Smoking Ban

I'd like to begin my final round by thanking my opponent for an excellent debate. I'll be very interested to see how the voters rule.Free willMy opponent cedes that the 25% figure I gave is true, but argues a 75% failure rate is still significant. He also argues that the low success rate without medicine is significant as well. I think he's missing the big picture here: my initial complaint with that statistic was that it was deceptively edited to make it appear worse. And, when my opponent says that "it is incredibly difficult to counteract this condition... even with medicine", this hurts his case - not mine. After all, if the best success rate is 25%, how can we say a smoking ban will stop smoking? If someone is addicted to something, they will go out and get it. Also, my opponent does not contest that 3/4s of cigar smokers who only smoke occasionally - these people clearly aren't addicted, so the free will argument cannot possibly apply to them.Secondhand smokeWith this argument, my opponent ignores the first portion I noted (that by EPA standards the risk ratio for forty years of exposure to a pack-a-day smoker is 1.19, and that anything below a 1.3 is random); I assume, then, that he cedes this point. Instead, he notes only a small part of my quote and argues I "begrudgingly accept secondhand smoke as a cause to lung cancer". I'd like to repeat the entire quote: "The results do not support a causal relation between environmental tobacco smoke and tobacco related mortality... It is generally considered that exposure to environmental tobacco smoke is roughly equivalent to smoking one cigarette per day. If so, a small increase in lung cancer is possible, but the commonly reported 30 percent increase in heart disease risk--the purported cause of almost all the deaths attributed to secondhand smoke -- is highly implausible"I assume my opponent cedes the bolded points, as he did not respond to them. He instead focuses on the middle portion, which says that environmental tobacco smoke is roughly equal to one single cigarette a day, so it is possible that lung cancer risk could increase slightly. This is silly. One cigarette worth of smoke a day is minuscule.My opponent also argues it is impossible to find the source; I disagree. Here is the direct link to the study.[1] It can easily be found with just a small bit of research. In contrast to this study, my opponent claims that "Statistics clearly emphasize that those live or are in constant exposure to smoking environments have a ~20% higher risk of developing lung cancer than those who do not. Regardless of arbitrative studies on causality, most studies clearly denote secondhand smoking's causal correlation to lung cancer". He doesn't cite this in the final round, but this claim apparently comes from DDO's own "Smoking Ban" big-issue page. On that page, the claim is there, but is not supported by any citations.[2] He has not given any other citations to support this claim. Who do you trust more - Debate.org, or a decades-long comprehensive study of 100,000 Californians that was peer-reviewed and published in the British Medical Journal?In regards to ventilation, my opponent questions how such standards could be achieved or enforced. There are many ways to improve ventilation, from adding filters to just improving airflow. Some cigar bars have attempted to prevent smoke from even exiting the building - for instance, an attempt was made to open a smoking bar in Washington state, and the bar would have included a "twenty-five foot airlocked walkway".[3]The economyMy opponent attempts to refute my analysis that the economy would be negatively impacted by banning smoking. He argues that "My opponent's refutation then applies the number of people who are currently unable to quit via medicinal help (75%) to the number of losses. However, this 75% applies to smokers living in our current pre-ban society. Again, the U.S. produces nearly 800 million pounds of tobacco because tobacco is legal and in general circulation. If we ban tobacco production, illegal production will drop to only a tiny fraction of legal production". This is silly. As my opponent says, there over 800 million pounds of tobacco grown in the US annually. How exactly would we get rid of this tobacco? My opponent has not presented a solution, so I assume he cedes this point.My opponent also asserts that a smoking ban would stop most people from smoking. He argues that "a ban on tobacco production and sales will drop the production and use of tobacco to well below even that of marijuana. No matter how many addicts are unwilling to quit ... severely limited accessibility will prompt most, even among the unwilling, to stop smoking". As I have noted in earlier rounds, about 17 million Americans smoke cigars, and marijuana smokers number around 19 million. Cigarette smokers number around 58 million. I am baffled as to why my opponent keeps hammering on the production costs, given that marijuana - which only grows 3% of the crop of tobacco, as he notes - is very popular and limited accessibility has not stopped people from smoking it. How will tobacco - which has a far larger supply and is addictive - fall below marijuana? He's essentially arguing that at least 56 million people will stop smoking after the ban begins. That is impossible given the addictiveness, the 30% of people who don't want to stop smoking (17.8 million people) and the cigar smokers (17 million people), who smoke only occasionally. The figure I gave of smoking figures immediately dropping from 75 million to 48 million is actually optimistic - it assumes the smokers will be given medical help and that cigar smokers will stop smoking at the same rate as cigarette smokers. My opponent makes his own guess regarding economic numbers, arguing 70% of smokers will quit and the net loss will reduce from $177 billion to $89 billion. This actually flies in the face of his previous argument - if it is difficult to stop smoking, how will everyone stop smoking? Even more, he's essentially arguing that, just in order to break even, 39% of all smokers (cigar and cigarette) will need to stop smoking immediately. That's a very high bar to clear given my opponent's repeated claims that only 3% of non-medicine aided attempts to stop are successful.Tobacco farmers and businessMy opponent drops his argument that smoking causes workers to die early; this is not surprising, given I pointed out the average death from smoking is well after retirement. He has effectively ceded this. He also has not even responded to my claim that a ban on tobacco production would negatively impact 1.68 million people - far more than the 660,000 who die from smoking diseases, most of whom would die regardless of a ban. He callously compares tobacco farmers (many of which are black people) to slave-traders. I find it odd that my opponent has criticized my utilitarian stance in this debate, that the stance he takes here is utilitarian - that (in his view) more people are harmed by smoking than helped by jobs, and thus it is OK to destroy their jobs.CigarsMy opponent has ceded the claim that cigars don't count as smoking. Instead, my opponent argues that cigar smokers necessarily inhale cigar smoke, and that smoking cigars isn't any healthier than cigarettes. Oddly, he also claims I support a smoking ban (I don't). The first two claims are wrong; the first (inhaling environmental cigar smoke) is essentially secondhand smoke, which I disproved earlier. To the second, cigar smoking is obviously less dangerous because the smoke is not directly inhaled, and because typical cigar consumption is less frequent - both of which I have supported through sources.Failed banRather than directly refute my claims, my opponent argues that even if the ban isn't effective, we should still pass it because it makes access more difficult. Unfortunately this does not address my key points on this topic, none of which have even been responded to by my opponent:*Unlike illegal drugs, cigarettes have a centralized multinational industry producing them.*That government's inability to ban less common substances does not bode well for a smoking ban.*That the remaining smokers would turn to illegal drug traders for cigarettes.*That a ban would require significant federal time and resources to enforce.I assume he has ceded all of these points.Deaths are goodOnce again, my opponent does not respond to my claims. He has ceded that smokers are, on average, above retirement age as he has not responded to it. This demolishes his claim that smoking deaths harm the economy by removing workers. Contrary to what he says, I am not encouraging people to smoke (I said "If you value your life, don't smoke" in the opening round), nor do I want people to die from smoking. My argument is simply that smokers die earlier and that leaves more healthcare and retirement money for people who don't make stupid life decisions. Smoking being legal isn't encouraging it - rather, current government policies strongly discourage smoking. Just because something is legal does not mean it is encouraged.ConclusionIn conclusion, my opponent's case simply doesn't hold up. His advocated smoking ban would violate the right of people to smoke, unfairly burden business, unfairly punish cigar smokers, severely damage the lives of around 1.6 million people impacted by the tobacco industry, and cost the economy money, as well as waste significant amounts of time and money for federal agents. My opponent, in contrast, can only claim that maybe we could break even economically, and that there is no issue with hurting those who work in or rely on the tobacco industry. In short, as I have fulfilled my burden of proof while refuting my opponent, a vote for Con is warranted.References:1. http://www.bmj.com...2. http://www.debate.org...3. http://www.theatlantic.com...