smoking

Proposition of Policy: Cigarette smoking should not be banned in the United States Key terms: ( taken from dictionary. com) Cigarette-a cylindrical roll of finely cut tobacco cured for smoking, considerably smaller than most cigars and usually wrapped in thin white paper. Smoking-to draw into the mouth and puff out the smoke of Banned-to prohibit, forbid, or bar Primary inference: Smoking cigarettes should not be made illegal in the United States. Claim 1: While a government has a responsibility to protect its population, it also has a responsibility to defend their freedom of choice. The law steps in to prevent citizens causing harm to others, whether deliberately or accidentally. However, it should not stop them taking risks themselves - for example, dangerous sports such as rock-climbing, parachuting or motor-racing are legal. It is also legal to indulge in other health-threatening activities such as eating lots of fatty foods, taking no exercise, and drinking too much alcohol. A comparison is to unhealthy foods; high cholesterol or a high intake of fat can be extremely harmful, leading to heart disease, obesity, and other conditions; but manufacturers of these products are not punished. Consumers simply like the taste of fatty food. People should be allowed to smoke cigarettes and to eat fatty foods - both these things are sources of pleasure which, while having serious associated health risks, are only fatal after many decades, unlike a poisonous food or an unsafe car, which pose immediate and high risks. Banning smoking would be an unmerited intrusion into personal freedom. If we were to ban smoking because of health issues, then there should be a tax on unhealthy foods. "Report by the University of Nottingham and University of Oxford [1], claimed that introducing a tax on unhealthy foods would save, at least, 3,000 lives a year from heart disease. The authors also claim this is a conservative estimate, because it ignores the benefits from the reduced incidence of diabetes, strokes and other obesity related illnesses. " more info on the effects of this idea . http://www.economicshelp.org... Claim 2: It would be crazy to criminalise an activity indulged in by about one sixth of the world population. The lesson of prohibition of alcohol in America in the 1920s was that banning a recreational drug used by a large proportion of the population merely leads to crime and contraband. The reason for the alcohol ban is stated as "claimed that the nation's health would improve dramatically without alcohol, and that crime would drop. It was also claimed that other industries, like dairy, would prosper as other types of beverages increased in popularity to fill the void left by the absence of alcohol. Juvenile delinquency was also supposed to be virtually eliminated, and the average workers productivity was also supposed to increase, leading to an increase in economic prosperity for the nation. " This proved to be false, "By the time of the repeal of the 18th Amendment in 1933, it was obvious that the measure was a failure. Instead of promoting the nation's health and hygiene, the opposite was true as the illegal manufacture of alcohol filled part of the void, and those illegal products were often dangerous or much higher in alcohol content than the beer, wines and spirits they replaced. Crime also increased, since illegal activity was required to market the illegal alcohol. Criminal activity became organized and led to the rise of powerful crime syndicates that used murder, and the bribery of public officials and even law enforcement officers, to move large quantities of the illegal substance. Drug use increased, with drugs taking the place of alcohol. Worker productivity did not increase. Jails filled with people convicted of relatively minor infractions of the alcohol ban. Enforcement of the ban cost millions of dollars. Congress repealed the 18th Amendment with the passage of the 21st Amendment in 1933. As a result of the legalization of alcohol, crime was actually reduced and many new jobs were created as the liquor industry expanded. This was especially important in the Depression years that began with the Stock Market crash in 1929 and lasted into the late 1930s. " . http://www.historicpatterson.org... Claim 3: Banning cigarettes would also mean that governments would lose tax revenue from tobacco sales - a major source of income for national health and other resources. They yearly average for tax revenue on cigarettes in 2006 was $14, 794, 713. . http://www.taxpolicycenter.org... Banning smoking would not Help the current economy or the health of the American people. People choose to smoke becasue they want to and they are intitled to their right to decide. If America was to make smoking illegal, excess costs of jail time, court, hospital bills, welfare, and employing extra police officers because of wrong doers, would be put upon the American people in the form of taxes.