Smoking Should be Banned

"...As can be seen, banning of smoking truly has a positive affect." You are only highlighting the effects of the ban in that one area. Since personal health and choices are not governmental concerns, all other effects of the ban would be strikes against the government, society, and economy. What about the effects I mentioned earlier that you have ignored entirely? Again, a sufficient example would be the fiscal matters of smoking cigarettes as presented by August Vollmer, founder of the University of California's School of Criminology as well as former president of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, "Stringent laws, spectacular police drives, vigorous prosecution, and imprisonment of addicts and peddlers have proved not only useless and enormously expensive as means of correcting this evil, but they are also unjustifiably and unbelievably cruel in their application to the unfortunate drug victims. Repression has driven this vice underground and produced the narcotic smugglers and supply agents, who have grown wealthy out of this evil practice and who, by devious methods, have stimulated traffic in drugs. Finally, and not the least of the evils associated with repression, the helpless addict has been forced to resort to crime in order to get money for the drug which is absolutely indispensable for his comfortable existence." The banning of any addictive drug will backfire financially due to the high demand in the black market created by its prohibition. Regardless of the health effects, the ban would blur the fine line between public and private which would cause more problems in an already damaged system. Yet again, I stress that just because a way of life is healthier than another does not mean that it should be imposed upon everyone. There are more than just black and white solutions to the problem; the black and white represent smoking as illegal and as legal. There is a gray matter in-between the two sides and that space is where all the other creative and constructive thoughts and possibilities lie. If so many believe that smoking is a problem, why not try to find other helpful ways (more on this later) to solve the issue that benefit people in positions all over the grid? Intelligently and respectfully working out one's problems is much more effective and mature than requiring laws to be changed in order to support one side of the argument or needing a government trusted to look after your personal health. "Your argument about milk: [sic] You cannot compare milk to cigarettes. While milk has some negative effects, it has more positive effects. In contrast, cigarettes just make you "Feel good" and have terrible disatrous [sic] consequences on the human body. The benefit of smoking is overwhelmed by the negative health effects it gives out." Of course I can; I can compare whatever I would like to with a reasonable link between the two. The analogy provided several connections including the fact that people may freely purchase and consume both and that if either were prohibited it would be insulting to civil rights. Still, the idea, once again, was that the numbers do not impact the logic. "It doesn't, but the government nevertheless has tried hard, with the FDA program as well as many other medicine programs, such as health care. If the government didn't try, citizens would be angered and possibly revolt against the bad government. So to answer your question, yes, the government is required to keep citizens healthy for its own state and being. And because smoking is so difficult to quit, the government needs to put a mandatory law upon it. It's similar to a parent stopping a child from doing something bad. You need to "Ground" the child in order to stop him/her from doing the bad thing you don't want it to do." You're correct in that the constitution says nothing in regards to a country's authority caring for its citizens which strengthens my point. Just because the government (and even certain people such as yourself) want to place a ban over the heads of any and all American smokers does not mean that it is acceptable or beneficial. This is one of the main reasons that I have a problem with the smoking ban; the government is not my parent. If we are all individual citizens, we should be able to make our own decisions in life without being controlled by authority. Furthermore, there is a major difference between a family independently raising a child until it is mature/eighteen, and a government controlling an adult's actions and choices for his whole life. Also, you said, "...in order to stop him/her from doing the bad thing you don't want it to do." Why should the government be allowed to decide what is bad, good, and what they do not want other people to do? This is not kindergarten; it is the real world. It is a well-known fact that smoking is detrimental to one's health, but people choose do it anyway. If you do not smoke there is no way to fully understand this logic and it would be unfair to intentionally disregard smokers' want's and need's since they are equal to you in that they are fellow humans and citizens. "Let me exaggerate the numbers a bit more, okay? Let us say, instead of 6 million people dying each year, half of the population on the face of the earth died last year. That would be incredibly impacting to the world, destroying governments around the world, societies, and the rest of the people would struggle to live on. Cigarettes are being introduced by ads, and teenagers are curious to a taste of cigarette. If smoking was spread across the globe, and many many became addicted to it, unable to quit, then my situation would happen--half of the population would die within a year. Had smoking been banned, the number would have been much more controlled and low. Yes, they can buy from the black-market, just like when the alcohol was banned, but the number is very small so as to keep the government from noticing. The ban of smoking will cause a massive decrease of smokers, and thus, leading to the eventual decline of smoking deaths and diseases, enlighting [sic] the massive burden on hospitals as well as the money a family has to pay in order to cure the disease obtained from smoking." If you stretch the statistics on motorcycle deaths in order to theoretically kill off half the planet, it would have just as much impact. There are many causes of death including other substances, vehicle accidents, airplane incidents, cancer, starvation, and suicide. Why are we not banning anything that leads to these forms of death? Curiosity is not a bad thing; I know from experience that some teenagers will hate their first taste of a cigarette and never touch one again, so that is just as weak of an argument as the financial one presented above. No one would earn money from the smoking ban but drug dealers. Writer Milton Friedman stated, "...if you look at the drug war from a purely economic point of view, the role of the government is to protect the drug cartel. That's literally true." On the contrary, if tobacco were to remain legal and sellers were licensed, tobacco taxes would raise money for the country, additional jobs would be available, and the amount of cigarettes sold to minors would decrease substantially. A quote in regards to the smoking ban by the well-known author Christopher Hitchens: "Is it really true that people do not mind having the cigarette snatched from their hands, everywhere from the boozer to the night-club to the billiard hall? Are they aware how soon the other shoe will drop, and that people will be told (as they already are being told in some parts of America) that they may not smoke if they live in public housing or use public parks or public beaches? I say it at the risk of embarrassment, but if people have become this accustomed to being told what to do, then I think we have lost something else that cannot quite be quantified."