Resolved: Tobacco use should be banned in the United States

First off, my opponents rebuttals to secondhand smoke are COMPLETELY invalid in today's round. a) Ban tobacco use in public places b) Ban smoking near children c) Require consent from family members Round 1 clearly states "Pro in this debate will advocate a ban, Con will support the status quo" Status quo is "the existing state of affairs, especially regarding social or political issues." (Google). So basically 16k must defend the current system, while I advocate that a ban would be more beneficial to society. This means that secondhand smoke is completely valid in the round, and the houndreds of thousands of deaths of innocents completely outweigh Con's entire case. Next in his rebuttal Con states that "by prohibiting tobacco use and making drugs unregulated, more harmful, and more addictive, how would prohibition help users quit use? If anything, prohibiting tobacco would make the user worse off. They would be criminally liable for using drugs, would be using unregulated drugs that are more unsafe than the legal variants, and they would be forced to purchase from criminal drug dealers and gangs that use violence and extortion in order to receive payment. Prohibition puts users in harms way more than it does in the current system." Where Con misunderstands is that if tobacco is banned, use drops. This is a fact, as my previous rounds proved. When drugs were banned, the access and demand fo them decreased. A ban makes something harder to get, which reduces use. Premise 1: A ban would reduce access to tobacco ( make it harder to get) Premise 2: Lower access means less tobacco Conclusion: A ban reduces tobacco use. It is true that there would be a few cases of smuggling here and there. However, just because something may occur even with a ban does not make it right to be legalized. For example society bans robbery yet robberies still occur. By con logic, since something still occurs while banned, it should be legalized. If tobacco is banned, users will be forced to quit or be forced to look into smokeless tobacco, no more dagerous carcinogens and secondhand smoke. it is true that the rate of smoking is declining today, however a ban is still necessary because a significant amount of people do indeed smoke. http://www.livescience.com... "There were over 158.6 million women in the United States in 2009. The number of men was 151.4 million" The smoking rate is 17.8% according to CDC. This is 55 million smokers still in the US Framework my opponent has not addressed, which is that role of government is to better the lives of the people. Therefore in a cost/benefit analysis vote Pro. Environment should still go to me. He doesn't mention my evidence that US smokers contribute 250 billion cigarette butts and that the litter is toxic. They kill 1000 a year and cost billions to clean, as they are the majority of litter. Economic: my opponent assumes that a ban would take more money enforcing, based off his conjecture that use that will not go down. This argument is rebutted by lack of access and harder to buy tobacco. making prohibition of tobacco beneficial to the economy Conclusion Vote Pro based on a cost/benefit analysis. Con has not shown a benefit to society of smoking, while I directly prove that smoking causes cancer in users and non users alike. It hurts the economy and environment. Back to Con