Cigarettes Should be Illegal

Food: I think my opponent has essentially agreed with my assertion that banning fast food or unhealthy eating habits is impractical, while banning cigarette smoking is not. His food comparison example's effectiveness thus goes away. Health care: Again, this is my opponent's example. Anti-abortionists are not forced to pay for abortions. The recent health care bill that was passed leaves abortions out of federally funded health care programs. My objection still stands that it's unfair for non-smokers to have to pay billions of dollars for a habit that they do not engage in. If we legalized cocaine, others would have to pay for the productivity/health care costs of increased cocaine addiction. Proving we sometimes pay for things we don't do is not a good justification for legality. Marketing to kids: I agree it is illegal to market to kids, which is why cigarette advertisers claim to be marketing to adults. But kids still see the advertisements. And remember, two University of Arizona marketing professors conducted a study that found that "each time a child saw an advertisement that appeared to promote a particular cigarette brand, the likelihood of being susceptible to smoking grew by 182 percent." Banning cigarettes would make it illegal to advertise them. My opponent points out that children also start smoking because of peer pressure. Two responses: 1) Remember the Journal of the National Cancer Institute found that kids are influenced more by cigarette advertising than by peer pressure. 2) A lot of peer pressure happens older to younger, meaning an 18 year old, who can now legally purchase cigarettes, pressuring someone younger than him to start smoking. Illegality makes peer pressure more difficult. My opponent objects on moral grounds to banning something simply because it is advertised to children. I agree. Cigarettes should not be banned merely because they are marketed to kids, but for all the other reasons I've stated. My point here is more to show that the "choice" to smoke is not as simple a choice as my opponent makes it sound. Many people (90%) get hooked as children when they think smoking is really cool, and they are less likely to worry about their health. They then find it hard to quit. Remember the Gallup poll that 3 out of 4 smokers want to quit but feel that they can't because cigarettes are too addictive. Secondhand smoke I agree with my opponent that compromises have been made, but I showed before that 50% of people in the United States are uncovered by many of these compromise laws. I also know that smokers don't intentionally blow smoke in non-smokers faces, but if a smoker is jonesing for a cigarette at a bus stop, he often times will light up, forcing those around him to inhale secondhand smoke (this has happened to me). It's not deliberate, but it happens. If some people smoked illegally, they definitely would no longer do it around other people, for risk of being caught. Illegality solves secondhand smoke. Addictiveness: I give my opponent props for caffeine – I forgot about that one somehow. Alcohol is addictive only if you're an alcoholic, which is a very small minority of drinkers. Smoking, in contrast, is addictive to all regular smokers. People may crave sugar if they stop eating it, but their bodies do not start shaking uncontrollably. My main response to caffeine is: when 3 of 4 caffeine users say they want to quit, but feel they can't, I'd consider banning it. And bad caffeine withdrawal only occurs with a minority of caffeine drinkers who consume over 3 cups of coffee a day. Right to smoke: My opponent concedes this point by saying "No, people do not have the right to do heroin. That right is denied by the government." That was my point in bringing up heroin. You can claim to have a right to do anything, but when the government calculates that something does more harm than good to society, it can deny one of those "rights," especially when those rights conflict with other people's rights. Prohibition: My opponent does not answer any of my analysis that Prohibition Era backlash was because the vast majority of drinkers did not want to quit drinking. However, the vast majority of smokers do (3 out of 4). The response to a smoking ban would likely be that 75% of smokers would quit immediately, rather than seeking out illegal means of procuring cigarettes. Even many people who did not want to quit likely would, rather than seeking out illegal cigarette dealers. Prohibition's underground bars only worked because 70% of the U.S. population supported them. Also, keep in mind that unlike alcohol, which is usually consumed once a day, at night, inside a building, cigarettes are usually consumed multiple times a day, outside. It is much harder to hide from the authorities. Most people would quit when they realized they can't smoke during the day, like at work, for fear of being caught. My opponent points out that people can choose to quit. I would assert that it's not as easy as he makes it sound. The fact that he cites a forum where people who are trying to quit congregate and help each other proves how difficult quitting actually is. If it were easy, no such forum would be necessary. $7.18 The fact that we waste tax dollars sometimes does not answer this argument because 1) we shouldn't waste tax dollars and 2) tax dollars are not a part of the $7.18 that society pays per pack. We lose that money because smokers take extra sick days, which hurts our nation's productivity and makes our GDP growth rate lower, and because smokers force up health care costs, which means we pay more to our insurance companies in the form of monthly premiums. Those two costs add up to $157 billion a year, which amounts to $7.18 per pack purchased. My opponent must mis-cite his source (his #4), because I can't find any reference to tax dollars, but I also assume that $157 billion a year is much more than what he is referencing. Tax revenue: since smoking only generates $2 billion in sales (as my opponent has stated), the tax revenue gained would only be a tiny fraction of that $2 billion, mostly around 8% of it (sales tax). The $157 billion a year our society loses is still going to outweigh the pittance we collect in cigarette taxes. Because we can no longer look at this from a moral perspective, since my opponent agrees that society can take away the right to smoke much as it has taken away the right to do heroin, that leaves the practical implications. A ban would help smokers quit, considering that three-fourths of smokers want to quit. A ban would save our country $157 billion a year by making our economy more productive and lowering health care costs. A ban would solve the secondhand smoke problem. And a ban would end the unfair negative externality (the cost imposed by the few on the many, since they do not have to pay for it) of $7.18 per pack of cigarettes.