The production and consumption of cigarettes should be stopped

Personal Note | Thanks for the response. The missing sources will be found at the end of this rebuttal. I am glad to be a part of this debate and I am looking forward to see who had a better conduct from the voter's point of view, because I really think we both did a good and polite job. Thanks for those reading, participating and Thanks to Pro. 1 | 100"000 death per year are too much too much to keep a substance legal The majority of tobacco related deaths (not counting infants born by cigarette addicted mothers) are self-caused deaths. Especially the basic harm levels are a risk adults are able to understand. This means they can decide whether they want to smoke and whether they want to cross the line between a a cigarette a year or a pack a day. Although I really like that this debate his so harmonic that we are able to admit if the other has point, I have to point out that you cannot acknowledge a single persons self-responsibility for smoking (- see Pro/ Round 3/ Argument 4 ) and state that the harm level means it should be banned anyway. In this case you need to explain where you draw the line between self-responsibility of smokers and the government's responsibility for smokers, because at the moment you support both, which is, in this case a contradiction. 2 | Natural and unnatural development of taste It's an interesting, but not unexpected revelation, that excessive smoking can alter your taste perception. Because taste is something that develops over time and is not something you keep the way it was given to you from day one [4]. To whom is that mainly relevant? Teenagers that start smoking against their taste and start to like it then, because their taste still develops strongly and is influenced by the smoking habit. Under-aged smoking is not a reason to ban cigarettes because from a legal point are cigarettes already banned and unavailable for them. And that is of course a good thing because there is a difference between an adults self-responsibility and a teenager's. But to be clear about that: Because, bitter can be tasty without being a smoker. Humans do reject bitter substances early in life as it is a natural instinct that intends to prevent us from poisoning plants. But especially people that eat vegetables, sour fruits and roots are more likely to get a positive relationship with bitterness [5]. One might say, that people with a generally healthy lifestyle are more likely to naturally enjoy the taste of cigarettes or that people with a unhealthy lifestyle are more likely to get a craving for the bitterness of cigarettes. 3 | Lifestyle and upbringing Lifestyle and upbringing have therefore gained another interesting aspect for the smoking debate and might also explain why smoking is increasingly a problem for working class and beneath apart from e.g. the concept that smoking is mainly used instead of enjoyed in these social stratum [6]. So can citizens deal with the risks of smoking self-responsible? Obviously they can, if they are proper informed and properly educated. Should the government therefore fight the problems of education and misguiding advertising or just ban the results of it's basic failures? 4 | Direct and indirect deaths I will spare us all the articles about Indonesian children with severe health issues and death due to the toxic production of jeans and cheap clothing or animal drug testing reports. All these exist and and they all are indirect deaths and morally and social problems created by our daily lifestyle and choices. You already stated that there are organisations that fight for the rights of these minorities and that this is not part of the topic. But as we scratched this problem before I want to extend the idea to the point, that smoking is directly killing the smoker while other choices harm third parties that don't have a choice. Talking about the importance of change I'd say we first need to take of those who cannot protect themselves and then think about how much we need to do for the individuals that engage in the risk knowingly. 5 | Culture and it's relevance I die a little inside thinking that Bilbo and Gandalf are soon going to be bad role models and that I can use my fathers hand-rolled and crafty Cuban cigars for a last bonfire, but you are right that this for itself is not a sufficient argument for cigarettes. Although you cannot ban one without the other. One might say that the Jewish circumcision is a more severe and painful cultural act done to infants that cannot even give consent, so you might see that abolishing something with a strong cultural background is going to create a bit chaos. Probably another reason why governments don't like to take that risk. It was easier to ban LSD and Cocaine before it became widely popular, that's why law and and risk are not always as linked as one might wish. 6 | Ideas from New Zealand I lately spent a year abroad and I noticed for example that NZ does not sell you cigarettes the way I knew it from Germany. They don't show the cigarettes in the supermarkets and stores and they don't advertise them; if you want them you have to ask for them. And they are absurdly expensive. Not sure if this is an argument, but I have 15 minutes left to review this so I am going to say, it's something one might think about. 7 | Summary and Final words Smoking and other legal and illegal substances all take part in the difficult decision whether we TRUST and EDUCATE our society and support it's development softly or whether we FORCE and CONTROL the society because we are unable to educate them and unable to control the economy that influences our society. Banning is not the answer. The right and indirect enhancement of knowledge, social status and youth protection will decrease the cigarette addictions in total and are a way better and positive method than a ban. [1] Spektrum, Gehirn & Geist, Journal, March 2011, Wege aus der Sucht (How to deal with Addiction), Grohman, Schweizer [2] New York Times, August 2005, Your Body Is Younger Than You Think, Wade, http://www.nytimes.com... [3] Hurriyet DailyNews.com, Smoking ban could be next victim of crisis, Erdeniz http://www.hurriyet.com.tr... [4] Hale, J. (2011). The Development of Food Preferences. Psych Central. Retrieved on May 30, 2014, from http://psychcentral.com... [5] American Journal of clinical nutrition, Bitter taste, phytonutrients, and the consumer: a review (2000), Drewnowski, Gomez-Carneros; http://ajcn.nutrition.org... [6] Richard Layte, The Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), Whitaker Square, Sir John Rogerson's Quay, Dublin, Received September 1, 2006