Question: Should Direct-to-Consumer Prescription Drug Advertising Be Permitted?

Advertisements often have a detrimental impact on society.

1) Television is frequently exploited for commercial purposes, bombarding audiences with the message that happiness and fulfillment can only be achieved through purchasing products. This approach promotes blind acceptance and limits conscious decision-making, contributing to a consumer-driven society. Subliminal advertising can manipulate people into buying things they don't need, further exacerbating the issue.

2) People, especially children, spend a significant amount of time watching advertisements. Statistics show that the average American child views 262 commercials per week. This excessive exposure to ads can negatively impact their quality of life by narrowing their perspectives, reducing the variety of free-time activities, affecting family relationships by decreasing meaningful conversations, and even discouraging physical exercise. Research indicates that children under 8 years old are particularly vulnerable to advertising, often accepting claims at face value without understanding the intent to sell. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) recognized the unfairness and deceptiveness of advertising to children under 6 years old in the late 1970s but was unable to implement a ban due to practical concerns. However, countries like Sweden, Norway, Greece, Denmark, and Belgium have implemented restrictions on advertising directed at children.

Children and adolescents are exposed to a staggering 400,000 ads per year on television alone, despite regulations limiting advertising on children's programming. This exposure is exacerbated during prime time, which features nearly 16 minutes of advertising per hour. The high cost of advertising during events like the Super Bowl demonstrates the reach and impact of commercials.

Movies, music, and video games are often marketed to children and adolescents, despite their violent content. Even though theaters have agreed not to show R-rated movie trailers before G-rated films, children still see advertising for violent media in other venues. M-rated video games, not recommended for children under 17, are frequently advertised in places with high youth readership. Children's movies often feature prominent brand-name products and fast food restaurants. Alcohol companies also place products in movies and TV series, targeting young audiences.

Print media, including magazines targeted at children, expose them to a disproportionate number of beer and liquor ads. Despite the Master Settlement Agreement with the tobacco industry, tobacco advertising expenditures in youth-oriented magazines reached $217 million in 2000.

The internet has become a platform for enticing children and teenagers with direct sales. Teenagers contribute significantly to e-commerce, and the industry spends millions on internet banner ads. Over 100 commercial websites promote alcohol products

Alright, I will be starting with point 1, moving to point 2, and then covering dropped arguments by my opponents. __________________________________________________________________________ Point 1: My opponent offers 4 different planks one of which has a paragraph of justification behind it. Thus I will be focusing on each sub point. 1a. "Pharmaceutical patents limit who is able to produce a drug." This is entirely true but let me expand on this a little bit. Pharmaceutical patents do not only limit who can produce the drug but through limiting who can produce the drug pharmaceutical patents dictate how much the drug is put on the market for. This of course is the fundamental problem seen in Sub-S right now, prices that are too high for the common Sub-Saharan citizen to purchase. (Keep in mind some of those citizens make less than 2 dollars per week.) 1b. Yes and no. The government could violate the patent by producing the drug, this is true. However the government could also violate the patent by making it null and then allowing another company to produce the drug. 1c. "The government cannot, should not, and will not produce drugs." This is false. Governments quite clearly can produce goods, while the United States government is not the best example because it is primarily a capitalist nation it still has nationalized some things. For instance in the United States some transportation is produced solely by the government. Furthermore education to an extent has been nationalized by the government. While the private sector does produce a vast amount of the GPA in the country government activities non-the-less do account for 12.4% of the GPA. My point is this, the United States government has the ability to produce, it can produce medicine. However we are not just talking about the United States here, we are talking about governments in general. And other governments most certainly do produce medicine. Look at parts of Europe and Cuba, a country who's number one industry is medical tourism nationalized by the government. Next my opponent states that if the government hired a contractor that wasn't the patent holder to produce the medicine then it would be the contractor and not the government doing the violating. This is clearly fallacious, if the government did do this then the government would null the patent before the company created the product. If the government did not do this then the company would be violating federal law, and the government would be forced to act accordingly. Thus the government can hire a contractor while simultaneously violating a pharmaceutical patent, itself. Finally my opponent states that it is not the governments job to produce, it is the governments job to govern. I contest his theory, I believe instead that it is the governments job to solve national or global problems in a coordinated manner. If this means saving 900,000 people from certain death each and every year, so be it. So a brief recap is in order. The government can produce drugs, the government should produce drugs in order to save lives. We are talking about every government in existence not just the United States. Even if those governments hire contractors to produce the drugs the government still must be the one to violate the patent in some way, whether this means nulling it or simply making an exception for said company. 1d. Cross apply 1a, 1b, and 1c, those three cover this point very nicely. In fact, just reread the paragraph before this one, it covers the points. ______________________________________________________________________ Point 2: My opponent once again offers 4 sub points, I will be focusing on each of them in turn. I will be showing how my opponent is going to require a substantial amount of proof to back up his opinions. 2a. "It is unfair to the Pharmaceutical company for the government to violate their patent." Is it really? Lets look once again to my example. Right now the pharmaceutical companies producing Malaria drugs are making a hypothetical x amount of money. Those same companies are not selling to Sub-Saharan Africa thus the plan is this. Governments violate the patents allowing the governments to produce those drugs at a lower cost and distribute them potentially free. Thus at the end of the day when the Sub-Saharan Africans have the drugs and 900,000 of them are no longer dieing of Malaria the companies are still going to be making x amount of money. The fact that the government violated the patent and produced drugs for a population that the companies weren't producing for in the first place has 0 affect on the products. However I cannot stand to simply rebut this point, I must also turn it. What is even more unfair than the potential harm to pharmaceutical countries that my opponent is attempting to prove is the harm done to 900,000 people each year who were born by no choice of their own into the poorest region of the world. These people have just as much right to live as anyone who is reading this debate yet my opponent is more interested in supporting those already living with a high quality of life. Placing monetary value above the value of life is far more unfair than any injustice that could happen to a pharmaceutical company. Making an extra couple dollars for your already bulging piggy bank is not worth the death of 900,000 annually. 2b. "The government and the Pharmaceutical company can come to a mutual agreement, whereby they can nullify the patent or a special exception can be made for the government." I agree that this is a fundamentally good idea. This does not change the fact however that not every pharmaceutical company out there is going to go for this. My opponent is going to have to prove in his next round that every pharmaceutical company would be completely fine with having their patent infringed upon at no benefit to themselves. Like my opponent said in his last round, "Helping people out is not a major incentive for a pharmaceutical company to do research." Furthermore even if my opponent can somehow prove that these companies are fine with patent infringement this does not nullify my case, let's examine 2c. 2c. "If the patent is first nullified or a special exception is made for the government, then the government would no longer be able to violate the patent." This is completely untrue. A nullification or special exception to an already standing patent is a violation of it. This would be like me telling everyone that they could not touch me, and then at a later date stating that my girlfriend can touch me. I violated the original ruling when I changed it. The same is true here, to change the patent in someway that differs at any point of contradiction from the original patent is a violation of the original patent. Furthermore if the companies do outright say no OR yes to the patent violation my case will still stand. As it is still a just cause to save the 900,000 lives in face of profit. Thus the resolution is still proved true. This is simply two scenarios that are just. For instance if a bully was beating me up a just response would be to fight back, but a better response would be to run away and get a police officer. They are both JUST responses, one just happens to be better. The same is true here, both cases are JUST responses to the deaths of 900,000 people, one just happens to be better. 2d. Cross apply every point above. _________________________________________________________________________ Finally lets examine the things my opponent has dropped. -He concedes that Sub-S needs the Malaria drugs. -He concedes that utilitarianism and life over profit are the highest values in this round. -He concedes my resolutional analysis. With that I can see nothing but a Pro vote at this point in time.

You chose to rebut only the part of my argument that was concerning the side effects of smoking. That's sad. In fact, I have not only proved that second hand smoke is harmful and the payment of cigarettes is destruction to people's lives and to some families too [1], but also how smoking is basically suicide and homicide (do we want that for our country? ), how many kids smoke underage and that is illegal (why not ban it altogether? ), all the traits to how smoking is bad for your health (why would we let people fall into this trap and then die early because of a leaf? ), how people who start smoking always become addicted and drug addictions are never good, how 70% all smokers want to quit and only 7% can (why not ban it if most users regret their choice of trying a cig? ), how something that looks 'good' is not always 'right,' etc. etc. You only chose to try to rebut a fifth of my argument. By the way your sources aren't showing up. I will use common sense and sources in my rebuttals: "So you are claiming the feeling from smoking is being wrongly interpreted by the body, I don't think so, you are experiencing the chemicals in the cigarette such as dopamine [2] that helps control the brains pleasure centre, this is no illusion, it is physically happening to the body. Also, as I've said before people are aware of the risks, its not your place to determine what they should or should not do about their bodies. " Exactly: if people are aware of the risk, why should we let them go ahead and ruin themselves? It like secret suicide. Because it started off as a trend (in the early 1900s until it was condemned in the '80s) but it has stayed an option for people who don't believe smoking is actually that bad for you. Smoking doesn't relieve stress in any way, that is a myth. [2] If I was going to pull a Mr. Incredible and try to save someone from attempting suicide, would you let me? Same concept. "Is this really a reason to ban smoking, that is poor. " I was giving reasons why smoking should not be allowed. .. "As for asthma, the fact that second hand smoke can trigger attacks is not reason enough to justify banning cigarettes overall, people should be more wildly educated about these facts, this is the way to really solve problems not just banning everything. " Smoking just makes other people miserable, that's all. As I said, it not only triggers asthma attacks but is bad for anyone who breathes the smoke in. It's really useless for you to try and refute the health related arguments of mine. Please don't even. You CANNOT compare video games, or even caffeine, to the drug called tobacco! It is such a lame way to say smoking should not be banned (your summary was literally comparing video games to smoking). Nevertheless I will rebut: "Video games, like smoking are very addictive. Video games, like smoking can have negative health effects if you become addicted. " What are these negative health effects, staring at a screen too long therefore slight worsening of eyesight? I think you should debate whether video games cause violence or not. That would be a better suit for you. Do video games cost money for every level as smoking does for every pack? Do video games make your lungs fail you? Do video games hurt others as well? No no and no. It is not a good comparison in any slightest way. You act like smoking is the most innocent thing one could do. Looking forward to the last round. It would be nice to have a rebuttal for the videos I posted, too. SOURCES [1] . http://www.quitsmokingsupport.com... [2] . http://www.answers.com...

I apologise to my opponent for the delay in getting this up, and for the abbreviated nature of this argument. Recently, my country legalised medicinal cannabis use (http://en.wikipedia.org...). Since then, we haven't had any significant cases of abuse. Our insurance costs have not skyrocketed, and niether have our taxes. We are not a destination for drug tourism, and we have not undermined our anti-cannabis stance in wider society. When people take medicinal cannabis, their doctors first assess their condition. The doctor's "do no harm" mantra prohibits them from proscribing anything that is significantly harmful for the patient. Obviously, most if not all medicines have side effects, but we allow doctors to assess what will work best for the patient because they - not the government - are the ones who know the medicine best. Ultimately we leave the decision down to the patient when a range of options are available for the same reason. To presume that some government buraeucrats have a better understanding of each patient's individual condition (if you will excuse my RoyLatham-esque expression), and thus what treatments should be available, is to undermine the entire healthcare system. Healthcare is a personal thing. Our right to life confers a responsibility for it, and our responsibility for our life empowers us to choose what medicine we take. We make exceptions in various circumstances - for young children, for instance, and for mentally impaired people who cannot understand what is involved with these decisions - but in general the rule is that illness does not rob us of our general autonomy, but rather extends it. It allows us access to public facilities, such as hospitals, just as it opens up access to prescription drugs, for the simple reason that we cannot make a choice when certain choices are prohibited. As a principle, we feel it is entirely consistant with the role of the healthcare system to legalise cannabis. You can't make a full medical choice when certain medical options, endorsed by many scientists globally, are not available to you. For instance, cannabis causes pain relief. It would be a mistake to assume that cannabis is not the right pain reliever for anybody. That's why the choice must be available, in these kinds of difficult medical situations, not narrowed down to a few government-approved alternatives. I personally do not believe there is any evidence cannabis cures anything, or has any helpful effect beyond suppression of symptoms (such as pain). However, since doctors will not have the prescribed the medicine in any situation where it would be harmful, the cannabis would never be used when it is harmful to the patient's health. Since a person who's in hospital all the time undergoing chemo is not exactly going to be drug driving or doing property crime, there's no harm to the public either. Furthermore, research on cannabis is still ongoing. Perhaps it has some helpful effect that science has not yet isolated. It must be the patient, informed by the advice of their medical professional, who makes that decision, not me, because I have no responsibility for their health. My contention is that it should be on the basis of harms to the patient, not the benefits to the patient, that medicine is administered. We already accept the principal that the relative value of benefits must be decided by the patient because we allow patients to refuse treatment. Since cannabis has no real harms when administered in the right way under proper, doctor-specified and recommended conditions, as and when appropriate, there is nothing wrong with medicinal cannabis legalisation. We do not ban the use of placebos if patients want to take them voluntarily. Patients can, if they so wish, hug a teddy bear instead of undergoing chemotherapy and pray to God to remove the desease. These are examples of placebos, and they confer no benefits, nor do they have any particular harms. Cannabis can, under most circumstances, fall in the same category. In the remainder of circumstances, doctors will intervene. As can be shown with countries where it has been legalised, such as New Zealand, this does not translate into a broader problem for society. If you don't accept medicinal marijuana, then as a principle, you deny patient autonomy. You limit the scope of healthcare. But what is of greater value than human life? Even if cannabis has few, if any, beneficial effects, that is no grounds for banning it as a choice. That is why we need to legalise cannabis for medicinal use.

So in the final part of this debate, there have been a number of key themes that have been echoed throughout the debate, the key themes that both sides wish to win in order to win this debate. 1. The theme of implications arising from advertising, that advertising negatively impacts children In this theme, we have argued about the negative connotations that are manifested by advertising. We drew out the example of bullying. Con attempted to rebut this by pointing out it as a 'straw man' and pointing out how connections fail to exist. However, connections DO exist. We must try to focus on how both advertising and bullying creates consequences for individuals at a young age. Yes, advertising promotes consumerism, but consumerism is a very broad issue. Advertising creates want in children. It encourages children to pursue the latest innovative toy. This leads to competition between children, which in turn can lead to cases of bullying. While this is a relatively small link, the biggest link between the two is that both share negative consequences and that is what we have been trying to stress throughout the second speech. In the second speech, we narrowed the debate to the idea of advertising from fast food joints promoting poor dieting and health issues. The con then moves on to reply to this by pointing out that 'parents failed to give a proper education.' Ladies and gentlemen, this is a MAJOR contradiction! The Con spends a significant amount of their rebuttal hinging around the positive effects of parents on children, but then moves on to quote how there are a certain amount of parents who neglect to do so. They raised the point of parents but effectively made that argument redundant by proving it wrong in certain cases. Hence, the home-schooling point in addition to the point about parents helping children out is rendered redundant. However, even if this was not the case, parents should not be burdened with the expectation that they have to spend a considerable amount of time lecturing and educating their children. Parents do not live the easy life, they have to spend extensive periods of time at their workplace in order to make a solid living for their family. We should not be imposing extra regulations and burdens on these parents to justify the state's laziness. Again, repeating earlier, we need to cut this off from the stem, and that is something the state can do. 2. The morality of advertisements targeting children, the weak This theme has been poorly explored throughout the debate, however the Con has not once attacked nor responded to our idea that advertisements are immorally targeting children, so we have common ground, in favour of the Pro. Advertisements targeting children is unethical, something that both sides have agreed on. 3. Whether this issue is something that is reduced over time Con attempted to resolve this theme by pointing out that without learning 'morale lessons' from their childhood, they are unable to make better decisions. Yes, this is partly true. What the con however, failed to raise up is the point that there are schools. Schools are here for a reason. -The con attempts to justify their reasoning with the idea that parents are the sole source of education. But again, in theme 1, the idea of using parents as the sole or main source of education is highly flawed. -However, even if we do use schools to educate children, children have an active time of around 6 hours away from school every day (not including sleeping), and around 12 hours on weekends. This is around 50-55 hours every week away from school, becoming increasingly susceptible to inappropriate advertisements. -We can link this to the drug issue prevalent in society. Drugs are commonly devalued and looked down upon, but there are laws restricting the use of alcohol, cigarettes and drugs to 18 years of age (or 21 in some countries). Why does the law do this? This is because the state believes that children have matured enough and gained enough knowledge from the educational system that they can make their own informed decisions. Parents cannot teach their children appropriately in a short amount of time. We should neither expect nor force them to. Drug dealers cannot target children because there is an explicit harm involved, while the harm with advertising is reduced to a certain extent, it lies around the same morals and we should not allow these companies to actively target children for the sake of greed and profit. Ladies and gentlemen, we should not allow these companies to target these children to satiate their own greed. This is one part of the status quo that is inherently flawed and we need to fix this. As we can firmly see, the three key themes of this debate fall on the pro side and this is why we are proud to propose.

First, I will attack my opponent's proposal; then, I will show how my opponent's criticisms are based only on fearmongering. OVERALL My opponent's proposals will not lower medical costs because they do not target the root. 1) Allow insurance companies to compete across state lines. While this may lower insurance premiums ever so slightly, it does not lower medical costs. Medical costs remain the same, and insurance premiums must necessarily be above them. Therefore, the individual is no better off, especially when his other proposals are considered. 2) Government Handouts I am often quite disgusted to read these proposals from Republicans pretending to support economic freedom. This tax credit subsidizes the behaviour of not paying for insurance. The individual is given incentive to not buy insurance. Why would anyone want this? This proposal's intention is to get people to buy insurance, and yet the moment these individuals do, they are cut off of the subsidy. This proposal doesn't even meet its goal! It simply grants free money to anyone who asks for it, given that they don't have health insurance. The natural result: welfare mothers will avoid purchasing health insurance to recieve a subsidy. From an economic perspective, this subsidy steals money from producing Americans and gives it to welfare mothers and the burgeoisie. 3) Government Regulations A more simple step would be enforcing current fraud laws. However, fraud is not the problem. Individuals are choosing not to read contracts, and are suffering the consequences. All that my opponent's proposal does is make advertising impossible. (Imagine the narrator of an ad having to read through everything covered and not covered by each offer mentioned!) The thing though is, actually, individuals are quite aware of what is and what isn't covered because they sign a contract. There is no fraud, only laziness. What my opponent's proposition will do is prevent insurance marketing, eliminating consumer information entirely. ON TO MY PROPOSALS 1) Deregulate insurance companies My opponent has conceded this point. 2) End Occupational Licensure "Are you mad?" Ad Hominem http://fallacyfiles.org... My opponent presents three objections to my second proposal. First, he believes it will lower the quality of healthcare. In actuality, it will allow specialization. The midwife will no longer be required to have 10 years of medical school over the endocrine system and brain surgery. Instead, his/her training will be able to be focused on whatever field he wishes to focus on. The individual will be free to pursue a medical career without prohibitive medical school fees. On a different note, there are more efficient ways of education than schooling. On-the-job training and internship is much more efficient and longlasting in the worker's memory than schooling. In fact, the "knowledge and skills learned here are impossible to learn in the classroom" [http://www.campusgrotto.com...]. Second, my opponent objects saying that children have some sort of natural right to a birth by a licensed medical provider. Wherefrom comes this right? Was every birth up til the institution of medical licensing a crime? What of the births in a car on the way to the hospital? Are those criminal? Third, my opponent asserts that mistakes would actually increase, and that this will result in an increased tax burden. First, the individual who goes to a shady man on the street to get eye surgery from a guy with a rusty spoon deserves to be blind. Second, in order for individuals to want to pay for healthcare, they have to be confident in their operator. The medicalcare provider, assuming he wants to earn a living, must convince the consumer that he/she is a better option than the guy next door. Lastly, assuming the existing system of liability, the taxpayer would not be responsible for the mistakes: the operator would. So, there is no tax concern. This liability will further persuade the common man to not try to perform eye surgeries with a rusty spoon. 3) Ending government medicinal regulations The approval system would not cease to exist without government action, as my opponent insists. Being liable for fraud and wanting to keep up consumer confidence will force companies to be confident that there will be no mistake. This testing will either be performed by the individual companies or by specialized testing companies, whichever the market finds more efficient. Whoever performs this function must necessarily be the cheapest and most thorough in testing, making for a more effective, cheaper, and efficient system than at present. This is most certainly a better system than a corrupt and inefficient FDA. CONCLUSION: My opponent's solution does not meet its goals. It does not cut costs. It lessens consumer information. My solution cuts costs, both medicinal and labourous. It allows for a more efficient and effective medical market. Thank you.

No, not all drugs should be legalized in the U.S. 1. because if smoking is allowed anywhere, asthma attacks to different people are bound to happen and possible death, 2. Most drugs are too addicting and can distract drivers, 3. they harm the environment, which the environment such as tree, grass, flowers, etc. is what are keeping us alive and full of oxygen.

I started this debate before, but got LatentDebater who was banned, so we couldn't finish. I really want to do this debate, so I'm putting it up again. I'll put the link to the other debate in the comments so you can see the arguments I'll probably start with (but may not. It depends). In the suburb where I live, I've noticed that being on antidepressants is almost as common as not being on them. People are on them and long term and I have SO MANY issues with this. By "being duped" I mean that they would be no worse off if they weren't taking them, and probably would be better off. antidepressants: SSRIs, SNRIs. Of course, if you want, you can try to include other drugs, but they have to be proper antidepressants meaning drugs that doctors would be likely to prescribe for depression. Rounds 1. acceptance 2-3 arguments and rebuttals 4 conclusion no new arguments. 5000 characters per round.

My opponent is a misinformed person but that's ok because it doesn't harm society in this level of debating. His claim amounts to a single point: >People are fully aware of the consequences of a decision before they make it. This statement although true, does not advance my opponents claim due to the fact that there are various other components that weigh on different sides of the person's desicion to start taking drugs. Consider this scenario: there is a homeless person named Scott who lives on the street. Everyday, Scott is abused and assaulted and has trouble getting food or water. He has various friends who are in the same state that he is in, but they are less than honorable. These friends introduce him to drug use. immediantly, Scott's reaction is that the drugs will not make him happier, he knows the consequences of drug use and that it will hurt him. But Scott agrees to try the drug out and is later hooked, addicted to the drug which releases copious amounts of dopamine in his brain, shutting down his euphoria receptors. Scott becomes depressed and when he cannot find a way to acquire more of the drug himself, he kills himself. Now, everything about that scenario is reflected in tens maybe hundreds of thousands of alike people, but what I want my opponent to realise, is that it completely disproves the basis of his claims. Scott was not influenced by his own reasoning as my opponent would claim he was, his normal state of mind was already impaired by: >His friends >His state of living The same situation can be applied to every drug user in the country, humans are not capable of doing things without reasoning and so any reasoning that leads a human to do something against his/her nature is unnatural. My opponents view is that we are not morally obliged to stop someone from harming themselves even though they do not want to. There is no such thing as a human who wants to harm themselves in their correct state of mind. The incorrect state of mind is like a prison, it tortures the person even though they don't want it, but they will continue living in that prison because we have neglected them. That disproves my opponents claims that people who are in the right state of mind can make the decision to harm themselves. Completely false, if they make that desicion, then obviously they are in the impaired state of mind. Allowing them to make their desicions using an impaired conscious is completely inhumane and cruel. Looking at my opponents claim that we have freedom of choice, Its pretty plain to see that he didn't properly read my post at all. He completely failed to defend it from a rebuttal that was waiting for him to arrive. Lets go through his unorganised slab of text and refute each point as it arises: 'he is assuming that every person on this earth from the richest tycoon to the poorest man follows this theory of philosophy.' What my opponent says is accurate here, although the implicit straw-man is not welcome. All creatures follow some form of the philosophy of utilitarianism as a default. in animals, instead of looking for happiness they look for survival and different ways to survive and eat. Humans are not so worried about survival as animals, so we look for a purpose, happiness. Everything ever done by humanity with reason has been done for the reasons of 'a greater good,' a 'better place,' or simply for happiness. Why do we search for things to satisfy our curiosity? Its makes us happy. Why do we kill millions of each other in wars and battles? For greed, why are we greedy? For happiness. Everything boils down to happiness eventually, drugs are no different. In fact, drugs are the closest to failed pursuits of happiness than nearly anything else. 'he judges everybody with a standard model he says that if everybody in the world was given the full information about drugs, if they knew it was going to hurt them in the long run then they would not take.' Until an exception can be found to the rule, it shall stand. My opponent is very closed minded when he sees an ordinary person deciding to take drugs for the first time. However, we need to balance the motives. If there is peer pressure shoving the individual on one side, then we need to provide information to discourage him proportionate to the level of peer pressure he or she is experiencing. This way, we can negate the disruptive influences that negatively impact someone's choice. All decisions should be able to be made by an individual without exterior negative interference. That is called freedom of choice. But where all the information comes from a single party, eg, a friend or criminal dealer, the choice has been negatively affected and cannot be called 'free.' So who is going to provide the other half of counterbalances to dispute negative influences? The government. His ending statement seeks to misinterpret my previous arguments. I said that all humans living in society have: >The duty to protect society >The duty to progress society >The duty to maintain society I was wrong to assume my opponent had a shred of common sense. Ill explain it in simple English: The duty to protect society means that all members that benefit from society are obliged to help prevent or intervene with an attack on society if it is within their power to do so. The duty to progress society means that any opportunity that will advance any aspect or capability of society is not to be turned down unless it conflicts with a person's privileges (rights). Eg. Thou shalt continue working that extra 5 minutes that will allow a discovery of the cure to cancer even if you have a sore toe. The duty to maintain society is actual a duty to not tear it apart. If you are born into the world and live of welfare for your entire life, you are a drain on society and are in the wrong. The laws of Australia that prevent drug use also prevent a complete massacre of the younger generation. We both know that adolescent children have an impaired ability to determine risk. Well known fact. Considering that making it illegal for teenagers won't stop it getting to them, I would like to challenge my opponent to propose a method in which drugs can be made legal whislt our teenagers stay safely out of its reach. I would like to raise some previous points that my opponent completely failed to address in the probably vain hope that he might see them. >there is no way to harm yourself in society that doesn't harm someone else. >Drugs destroy your duty of care to society >Would you force someone to stop doing something if they are not in their correct mindset? I would like to finish up by quoting my opponent from outside this debate, after a different argument I asked him why he still supported his claim, he said: 'I am irrational.' This wasn't a joke or anything, he said what he meant and meant what he said, so my question, which I never got to ask him, is something that is irrational worth supporting for the purposes of this debate? The resolution is negated, now lets see what else my opponent has to say...

To answer your questions at the top:The war on drugs is far too serious, but I am on the pro side of stopping drugs. It should be illegal, but with lesser jail sentences (like 9 years instead of 10.)"We can pass laws against getting high in public."We've passed laws about not drinking and driving, public drunkenness, and not smoking in many facilities. And look how that turned out. It's time for an OVERLOAD OF REASONS!!!•Also, many people are trying to make tobacco illegal. In California, there are commercials and webpages all over that are trying to stop it. If smoking tobacco is bad, then smoking marijuana is just as bad. Both of them should be illegal due to health concerns. Also, driving while high is as bad as driving while intoxicated.•True, no one has ever died from smoking too much pot, but it made their lives a living hell. And that may be a bit worse than dying, pending your opinion on the afterlife. •As we both know, the world is trying ever so hard to stop cancer. Marijuana has 60% more cancer-causing particles than tobacco [1]. People smoking marijuana can get pregnant, leading to deformed babies whose lives will be very bad. •While marijuana has never killed anybody, 75 people per year are high on pot while they die. We do not know that this is a coincidence or not. [1]Those are all of the reasons I have today for you. It's been fun, and now it's up to the voters to see what they think![1] http://www.drugfreeworld.org...

Thank you Mikel for that touching story about your grandmother. May she rest in peace. Now I want to tell you about three other stories about assisted suicide. These are the stories of Barbara Wagner, Kate Cheney, and Randy Stroup and they all live in Oregon, a state since 1998 that has allowed assisted suicide to be a treatment for patients. Let's tell the story of Barbara first, then move to Kate and finally to Stroup's story. Barbara was a 64 year old suffering from lung cancer in the state of Oregon. She was on Medicare and she asked the state for to lowered the cost for medicine that she thought she was going to get. Instead of the $4,000 a mouth drug plan her doctor prescribed to her, she was given drugs for assisted suicide that costs around $50. Wagner went on ABCNews and told her story saying that "I got a letter in the mail that basically said if you want to take the pills, we will help you get that from a doctor and we will stand there and watch you die" (her words, not mine). Wagner got the medicine she wanted from the state and lived for another year around people she cared about. Kate was a 85 year old women also from Oregon that according to a professional psychiatrist, Kate was cognitively impaired and that means that she could not remember recent events or people and was not mentally stable to ask if her life can be taken away. Sadly this doctor was moved away Kate and the second physician found that she was depressed and that it was treatable. Instead of being treated for her depression, she got in touch with Dr. Peter Goodwin, a medical doctor at the pro-euthanasia organization "Compassion in Dying". After battling cancer for 22 years, she died by assisted suicide on March 1998 death. One of the first assisted suicides in the state of Oregon after the passing of the new bill allowing euthanasia could have been preventable with any kind of Antidepressant and a better handling of her mental state. Finally we get to Randy Stroup more happier story. Randy like Wagner applied and asked the State of Oregon to help him provide for the medicine he needed to combat that cancer he had. Like Wagner he was on Medicare and like Wagner was denied treatment. According to Stroup "(How could they) not pay for medication that would help my life, and yet offer to pay to end my life". After his story hit the media, the state gave him the medicine he asked for and should be provided for. All three of these people live in the same state, all three had some kind of cancer, all three needed medicine to combat their cancers and yet all three were denied from the start to the right to get health care and all three where instead given the right to die. To me, these stories tell me that the State of Oregon was using something that advocates say will help people die peacefully to really using it so they could not pay for their medicine all three of these cancer patients want. It sounds to me like the State of Oregon is using the Right to Die as a way of avoiding the right health care and medicine. Oregon is also a very rich state and has a small population within the US and if this kind of pro-euthanasia law like this were put in into action in states like New York and California then we could see state saving millions of dollars for health care but killing people that don't really want to die and just want to get to there medicine and treatment. Also studies have shown that 93-94% of people wanting to commit suicide suffer from a mental disorder and that most patients wanting to commit suicide have under gone extreme emotional and physical pain leading them into depression and of those patients many want to seek help to deal with their depression and they use the reason for suicide as way of crying for help. Most disorders for depression are treatable and after the patient gets that treatment they usually never talk or rarely think of suicide again. If patients deal with extreme pain and ask to commit suicide then that pain is very much treatable. According to the a February 1993 in the Anesthesiology, 70-80% to all cases of widespread cancer is manageable by oral administration and that many treatments of pain reduction are blocked or not understood by the medical staff. In 1969, psychiatrist Elizabeth Kubler-Ross outline 5 stages of the dying process, denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Since that time Dr. Kubler-Ross has stated that suicide is wrong for terminal ill patients because she states that "(But assisting a Suicide is) cheating them of those lessons like taking a student out of school before final exams. That's not love, it projecting your own unfinished business". So that means when a patient is depressed then suicide is not the right answer and leading them to acceptance of that fact that they are going to die is better for that person. My final point will be the legal and moral troubles around assisted suicide. Like in the cases of Wagner, Cheney, and Stroup, states can use the euthanasia laws to not allow people medicine and override the patients right to life and health care. Because of this example, the right to death may conflict to the right of health care or to life leading to a lot of legal and ethnic troubles. Also if we allow assisted suicide to happen, the views on suicide may change from from "We respect your wishes" to "we don't care if you live or die" allowing suicide outside assisted suicide to be lawful and socially allowed. Personally I think if someone wants to die whether healthy or ill, there is a bigger issue or issues underneath the surface of the plea for death, so instead of allowing that person life we just kill them off instead of helping them through the issues they have. That seems to me that assisted suicide is just a easy way to avid the real problems with someone ill or healthy that want to die. Sources are http://www.nrlc.org... http://www.nrlc.org... http://www.nrlc.org... http://www.nrlc.org... http://www.telegraph.co.uk... http://www.herpeculiarlife.blogspot.ca... http://abcnews.go.com... http://www.deathasalesman.com...


Question: Should Direct-to-Consumer Prescription Drug Advertising Be Permitted?

Direct-to-Consumer Prescription Drug Advertising
I concur. To begin, my adversary should clarify what is meant by direct-to-consumer prescription drug advertising. Who is doing the advertising? What types of drugs are being promoted? Where are these advertisements being displayed? Regardless, I will present some fundamental arguments. Regulating these advertisements would infringe upon two aspects of the First Amendment. Firstly, Freedom of Speech. These companies are attempting to promote their brand, which is (and must be) FDA approved. As long as no harm or defamation occurs due to these advertisements, it is unconstitutional to regulate them. Secondly, Freedom of the Press. Many of these ads appear in newspapers or magazines. Again, if the drug is FDA approved and the publishing entity consents to the drug ad, it is legally permissible. On constitutional grounds, I object to my opponent's position.

I have clearly stated that by accepting you agree that the BoP is shared. First of all i would like to make a little speech why I think drugs should be legalized . The war on drugs has been going on for decades , now it has cost world economies billions and thousands of innocent people were put into jail for a victim less crime but humanity has been using drugs for thousands of years of human history it is a part of human culture that we are not gone rid of by criminalizing it from Alexander the Great's opium to modern age cannabis use criminalizing people for drug use will not stop people doing it . Now i will explain why legalizing drugs is a good idea 1. Violence&Black Market Why do we associate drug use with violence? It is because people who want to use drugs have to go to a black market to buy them this market is unregulated and uncontrolled , different factions involved in drug trade are fighting against each other and by legalizing drugs we would give people the chance to buy drugs from a more reliable source such as the government or a regulated private sector . This market is regulated which makes everything better , don't you think most people would rather buy from it than from a drug dealer in a dark alley that has no knowledge of business management , The black market would collapse 2. Freedom. In a truly free society people shouldn't restrict the freedom of others this is very relevant to the issue of banning drugs as drug usage is a victim-less crime and I consider banning it to be immoral. 2. Safety. Why do so many people overdose on drugs? for example heroin apart from its addictiveness is not as harmful to your body as let's say cocaine as heroin addicts can survive decades and the only reason why they die in the end is because of overdosing. The reason why people overdose on such drugs is because like I explained before they are forced to buy them from an unregulated market where drug dealers can put stuff into the drug to increase the value therefore customers are not sure how pure it is and might inject too much causing an overdose. 3. Price. Drug addicts often have to engage in criminal activity to get money for their next fix but if drugs were legalized the price would go down and it wouldn't be such a hard job to get your next fix so your life can be a lot better. 4. Prison Overgrowth . For this example let's look at the USA , 5% of the worlds population lives in USA yet 25% of all prisoners in the world are in USA , around 80% of all drug arrests are simply for having drugs on you ,this is putting innocent people in prison and over crowding prisons that have to be paid for. 5. Money. Taxing those who produce drugs will give the government a lot of money , this is a simple argument not much to add to this argument 6. Statistics. in 1970 there were 9000 convictions or cautions for drug offenses and 15% of young people had used an illegal drug. In 1995 the figures were 94 000 and 45%. Prohibition doesn't work. Sources . http://www.drugwarfacts.org............ . http://www.poppies.ws............ 'Alexander the Great introduced poppies to the Near East, starting the flowers long history in Asia. Opium was largely used as a social drug in India and China. Ancient Asian texts described the medical properties of opium. ' . http://www.spiegel.de............ ' If it legalized drugs, the United States could save $85 billion to $90 billion per year. Roughly half that is spent on the current drugs policy and half that is lost in taxes that the state could have levied on legal drugs. ' . . http://www.huffingtonpost.com...

Con says there can be no improvement in medicines without the public paying for them.Of course,there can be improvement in medicines and medicines can still be produced WITHOUT the pubic paying for them.('them' referring to medicines) The hospitals can increase the treatment cost and supply the medicines for free and give the increased amount to the pharmaceutical companies,which in turn makes sure that these companies make new medicines. I would like to remind Con that this debate is just about medicines being made free;not the treatment costs and medication. I would like to sum up on what I had said earlier 1. Companies and hospitals can mint money and are making a lot of money even after giving medicines for free. 2.Basic medicines like the ones we take for fever, pain and cold should be given away for free to all the sections of society. 3.Medicines are are absolute necessity and should be given free of cost. Hence medicines should be made free.

Thanks once again to Snowbunny for this debate! I would like to take this chance to restate that the response time for this debate is a shortened 48 hours, instead of the usual 72 hours.INTROThe question were are considering is simple and straightforward: should the government prohibit the use of recreational tobacco products, including cigarettes, cigars, and chew. Ultimately, a government's core obligation is to the welfare of its people; the whole purpose of laws that restrict the consumption of dangerous drugs is that these laws have public utility. Consider the potential harms that drugs pose to individuals, and then consider if they were more widely available. It would pose a significant public health risk to the country.I will assert that if the benefits of a smoking ban outweigh the harms, then, as has been done with other substances, tobacco products should be restricted and prohibited. Any such ban should be phased in gradually, for reasons I will address later, but the ban should nonetheless go forward.THE HARMS OF TOBACCOP1. Health Risks to Smokers"Smoking is a leading cause of cancer and death from cancer. It causes cancers of the lung, esophagus, larynx, mouth, throat, kidney, bladder, pancreas, stomach, and cervix, as well as acute myeloid leukemia...Smoking also causes heart disease, stroke, aortic aneurysm (a balloon-like bulge in an artery in the chest), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) (chronic bronchitis and emphysema), asthma, hip fractures, and cataracts. Smokers are at higher risk of developing pneumonia and other airway infections...A pregnant smoker is at higher risk of having her baby born too early and with an abnormally low birth weight. A woman who smokes during or after pregnancy increases her infant’s risk of death from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS)...Men who smoke are at greater risk of erectile dysfunction." [1]There are also less severe, but still harmful, health effects of smoking. "'One of the chief and significant causes of premature aging of the face is smoking'...Skin changes, like leathery skin and deep wrinkling, are more likely in people who are regular smokers. According to the American Academy of Dermatology, smoking leads to biochemical changes in the body that speed the aging process. For example, smoking deprives the living skin tissue of oxygen by causing constriction of the blood vessels. As a result, blood doesn't get to your organs as easily, and that includes the skin. Another classic smoker giveaway is tar staining of the hands and skin from holding cigarettes." [2] Additionally, "smoking increases the chances of impotence dramatically for men by affecting blood vessels, including those that must dilate in order for an erection to occur." [2] Loss of breath is another common side-effect. "Many smokers report a diminished ability over time to comfortably do things as simple as climbing a set of stairs or enjoying sports activities they once easily took part in such as volleyball or jogging." [2] Smoking increases our susceptibility to minor illnesses like the cold and the flu as well. "Tiny hairs called cilia that line the respiratory tract, including the trachea and bronchial tubes, are designed to protect us from infection...One of the toxic effects of cigarette smoke is that it paralyzes the cilia, thereby destroying this core protective mechanism." [2]Just by quitting smoking, one can greatly increase one's life expectancy and expected quality of life. A person who quits at 30, for instance, reduce their chance of premature death due to tobacco use by 90%. Similarly, quitting at age 50 can reduce that chance by around 50%. [1]P2. Economic Costs to Smokers"[T]he average cost is about $5 per pack, and in some states it can be as high as $10 per pack, including federal and state taxes." [2] For users who are addicted, this is an ongoing, chronic, involuntary expense that becomes as essential as buying food. For poor families, a addiction to cigarettes can present a huge problem, one that might entail trade-offs between necessities or lead to crime in order to fund the addiction."Coupled with this enormous health toll is the significant economic burden of tobacco use—more than $96 billion a year in medical costs and another $97 billion a year from lost productivity." [3]P3. Health Risks to Non-smokers"The harmful effects of smoking do not end with the smoker. An estimated 88 million nonsmoking Americans, including 54% of children aged 3–11 years, are exposed to secondhand smoke. Even brief exposure can be dangerous because nonsmokers inhale many of the same poisons in cigarette smoke as smokers." [3]"Inhaling secondhand smoke causes lung cancer in nonsmoking adults...Approximately 3,000 lung cancer deaths occur each year among adult nonsmokers in the United States as a result of exposure to secondhand smoke...The U.S. Surgeon General estimates that living with a smoker increases a nonsmoker’s chances of developing lung cancer by 20 to 30 percent...Exposure to secondhand smoke may increase the risk of heart disease by an estimated 25 to 30 percent...Pregnant women exposed to secondhand smoke are at risk of having a baby with low birth weight...Children exposed to secondhand smoke are at an increased risk of SIDS, ear infections, colds, pneumonia, bronchitis, and more severe asthma. Being exposed to secondhand smoke slows the growth of children’s lungs and can cause them to cough, wheeze, and feel breathless." [1]"Each year, primarily because of exposure to secondhand smoke, an estimated 3,000 nonsmoking Americans die of lung cancer, more than 46,000 die of heart disease, and about 150,000–300,000 children younger than 18 months have lower respiratory tract infections." [3] "Secondhand smoke is estimated to cause 50,000 deaths every year. It's no wonder: More than 4,500 separate chemicals are found in a puff of tobacco smoke, and more than 40 of those are known carcinogens." [2]ConclusionThe ultimate, harmful impacts of tobacco are clear. They increase risks for illnesses at all levels of severity, and, even if used as directed, they lead to death and disease. "Tobacco use is the single most preventable cause of disease, disability, and death in the United States. Each year, an estimated 443,000 people die prematurely from smoking or exposure to secondhand smoke, and another 8.6 million live with a serious illness caused by smoking. Despite these risks, approximately 46.6 million U.S. adults smoke." [3]IMPLEMENTATIONI would phase in a tobacco prohibition over a 25 year period. Years 1-5 I would allow sales of tobacco to people over 21, and allow tobacco companies begin to shut down production and prepare for the ban. Years 6-15 I would allow sales of tobacco to users who could demonstrate that they were clinically addicted to tobacco and needed to continue to purchase the product to avoid withdrawal. I would also subsidize programs to help people go through withdrawal, just to give those people an alternative to smoking. Sales to everyone else would cease, and hefty fines would be imposed on those found in possession of illegal tobacco products. After five fines, a 6 month jail sentence could be levied. Years 16-20 would see the continuation of tobacco sale to the already addicted as well as the subsidization of withdrawal programs. The number of fines before a jail sentence would be reduces to three, and only select pharmacies would be authorized to sell tobacco--it could no longer be sold at grocery or convenience stores. Years 21-25 would see the discontinuation of all sales. Ideally, subsidized programs to reduce addiction would be continued well past that time frame. I would have tobacco then classified as a Schedule III Substance, with all the incumbent rules and penalties for possessing such a substance fully imposed. [4]SOURCES1 - http://www.cancer.gov...2 - http://www.webmd.com...3 - http://www.cdc.gov...4 - http://www.dea.gov...Thanks! And with that, I turn the floor over to Con...http://www.youtube.com...;

Let's take a looksy at your sauce. As it puts things, production of the drugs in question is being "ramped up" by the private companies which create it. Hmm, why do companies ramp production up? I dunno, probably because more people are paying for it. Now, if these companies make more money, you send a market signal that treating diseases like these will lead to profits. This means they create more of the drugs in question, which means, due to economies of scale, those drugs get cheaper soon-- meaning more people will be able to afford them. Whereas, if you simply hand out the drug regardless of pay, you make it so that production is less likely to occur. That means fewer of those who need it get treated. Maybe the posh here are being morons, or maybe they produce enough to justify the additional caution. Either way, their actions benefit the poor sufferers of the disease by creating a market for the drug, a market without which the poor would have no one to mooch the drug from. Do you want some of the poor to be treated, or none of them except in the immediate moment, since you're so concerned with them? :)

I am arguing the contrary position. Your argument is that there should be restrictions. My argument is that there should not be restrictions. Do you forfeit?

Okay pro, thanks for the opening argument. Here's why I don't think we should ban smoking: 1. Smoking is a right of the individual. A right is something that you own, it is not synonymous to just or acceptable. Since you owned the cigarettes that you brought from your local stores, you can smoke them. If you smoke while you're pregnant, that's your responsibility. 2. The tobacco industry will suffer immensely from the ban, causing many other businesses to crumble. When the tobacco industry dies off because of the ban, it shall cause investors to crumble too. This will also cause food industries to die off. Remember, tobacco is made from planting, vegetables and food are also made from planting. These two industries are really close together. 3. If you make smoking illegal, then people will get it illegally. It doesn't matter if you enforce this ban with punishments, just look at meth for gods sake. Most of all, more violence will come out of this ban. Look at the Mexican cartel, they smuggle weed into our country because its banned. Now they're gonna smuggle smokes. Some slick rebuttals for ya: 1. You describe how many people die because of smoking. It does not matter how many people die from smoking. It is not my problem. Just because it was their choice and they did not take responsibility for their actions does not mean someone else shouldn't smoke. 2. You describe how bad smoking is. Irrelevant. 3. No, I haven't. 4. Oh it's addictive? So? Again, it's the smokers choice that they are smoking. 5. You go into the cost of smoking. Yes, it's quite expensive. Wanna know why? Because the government taxes the living HELL out of this product to discourage people from buying it because it's bad for your health. Maybe if these liberals just REALIZE that they don't get to make other people's decision then people wouldn't hate them as much. 6. Yadadada, more data about cost of smokes. 7. You're harming the people around you. Look at my alternative coming right about now: Instead of banning smoking altogether, there should be places where you can smoke and cannot smoke. This is the best alternative because smokes wouldn't become black market material, and it doesn't interfere with peoples lives as much.

You are not getting my point. You just keep re-posting what I wrote and you keep doing your best to negate it all. You seem to want to debate the fact that cars are harmful to human beings when in reality, everything is. Automobiles are a necessity in the life of a human, cigarettes are not. My point is that the advertisement of these harmful products are putting a positive image in children's minds.. it's not right. Children are starting to smoke at younger and younger ages, but you usually don't see a 12 year old behind the wheel of a car. Cigarettes are being advertised as a positive product, when in reality there should be pictures of lung cancer and yellow teeth to show the real effects of smoking. And you're probably going to debate that car commercials should have pictures of accidents, but showing a picture of a crash isn't going to stop anyone from driving. It is an essential and necessary part of life. We would be no where without transportation, people would not be able to function in the way they do today and many lives would be hindered by the lack of transportation. Many lives would be different. Showing a picture of lung cancer or yellow teeth, maybe gum disease, might lead someone away from smoking. It might even get someone to consider quitting. Without smoking, life wouldn't be any different and ciilization would be the same exact way it is now. We need cars, we don't need cigarettes. What the debate was actually supposed to be about was the influence that these commercials and ads have on young children. They are sending a positive message about a negative product. You can tell me up, down and sideways that a cigarette can make you feel good but how long does that last? About as long as the cigarette does. There os no need for smoking in our society and there is no need to advertise them in a positive way. These commercials are influencing youn generations in a negative way. There is absolutely no good thing to come of smoking. No parent is proud to say that their child smokes, while others may be proud that their child drives. The outcome of driving is in the hands of the driver. Safe driving is up to the person behind the wheel while the outcome of smoking is not up to the person. People are not going to stop driving because they might get into an accident, they might drive safer or slower in that case but they will not stop driving, but some people may not smoke if they know the dangers involved. Cigarettes are being advertised as a positive product when all they do is kill people, they do nothing else.

Hey! How are you doin'? I'm daddydrerek616, And I don't believe that the United States federal government should legalize all drugs. First off, Smoking is for retards. No one wants to have health problems, Right? Well, The disabled honkeys seem to do. Now, Let's take a look at cigarettes. They cause lung cancer. No smart white person would want that, Unless they are disabled. Now, You might argue that they can't stop smoking, But my question is, Why did they start smoking them in the first place? I still don't get that. Why would you want lung cancer as a part of your life? Cigarettes should be banned because of this. Second, Marijuana. Niggers love to smoke it and get high everyday. It's so god damn annoying. It's already illegal in the first place, So why make it legal now? Also, No, We shouldn't have medical marijuana, Because the black people are just going to abuse the system so they can get high like the niggers they are. Third, Meth. Yeah, Screw that. Meth f#cks people up. 'Nuff said. I could go ON AND ON AND ON about how bad drugs are. Basically, Drugs are bad, And only disabled honkeys, Niggers, And other races smoke. Us smart white people are clean, And don't like drugs.

Last time I tried to debate this, my opponent forfeited before finishing the debate. Please only accept this debate if you are going to finish it. My position is that all illegal drugs should be legalized. I'll post arguments supporting this in the next three posts. Definitions: Illegal- Currently banned under US law. Drugs- There are too many illegal recreational drugs for me to mention them all, but specifically, I will discuss heroin, cocaine/crack, meth, ecstasy, and PCP, and any other drugs my opponent wishes to mention. Legalized- Currently illegal drugs would be given the same legal status as tobacco or alcohol.

I argue that drug use in the US should be fully legalized, legalizing all forms of drugs, not simply marijuana. I have the burden of proof to convince voters that fully legalizing all drugs makes logical sense.


Question: Should Direct-to-Consumer Advertising of Prescription Drugs be Permitted?

Regulation of Pharmaceutical Ads
There should be a mechanism to regulate these pharmaceutical advertisements. Many nations have legislation that bans the promotion of drugs to the general populace. Allow these corporations to market their medications to doctors via online platforms or mail. I’m thoroughly tired of these commercials. I simply switch channels, mute the audio, or, even better, turn off the TV. I wouldn’t accept payment to consume these substances! The FDA is indifferent, as they have close ties with these pharmaceutical firms, and the networks are unconcerned since they are raking in billions.

Legalizing drugs is seen by both users and non-users of illegal substances as a way to deal with the problems they cause or to simply allow people to give themselves more freedom of action. However, it is for the greater good of people that governments must and should regulate this substances. It is well known for decades the many effects that the use of drugs cause and that is the reason for their banishment. The legalization of drugs would bring many bad consequences that we must avoid at all costs. Among them we can highlight: 1. The irreversible demand of drugs generated. If you look at the search for cigarettes and alcohol we see today, as a way for human beings to seek comfort, you can observe that a part of this demand would develop to a search for stronger drugs that would harm individuals. Demand generated for something as powerful as the current illegal drugs is dangerous. 2. The preservation of public health. As a way to avoid harm to the whole society, the society itself walked, along the time, toward better health conditions. Due to this research field, we have today sanitation and hygiene. For health purposes we also have some environmental laws and we are constantly verifying the conditions of establishments that provide food. The prohibition of drugs is also a matter of public health. It was decided to ban this substances (among other reasons) because cause diseases, damages to the brain, dependence and death. 3. The way to stop the leak is not to destroy the whole dam. It is well understood that drugs make their way to the society either they are or not legal and that this reach is a problem. We can not act towards this by simply allowing, as the fight goes much deeper. Education and strong law enforcement are a better way to the health and safety to the society. 4. Illegal drugs will become a product. Cigarettes and alcohol are well known to the harm they already cause, ranging from violent behavior, addiction, cause of diseases such as lung cancer and cirrhosis. This drugs are not as strong as the illegal ones, and is presumable that the harm that the banned ones would cause, if consumed as the currently legal ones, is enormous. Illegal drugs would be promoted, wide spread, part of the public consciousness. The access to them is a harm yet to be seen.

You have made some fair points, con. I am fully aware that this is my fault for not clarifying, but please keep the last round of debate short. I just want to sum up each of the points you have made, and you can do the same for mine. Thank You. 1. Civil rights. The government should be allowed to outlaw something if it harms the body. Like you said, there is specific evidence that it does harm the body. 2. Exaggerated harmYou are correct that there is no legal backing, except my debate is that there should be strict laws against smoking. Notice that I made laws plural. As far as the environment goes, trash on the beach does hurt the environment. It collects in rivers, oceans, and dams, where fish eat it. Do you ever see a cop pull some on over for tossing a cigarette but out of the window? No, but they would if you toss you soda can.

org clearly states that any unauthorized soliciting is illegal ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The clause my opponent refers to relates to spam e-mails (such as the love spam messages most members receive on a regular basis) as the sanction for such an activity is as follows: "Juggle reserves the right to restrict the number of emails that a Member may send to other Members in any 24-hour period, to a number that Debate. org deems appropriate in its sole discretion. " So, we can see that, as the T&C"s stand, morally-bankrupt members of DDO who wish to use debates to advertise their personal websites are not currently prohibited from doing so. Vote Pro. Thank you.

When you say audited, I assume you mean addicted. Yes, why it is true people could get addicted to drugs, that has nothing to do with why stores should selling drugs. Also, you refer to beer as a drug, when in fact beer is not a drug, it is a substance. Yes, there may be some corrupt stores selling illegal drugs, but you can't really help that unless you close the store down entirely, which would have far more consequences than benefits. I wish I had more to argue against, but my opponent has given me no solid facts as of why drugs should stop being sold in stores. I honestly can't tell if this is a troll debate, or pro has no idea what they are talking about.

"To legalize toxic poisons is to support death and addiction" - Disagree, I want to legalise many things that I don't support. For example I want free speech to be legal, but that does not mean that I support all types of speeches. I support the legalisation of drugs because I think that people have the total ownership of themselves, but that does not mean that I want or support them doing drugs. I do not support drugs, only the legalisation.-"It is wrong to drive while under the influence of drugs"As stated in my last argument, yes, its wrong to drive under the influence of drugs, because then you are exposing other people with a danger that they did not agree upon. But as long as the user is the only victim, I don't have a problem with it.-"Making something illegal is the best way to get rid of danger"As stated in my last argument, the legalisation would not necessary mean more drug users. How many reading this would start using heroin tomorrow if we legalised it? The truth is that if you want to do drugs today, then you can get it from the black market. - "What you are suggesting here, is a form of legal suicide" Call it what you want! I hold it to be the inalienable right of anybody to go to hell in his or her own way. If people have the ownership of their bodies, then we should not have the right to tell them how to live their lives. I think people have right to their own body. - "ban drugs is to keep the human body safe" I think that we should have learned by now that if we sacrifice freedom for safety, we get neither of them. "You can lead a horse to water, but you can never make it drink", we can always set new laws, but all people will not follow all laws; forcing us to be violent against people who have done nothing to harm another man. - "Cocaine did not become popular because marijuana" The fact that cocaine took people on acid trips, obviously had an impact on the popularity. But the main reason that it got as popular as it did, was because of the high marijuana price. Even if this would not have been true, my argument still stands. Because higher prices on drugs lead to a demand for a new and cheap drug. This is what is happening now, with internet drugs. We don't have time to qualify them as drugs before they have created new drugs. - "if drug dealers develop a new drug, then we simply eradicate that one as well" The problem is that this process is way to slow. When a drug first start to sell, we have not classified it as a drug yet. By the time that a drug get illegal, it has already been sold to hundreds of people, and those people who bought it was not aware of the danger involved. By the time we make a drug illegal, the same process begin. Those internet drugs can kill in minutes. Because there were no real research going into the development of the drug. They simply made a drug as cheap as they could without extra research. - "Lower prices would mean MORE drugs" Yes, lower price would mean more drugs. But the evolution of drugs would be over. Drugs such as internet drugs would not be developed since there would not be a demand for it. People would keep to less dangerous drugs such as marijuana. - Your last arguments had a really interesting base. What you are stating is that you want to live your life without drugs, therefore, nobody else should have the right to live their lives with drugs. This is a 1st amendment type issue. We don't have the 1st amendment so that we can talk about the weather. We have the 1st amendment so that we can say and believe very controversial things. So to say that; yes, I have my religious thoughts protected, but anyone who would like to follow something else should not have. Then we are not really protecting freedom. At the same time we need to be consistent, we need to protect liberty across the board, and not only at the bigger issues. So the same thing goes for drugs. You have your lifestyle without drugs protected, but anyone who would live their lives different does not. That's not freedom.

Drug legalization is a danger to humansI do not refute this point. However, we sell a lot of dangerous things to humans. Cigarettes are dangerous, yet they're still legal. Alcohol as well (as acknowledged by the Government during the Prohibition era). If we were worried about the health of Americans, most of the processed food that we eat would also be illegal. The issue isn't whether or not drug are dangerous. The issue is whether or not the Government should be able to tell you what you can put into your own body.By Pro's logic, the Government should be able to decide that fatty foods are dangerous to humans, and thus decide that Americans can no longer eat hamburgers and fries, or drink soda and juice. Just imagine the outcry that would occur if that were to happen. The government is in their right to tell us what is bad for us. Informing the public is part of the government's duty. However, the final decision should be left up to each citizens on whether or not they want to eat burgers, knowing the risk involved. Likewise, citizens should be able to choose what goes inside of their own bodies.

Good, and thanks for accepting. So here's my main argument: Well, as you and i will know cigarettes have devastating effects on people, however once people start, the cannot stop, becasue of the nicotine in cigarettes. I'm not going to go into all the effects of cigarettes, however I'm sure you will know that effects include lung infections/cancer and lots of other diseases. Since you live in America, here is some more information, to back up my sources. The 1982 United States Surgeon General"s report stated that "Cigarette smoking is the major single cause of cancer mortality [death] in the United States." This statement is as true today as it was then. Also tobacco use is responsible for nearly 1 in 5 deaths in the United States. Because cigarette smoking and tobacco use are acquired behaviors; activities that people choose to do About half of all Americans who keep smoking will die because of the habit. Each year about 443,000 people in the United States die from illnesses related to tobacco use. Smoking cigarettes kills more Americans than alcohol, car accidents, suicide, AIDS, homicide, and illegal drugs combined. You might say well, if a person chooses to smoke, then they can. They can make there own choices, and if they want to potentially be a victim of a fatal disease, that's fine. However there are two things wrong with this statement. The first thing wrong with this statement, is that as you will know there is passive smoking. If one person decides to smoke, there kids or friends could easily start smoking by peer pressure, or by breathing in smoke from a near-by persons cigarette. (passive smoking) The second wrong thing with this statement is the fact that deaths and illnesses due to smoking are costing our health system, the NHS, an extraordinary amount of money. Here is the first paragraph from and article from the independent, written in 2009. Smoking costs the NHS more than "5 billion a year - up to five times the previously accepted figure, researchers have revealed. Now, in out country today, smoking has been banned in public places, however, everywhere else they are still allowed. I think that is smoking was banned in our country, it would save many lives, it would save lots of money, and it would make our country a cleaner place. Even though you might say that some people just can't stop i'm sure if it was illegal and they were confiscated if they were seen smoking, then eventually they would stop and slowly smoking would come down to the level of illegal drugs in the present day. Finally i would like to say, that i think since cigarettes are actually a drug, they should, if they were made illegal, should be treated in the same way as illegal drugs and the same punishment.

I will begin with my claim and will follow with evidence. Claim: Smoking cigarettes is horrible for your body and the body's of people around you and therefore it should be banned. Evidence: I will begin by using the site . http://betobaccofree.hhs.gov... for my evidence because it is a government site and therefore should be very reliable. point 1. 1 in every 5 deaths in the USA are caused by smoking, this is insane that means that 1/5 of the USA's deaths are from smoking, an obvious reason to ban it. point 2. Smoking has many long term affects including but not limited to cancer,lung problems,speech difficulties and diabetes. To address the risks you take by smoking observe the picture below . http://betobaccofree.hhs.gov... point 3: Ever seen the videos like this . http://www.youtube.com... notice that these are made by the center of disease control. These videos are showing what happens to the people that are lucky enough not to die from smoking but it is hard to say they are lucky at all with the condition they are left in. point 4: Smoking is highly addictive meaning if you just smoke 1 or 2 times there is a very high chance you will become addicted and dependent, please take the time to read this exert from . http://www.cancer.org... "Regular use of tobacco products leads to addiction in many users. Nicotine is a drug found naturally in tobacco, which is as addictive as heroin or cocaine: When taken in small amounts, nicotine creates pleasant feelings that make the smoker want to smoke more. It acts on the chemistry of the brain and central nervous system, affecting the smoker"s mood. Nicotine works very much like other addicting drugs, by flooding the brain"s reward circuits with dopamine (a chemical messenger). Nicotine also gives you a little bit of an adrenaline rush " not enough to notice, but enough to speed up your heart and raise your blood pressure. Nicotine reaches the brain within seconds after taking a puff, and its effects start to wear off within a few minutes. This is what most often leads the smoker to light up again. If the smoker doesn"t smoke again soon, withdrawal symptoms start and get worse over time. The typical smoker takes about 10 puffs from each cigarette. A person smoking a pack per day gets about 200 "hits" of nicotine each day. Smokers usually become dependent on nicotine and suffer physical and emotional (mental or psychological) withdrawal symptoms when they stop smoking. These symptoms include irritability, nervousness, headaches, and trouble sleeping. The true marker for addiction, though, is that people still smoke even though they know smoking is bad for them " affecting their lives, their health, and their families in unhealthy ways. In fact, most people who smoke want to quit. point 5: Smoking is a waste of money, the average cost of a pack of cigarettes ranges from $4.96 Kentucky to $14.50 New york. . http://www.theawl.com... From those 2 numbers we can get the average cost of a pack of cigarettes in the USA which is $9.73. If we look at the average number of cigarettes smoked by a smoker per day we get just over 1 pack (20 cigarettes) but we will round to a pack to make the numbers easier. Therefore a smoker spends $3,551 per year on cigarettes ("national average spent by lower- income smokers " those with a household income under $25,000 " was 14 percent" . http://abcnews.go.com...). point 6: Using the data from my fifth point we can see that if a low income individual gets addicted to smoking (which is very likely to happen) then they will be spending $3,551 per year on cigarettes, think about the other things these low income individuals could be using that money on. According to . http://earlystart.blogs.cnn.com... it costs a family of 4 $146 for food each month this means that they will spend an average of $7,008 dollars on food per year (keep in mind this is the bare minimum of food needed) I am sure that if a family of 4 making $25,000 or less could save $7,102 on not smoking (both parents are average smokers) that it would make a big difference on the quality of life for them and there children. point 7: A lot of people will argue that if you are only harming yourself then it is your decision what you do and I would generally agree with that. However this is not the case with smoking, while smoking you are harming the people around you in two ways. Second Hand Smoke:smoke inhaled involuntarily from tobacco being smoked by others "Second Hand Smoke contains about 4,000 chemicals. Many of these chemicals are dangerous; more than 50 are known to cause cancer. " Third Hand Smoke:"Tobacco smoke gets into the air and its residue stays on walls, floors, furniture, toys, and clothes. This smoke that adults carry around with them on their clothes is called thirdhand smoke. " Smoking and Children:"Parents who smoke cause many health problems for their children. Some of the problems they cause are making asthma worse, bringing on more colds and ear infections, and increasing the risk for sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). Also "Research has shown that smoking during pregnancy causes health problems for both mothers and babies, such as: Miscarriage,Premature (early) birth,Low birth weight (three final points from . http://www.smokefreephilly.org... ) Conclusion: Smoking is not only a serious health hazard to yourself but also to people you are around while( and after) smoking, and your children. Smoking is addicting and is very expensive, Overall there are no pro's to smoking and lets not forget 1/5th of the deaths in America each year are caused by smoking. Those are the reasons that we need to ban smoking.

My opponent is a misinformed person but that's ok because it doesn't harm society in this level of debating. His claim amounts to a single point: >People are fully aware of the consequences of a decision before they make it. This statement although true, does not advance my opponents claim due to the fact that there are various other components that weigh on different sides of the person's desicion to start taking drugs. Consider this scenario: there is a homeless person named Scott who lives on the street. Everyday, Scott is abused and assaulted and has trouble getting food or water. He has various friends who are in the same state that he is in, but they are less than honorable. These friends introduce him to drug use. immediantly, Scott's reaction is that the drugs will not make him happier, he knows the consequences of drug use and that it will hurt him. But Scott agrees to try the drug out and is later hooked, addicted to the drug which releases copious amounts of dopamine in his brain, shutting down his euphoria receptors. Scott becomes depressed and when he cannot find a way to acquire more of the drug himself, he kills himself. Now, everything about that scenario is reflected in tens maybe hundreds of thousands of alike people, but what I want my opponent to realise, is that it completely disproves the basis of his claims. Scott was not influenced by his own reasoning as my opponent would claim he was, his normal state of mind was already impaired by: >His friends >His state of living The same situation can be applied to every drug user in the country, humans are not capable of doing things without reasoning and so any reasoning that leads a human to do something against his/her nature is unnatural. My opponents view is that we are not morally obliged to stop someone from harming themselves even though they do not want to. There is no such thing as a human who wants to harm themselves in their correct state of mind. The incorrect state of mind is like a prison, it tortures the person even though they don't want it, but they will continue living in that prison because we have neglected them. That disproves my opponents claims that people who are in the right state of mind can make the decision to harm themselves. Completely false, if they make that desicion, then obviously they are in the impaired state of mind. Allowing them to make their desicions using an impaired conscious is completely inhumane and cruel. Looking at my opponents claim that we have freedom of choice, Its pretty plain to see that he didn't properly read my post at all. He completely failed to defend it from a rebuttal that was waiting for him to arrive. Lets go through his unorganised slab of text and refute each point as it arises: 'he is assuming that every person on this earth from the richest tycoon to the poorest man follows this theory of philosophy.' What my opponent says is accurate here, although the implicit straw-man is not welcome. All creatures follow some form of the philosophy of utilitarianism as a default. in animals, instead of looking for happiness they look for survival and different ways to survive and eat. Humans are not so worried about survival as animals, so we look for a purpose, happiness. Everything ever done by humanity with reason has been done for the reasons of 'a greater good,' a 'better place,' or simply for happiness. Why do we search for things to satisfy our curiosity? Its makes us happy. Why do we kill millions of each other in wars and battles? For greed, why are we greedy? For happiness. Everything boils down to happiness eventually, drugs are no different. In fact, drugs are the closest to failed pursuits of happiness than nearly anything else. 'he judges everybody with a standard model he says that if everybody in the world was given the full information about drugs, if they knew it was going to hurt them in the long run then they would not take.' Until an exception can be found to the rule, it shall stand. My opponent is very closed minded when he sees an ordinary person deciding to take drugs for the first time. However, we need to balance the motives. If there is peer pressure shoving the individual on one side, then we need to provide information to discourage him proportionate to the level of peer pressure he or she is experiencing. This way, we can negate the disruptive influences that negatively impact someone's choice. All decisions should be able to be made by an individual without exterior negative interference. That is called freedom of choice. But where all the information comes from a single party, eg, a friend or criminal dealer, the choice has been negatively affected and cannot be called 'free.' So who is going to provide the other half of counterbalances to dispute negative influences? The government. His ending statement seeks to misinterpret my previous arguments. I said that all humans living in society have: >The duty to protect society >The duty to progress society >The duty to maintain society I was wrong to assume my opponent had a shred of common sense. Ill explain it in simple English: The duty to protect society means that all members that benefit from society are obliged to help prevent or intervene with an attack on society if it is within their power to do so. The duty to progress society means that any opportunity that will advance any aspect or capability of society is not to be turned down unless it conflicts with a person's privileges (rights). Eg. Thou shalt continue working that extra 5 minutes that will allow a discovery of the cure to cancer even if you have a sore toe. The duty to maintain society is actual a duty to not tear it apart. If you are born into the world and live of welfare for your entire life, you are a drain on society and are in the wrong. The laws of Australia that prevent drug use also prevent a complete massacre of the younger generation. We both know that adolescent children have an impaired ability to determine risk. Well known fact. Considering that making it illegal for teenagers won't stop it getting to them, I would like to challenge my opponent to propose a method in which drugs can be made legal whislt our teenagers stay safely out of its reach. I would like to raise some previous points that my opponent completely failed to address in the probably vain hope that he might see them. >there is no way to harm yourself in society that doesn't harm someone else. >Drugs destroy your duty of care to society >Would you force someone to stop doing something if they are not in their correct mindset? I would like to finish up by quoting my opponent from outside this debate, after a different argument I asked him why he still supported his claim, he said: 'I am irrational.' This wasn't a joke or anything, he said what he meant and meant what he said, so my question, which I never got to ask him, is something that is irrational worth supporting for the purposes of this debate? The resolution is negated, now lets see what else my opponent has to say...

This is a topic that was started by DucoNihilum in a previous debate but then completely dropped by the con. I would like to take this opportunity to pick this debate back up and keep it going. For my opening statement I would like to reiterate that I am against Full Drug Legalization. I also believe that a change of the status quo should be supported by benefits and or a NEED for change.