TPS

MINNEAPPLE HARM NC N/D 2010

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Harm NC

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MINNEAPPLE HARM NC N/D 2010

HARM NC [1/2]
I negate. My value is justice because the resolution asks what states ought to do and justice provides the normative rational for establishing rules in social institutions. The conflict in the resolution is whether or not the government has the right to persecute drug abusers as a matter of criminal justice. My criterion is the legitimate exercise of government power. Arguments about how rights generally are good are insufficient to affirm because the government is inherently coercive by passing any law - ranging from speed limits to laws banning murder. Empirically, these laws are accepted and people don't revolt against them despite their coercive nature. Even if there were some unique violation of autonomy, no one has a right to use their autonomy to hurt others. This is because autonomy is only valuable because it allows us to pursue our own conception of the good. If we limit other peoples' conception of the good with our autonomy, we undermine autonomy as a concept. Governments are also responsible for the harms that they know are likely to come from their actions. By taking an action with a known negative outcome, the state knowingly harms another, thereby making them culpable. This is why we hold rational agents culpable for negligent actions, and not just intentional actions that cause harm. This all means that it is legitimate for the government to exercise its power if the lack of that law knowingly threatens a group of people. This also means that if it has negative outcomes then they are punishable by the criminal justice system.

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MINNEAPPLE HARM NC N/D 2010

HARM NC [2/2]
My first contention is that the abuse of drugs leads to an increase in crime. The abuse of illegal drugs causes teens to engage in criminal activities and the subsequent addictions to both the crime and the drugs keeps them firmly locked in the cycle of crime.
Deitch and Koutsenok write:
David Deitch, Ph.D.*; Igor Koutsenok M.D.** & Amanda Ruiz, M.D.*** The Relationship Between Crime and Drugs: What We Have Learned
in Recent Decades Journal of Psychoactive Drugs October, 2004
Many studies indicate that in

50% of youth, criminal behavior comes first, in 25% of youth the onset of drug taking precedes the first criminal act, and in the remaining 25%, substance use and criminal behavior started simultaneously. This process may evolve in one of several different ways: (1) people become deeply invested in drug taking and then become criminal as a way of supporting that drug taking, or (2) those who were minimally invested in the criminal behavior later used drugs and after a while became literally addicted to both. These individuals have a lifestyle addiction an adrenal cortex stimulation due to crime
just as they do to the excitement of acquiring and consuming drugs. Speaking from the treatment perspective, the sequence of involvement does not direct treatment options.

Empirically there is an extremely high positive correlation between the use of illegal drugs and criminal activity.
Deitch and Koutsenok 2 explain:
The percentage of juveniles nationwide testing positive for drugs at the time of arrest is 60% to 70%. Depending on the location, the most common drug youths test positive for is marijuana (50% to 60%). However, methamphetamine and cocaine continue to gain strength: 4% to 14% of juveniles tested positive for these drugs in 1998 (National Center on Addictions and Substance Abuse 1998).

The impact is that the abuse of illegal drugs ought to be viewed as a matter of criminal justice because they have negative impacts society and they cause other actions that would normally be persecuted under the criminal justice system, and thus it is a legitimate exercise of government power. Finally, eliminating criminal punishments increase the size of black-markets and thus, increase violent crime.
Boyum and Kleiman conclude:
David A. Boyum and Mark A.R. Kleiman "SUBSTANCE ABUSE POLICY FROM A CRIME-CONTROL PERSPECTIVE"James Q. Wilson and Joan Petersilia, eds., Crime (2nd Edition, 2001]

Other things equal, decriminalization will tend to result in the largest black market; there is no legal market, and buyers are not as strongly deterred as they would be by a prohibitory regime. Size matters: other things equal, a large black market for a given drug will tend to entail more black market- related crime than a tiny market for the same drug. But the marijuana market, with more customers than the heroin market (and comparable total expenditures), is much less violent.

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