Cigarettes should be banned

Negative Case A1: Tax revenue, generated from cigarette sales, is huge This should give you an idea of how much the U.S.A relies on cigarette taxation for the government. In 2011, ~17 billion dollars in taxation revenue was generated from tobacco sales [11]. Obviously, this is a noticeable amount of money, and to lose this will mean that taxation will be required from elsewhere.A2: It would badly hurt business and an economy During 2008, since the UK implemented a smoking ban solely in bars, business revenue has declined 15%. 10% of bars now operate at a loss, and 60% of businesses were forced to lay off employees, just to stay in business [2]. To make smoking illegal, would wipe a huge amount of the U.S.A’s economy, which is obviously not an economically sound idea. “In 2010, the combined profits of the six leading tobacco companies was U.S. $35.1 billion, equal to the combined profits of Coca-Cola, Microsoft, and McDonald’s in the same year” [3]. Think about the job loss and the missing tax revenue. A3: Harmful things are often also beneficial In 2010, there were “an estimated 5,419,000 crashes, killing 32,885 and injuring 2,239,000” [8] from road accidents in the U.S.A. Due to being harmful, should cars be banned? Sport can be harmful and an unnecessary risk. In things like jogging, exercise could easily be found outside harmful activities like rugby. “From 2002-2003, 870 people were admitted to ACT hospitals for sports and recreational injuries. From 2002-2003, the ACT had the highest hospitalisation rate per 100,000 population for combative sports with 3.7 compared with the 2.7 for Australia as a whole. One million sports injuries occur each year, which suggests one in 17 Australians, suffer an injury. The annual cost of sports injuries in Australia is an estimated $1.65 billion.” [4]. Clearly, a lot of sport are harmful yet people are still allowed to do this! Why is that? Liberty. Smoking serves a different kind of purpose, one in which the Founding Fathers built America upon: the right to personal autonomy. As John Stuart Mill, in his On Liberty work states: “The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community against his will is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant” [5]. Smoking is a choice, and with the help of school-based smoking awareness programs, which give children access to real information about tobacco usage, the choice can be informed [6]. A4: Drug Cartels and the Black Market Historically, prohibition has been disastrous. During the 1920s and early 30s, prohibition in America merely lead to the establishment of crime rackets dealing in contraband [7]. Despite marijuana being illegal in the U.S.A, “over 102 million Americans (41 percent of the U.S. population) have used it during their lifetimes, 26 million (10 percent) having used it in the past year, and over 15 million (6 percent) have admitted that they use it regularly” [9]. Making a popular drug illegal, has shown to have very little effect on people’s choices, at least in this regard. What’s worse is that locking-up marijuana uses costs the U.S.A over 1 billion dollars a year! [12] So how are people getting these illegal goods? The Mexican drug cartels, which supply a lot of drugs to the U.S.A, has resulted in the deaths of over 60,000 people in violent drug-gang related incidences. Mexico is already the main supplier of marijuana to the U.S.A. Almost 70% of recovered guns relayed to Mexican crime, from 2007 to 2011, were sold in the U.S.A [10].ReferencesI tried for 40 minutes to get the references formatted correctly, but they still did not work. If the references had have formatted correctly with the dots (like my opponent's did e.g: en.wikipedia...), I would have been under the character limit. I am really sorry that this technical issue has caused me to reference this way.