Smoking Ban

Thank you TN05. Free WillAddiction Destroys Free Will:"25% of medicine-assisted smoking attempts succeed"This statistic doesn't refute the fact that smoking is extremely difficult to quit even to those who want to quit. That 75% cannot quit even with medicinal assistance is still a legitimate statistic. That an overwhleming majority of attempts to quit without medicine (93-96%) is still very relevant. The increased but still minority success rate of including medicinal assistance is clear evidence of the powerful imposition that smoking has against free will. These statistics show a widely recurring trend of attempted quitters being compelled to smoke against their own will. As these statistics show, it is incredibly difficult to counteract this condition of psychological slavery, even with medicine. Again, there is no free will in having your brain be controlled by artificially-induced impulses. Addiction destroys free will. Again, smoking addiction is a form of psychological slavery. To condone something which so heavily impinges on this freedom is to undermine our nation's values. Secondhand Smoking:"If [. .] exposure of environmental tobacco smoke is roughly equivalent to smoking one cigarette per day[, then] a small increase in lung cancer is possible. "My opponent's study not oesn't prove the former part of this proposition, it grudingly admits that secondhand smoke as a cause to lung cancer. This source then goes on to say that the statistical causation between heart disease and second-hand smoking are implausible. Since heart disease is not lung cancer, this study provides us with a misleading juxtaposition meant tosubconsciously trick the reader into drawing a similar conclusion on the incidence of secondhand smoke to lung cancer. Furthermore, all attempts to actually find and access the actual study have been elusively unsuccessful. I assert that this source is dishonest and does not effectively provide any real source of refutation. 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. My opponent then goes on to suggest better ventilation as a solution to second-hand smoking. That's like saying everyone living in a community with higher incidents of gun mortalities should wear bulletproof vests. What qualifies as better ventilation? How will the government go about enforcing an installation of ventilation in every single smoking household? Secondhand smoking is a symptom to the disease of smoking with ventilation a vague solution to this particular symptom. Removing smoking is the cure to the disease. A ban on smoking is infinitely more plausible than enforcing better ventilation. The EconomyCosts:I don't know what my opponent is trying to show here, but clearly the profit derived from the smoking industry isn't anywhere near the $289 billion of calculated loss. Even if we accept that the majority of tax dollars go to the government, we're left with a $112 billion total overall profit, our end result is, as my opponent's calculated for us, a $177 billion dollar loss as a pre-ban value. 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. Even the most popular illegal drug, marijuana, has a production rate of less than 3% of tobacco,even considering the fact that marijuana is widely used in the medical field. I assert 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 (a mere 30% as compared to the 70% who do want to quit), severely limited accessibility will prompt most, even among the unwilling, to stop smoking. Again, I don't claim a ban will stop all from smoking, but I do claim that it will stop most from smoking since that is what willlikely happen. I further assert that even if a ban doesn't stop some people from smoking, it'll deter habitual smoking at the very least for a number of these lawless stragglers since constant and consistent accessibility will be severely ruined by a comprehensive ban. So applying the 75% of people from a pre-ban period to a post-ban hypothetical statistic is a wildly incorrect and inaccurate manipulation of numbers. In order for the net loss of $177 billion to be mitigated, a ban merely needs to deter 39% of smokers from smoking (.61 * 289 = 177). And since a majority do want to quit (70%), I assert that the net loss would be at the very most $89 billion(.3 * $289 billion), which is significantly less than the net annual loss of $177 billion that we currently have. In terms of the economy, a ban would be more beneficial than not. I win the cost argument. Tobacco Farmers:Destroying slavery put slave-traders out of business. This case is no different. The existence of an occupation is irrelevant to whether or not we should sustain the occupation, which is circular logic anyway. Businesses:If a business model profitably encourages murder, rape or torture in its vicinity, should we allow it to do so? Smoking isn't as bad, but the point is, profitability is ultimately irrelevant to whether or not the item under discussion should be allowed. Also, cross apply my refutation to Tobacco Farmers. CigarsArguing that cigars can be used in a way that is less detrimental to health is akin to arguing that guns can be used in self defense. While both are true, what ultimately matters is prevalence of misuse. Since cigars' shape and form are the exact same as those of cigarettes, it is very likely that those who do smoke cigars smoke it like they do cigarettes. Ultimately to smoke a cigar, the smoker holds it in his mouth in the same way as he would do with a cigarette. Even if he's not explicitly inhaling the smoke, he still has tobreathe. Thus, whether or not the smoker thinks he's not inhaling, he is. My opponent claims that smoking cigars 'correctly' is healthier than smoking cigarettes. I find this assertion ludicrous. Even if true, my opponent doesn't give us any real quantitative measures as to how much better it is than cigarettes. I assert that they are about the same save for the fact that since cigars are part chewing tobacco, they will badly stain teeth. My opponent seems to agree that cigarettes are bad and, unless I'm mistaken, seem to support banning cigarettes but keeping cigars. However, this debate pertains to both. If given an option to ban both or keep both, I think my opponent will agree that banning both is better than keeping both. Cross apply my earlier refutations to my opponent's secondhand smoke study here. Failed Ban The purpose as a ban is ultimately to deter habit and incumbence rate. A legal deterrent goes a long way. Again, banning the substance would probably drop production to below quotas of even marijuana. I assert that a smoking habit would me much more difficult to sustain if illegal. Decreased access = decreased usage. This contention fails. TN05 - "Even if just 15% of smokers keep smoking"If only 15% of the current population of smokers keep smoking, the ban, a deterrent for those who might have started smoking and a deterrent to those currently smoking, will have saved us from $(177 - (.15 * 289)) or $133.65 billion in addition to a corresponding proportion of lives. Over time, a ban on smoking will make smoking as obsolete as heroin and crystal meth, which is to say, some illegal access will always be there, but what matters is that we stop a lot of people from dying. That counts for something doesn't it? Ultimately, I believe the huge proportion of preventable deaths prevented are much more significant than my opponent's 15% complaint. Cross apply this to unneeded ban. Deaths are GoodMy opponent basically argues that the economy would be better off if the current nearly 100 million U. S. smokers keep smoking (which I've shown to be false), and that these same smokers should die for this same economy. From a utilitarian point of view, encouraging these people to smoke, even if they are no longer necessarily productive to the economy, is immoral both in its taking lives (removing the potential for more happiness) and its adverse affects on health (which directly impinge upon happiness by causing suffering). My opponent's premise here basically further assumes that we should encourage mass production and sustenance of killing via smoking since it's better for the economy. This premise also violates virtue ethics. From all perspecitives, this argument fails. Conclusion-Smoking is an agent of death (conceded). My opponent's refutation to the impact with regard to this contention show an astounding devaluation of human lives, violating most, if not all, ethical systems' values. -I've also shown that a smoking ban will likely be more economically beneficial than not, negating my opponent's cost argument. Further, my opponent does not dispute that his economic valuations do not necessarily support whether or not we ought to keep smoking legal. So even if my opponent's arguments win out here (they do not), the immorality of encouraging smoking is sufficient to affirming the resolution. -Smoking violates free willMy opponent's musings on Tobacco Farmers and businesses are insignificant (and effectively refuted) when weighed against more practical (economic) and ethical (free-will, utilitarian & virtue ethics, etc. ) considerationsI believe I've effectively refuted most if not all of my opponent's points.