thing--alcohol can certainly have harmful effects. I'm not arguing against that. However, when you compare the damage done by heroin or methamphetamine,  the damage gets taken to a whole new level. People rob stores and steal from people over heroin and methamphetamine addiction. I've never in my life heard of someone robbing a store to get money for alcohol--it just doesn't happen, and that is why alcohol is illegal and some of the harder drugs are not.

My final argument is that drug addiction causes serious crimes. As I outlined in Section 2 drug addiction causes robberies for people to get money for their addictions. I've experienced this firsthand with my brother. I borrowed him a bunch of my video games, and he pawned them on me for drugs. That is stealing. Drug addiction causes people to become thieves and criminals to fuel their addiction, and that's why we need the war on drugs. It keeps this problem from spreading and infecting the rest of society. 

The more criminals we have in society, the less safe it becomes. Not to mention, some of the mental health consequences that come to people who do drugs, such as getting schizophrenia or multiple personality disorder or other mental health problems. The war on drugs protects us from further harm.  Without controlling drug addiction in our society, we could see the collapse of our society. When our citizens prosper, so does our nation. When our citizens are addicted to drugs, the whole nation suffers. 

The burden of proof rests on my opponent to prove otherwise.