Resolved: Tobacco use should be banned in the United States

OBV1: There is a huge leap from concluding “tobacco is bad” to “tobacco should be prohibited.” From a public health perspective, this leap could be harmful, for it would take many more cost-effective anti-tobacco regulations off the table while creating violence, making drugs even more potent, and failing to reduce tobacco use. OBV2: The resolution reads “Tobacco Use Should be Banned.” Tobacco use, in conjunction with tobacco production, would be prohibited if my opponent’s ideas were put to the test. This phraseology has a significant impact on his case. We will get to the significance of this in a later round. 1. Prohibition is ineffective in reducing use My opponent’s arguments, for the most part, rely on the assumption that tobacco use would fall if a ban were imposed. Indeed, only if use declines would the health effects to the user and to others become less of a problem. And if use fails to decline, costs to the government would also stay the same--and possibly increase. Banning tobacco would not reduce use, my opponent’s entire position falls apart. The key reason prohibition would reduce use is that it would increase prices. Indeed, all other things being equal, higher prices reduce demand for most goods. Increasing the price of doing a crime through punishments reduces crime, for example. However, the demand for drugs is inelastic, meaning drug users do not respond to price increases as much as you would when shopping for gasoline. For this reason, prohibition may actually make matters worse. Economists Alex Tabarrok and Tyler Cowen write in their textbook, Principles of Economics, that, “The more effective prohibition is at raising costs, the greater are drug industry revenues. So, more effective prohibition means that drug sellers have more money to buy guns, pay bribes, fund the dealers, and even research and develop new technologies in drug delivery (like crack cocaine).”[1] If prohibition leads to increased drug costs, drug use is unlikely to decline much in the short-term because the demand for tobacco is inelastic, and tobacco use may increase in the long term because the new revenues given to the cartels from higher prices would allow them to become more efficient. This is simple supply and demand. When supply is equal to demand, the market is happy and everything goes great. But when government officials reduce the supply of drugs, for example when they raid 320 million dollars worth of meth, markets are no longer in equilibrium.[2] By reducing the supply relative to the demand, prices go up. It is through this that prohibition increases costs, and, as a result, makes matters worse. When prohibitionists argue prohibition increases costs and thus reduces use, there is no strong evidence that drug prices are increasing. Prohibition has failed to increase costs since the 1980s despite there being an increase in drug seizures.[3][4] In many cases, the prices of drugs has declined while seizures have increased. In fact, when Portugal decriminalized drugs, prices did not fall.[5] Both of these arguments weaken my opponent’s position: if prohibition does not increase prices, use will stay the same, and my opponent’s case falls apart. But if prohibition increases prices, it could increase drug use. We are forced to conclude that prohibition would make matters worse or have no effect on use at all. Both of these conclusions make my opponent’s arguments, from a public health perspective, impotent. 2. Prohibition makes drugs more dangerous Outlawing drugs leads to the creation of potent alternatives. While prohibition may rarely be “successful” and reduce the supply of drug, it leads to more dangerous replacements. In other words, scarcity begets innovation. Innovation occurs when people want to reduce the number of constraints on their enterprise. Tobacco prohibition, as it would reduce the supply in some areas, would constrain cartels and thus force drug cartels to create new, less-detectable (and more unsafe) alternatives in order to overcome the challenges of drug enforcement. In the case of opiates, drug cartels have hired chemists to make synthetic substitutes for the drug. These drugs are cheaper to make and more easily evade drug enforcement officials.[6] Unfortunately, these synthetic drugs are more potent than the original drug they were meant to replace. Banning drugs forces drug markets to go underground. Illicit markets are not subject to oversight and regulation. In the current tobacco regulatory regime, the FDA regulates the production, marketing, and sale of tobacco products.[7] The FDA requires labeling, transparency regarding ingredients, requires a reduction the amount of harmful chemicals put into tobacco, make public the nicotine content of cigarettes, etc.[8] If drugs were banned, these rules would disappear. Users would be forced to purchase drugs from unknown, unreputable, and criminal dealers who would not be required--and likely wouldn’t even know--what ingredients are in the product. While tobacco being sold today isn’t “safe,” prohibition would make the drug even worse. Prohibition is antithetical to public health goals. 3. Prohibition would create violence As prohibition drives markets underground, violence is the inevitable result. With the market no longer operating under the rule of law, participants in the market use violence to resolve disputes. Economist Jeffrey A. Miron, in his research on the topic, has argued prohibition of both alcohol and drugs led to increases in the homicide rate. Even when controlling for other factors that can affect homicide rates, the evidence still suggests homicide in the United States is higher than it otherwise would be if drugs were legal.[9] In the United States, there are 2,000 homicides each year related to gang violence.[10] In the US, the illegal drug trade is a $100 billion dollar a year underground industry.[11] That is $100 billion in the hands of gang members who kill each other and innocent civilians instead of $100 billion in the hands of law-abiding business owners who work out disputes in the legal system. By banning tobacco, the illicit drug industry would expand and create more crime. It should also be noted that the drug war has led to more resources being used to catch drug dealers and users rather than “real” criminals. In Florida, research has found increased drug enforcement efforts reduced the number of property crime arrests.[12] The decline in arrests was not because drug enforcement reduced property crime; indeed, the study found that property crime increased in the period studied due to the decline in arrests. Miron has also suggested that, “Eliminating drug prohibition would probably reduce homicide in the United States by 25 to 75 percent.”[13] 4. Harm Reduction Instead of banning tobacco, which would make harm per use worse, create crime, and fail to reduce use, we should focus on initiatives that actually work. US anti-tobacco policies are already working, as use has fallen to an all-time low. Only 12% of US adults use tobacco, down from 42% in 1965.[14] The success of current public health initiatives in regards to combating tobacco use can be seen below. This demonstrates we can reduce tobacco use--and the harms that come from tobacco use use--without prohibiting it. In Sweden, they have legalized the use of “snus,” a smokeless alternative to tobacco. While other countries banned the drug, Sweden allowed its use, and now has the most effective anti-smoking policies in Europe, according to the WHO.[15] In Sweden, 20% of men now use snus, and this is the primary reason Sweden has the lowest smoking rate in developed countries; young men substitute tobacco for a less-dangerous alternative.[17] Electronic cigarettes have far fewer health risks than traditional smoking, and they are helping smokers quit smoking in the US. The vast majority of electronic cigarette users had previously been smokers and were trying to quit--successfully--by using smokeless alternatives.[16] The innovation regarding smokeless tobacco is how the free market is reducing tobacco use without intervention. However, intervention is still needed. In the US, California has the second lowest smoking rate.[18] Utah has the lowest smoking rate, though that should be attributed to the largely mormon populace, not specific policies. California has access to the most funded anti-smoking public awareness campaign in the country.[17] California doesn’t simply have the lowest rate of tobacco consumption at this very moment, but the rate of smoking has been, and still is, consistently falling.[19] Research also demonstrates that “different racial and socioeconomic groups respond equally well to quit campaigns.”[17] My opponent cites the 6 million killed each year by smoking statistic in order to suggest that the tobacco problem is worsening, but the way he uses the statistic is disingenuous. That statistic relates to the entire world, but this debate is only about the US. Indeed, the increasing number of smoking deaths globally stems from undeveloped countries.[17] In the US, the problem is improving by every measure. Pursuing a policy of harm reduction, which has been relatively successful in the United States and elsewhere, would reduce tobacco use without any of the negative externalities of prohibition. 1. Tyler Cowen and Alex Tabarrok, Principles of Economics, p. 60. 2. http://tinyurl.com... 3. http://tinyurl.com... 4. http://tinyurl.com... 5.http://tinyurl.com... 6. http://tinyurl.com... 7. http://tinyurl.com...; 8. http://tinyurl.com... 9. http://tinyurl.com... 10. http://tinyurl.com... 11. http://tinyurl.com... 12. http://tinyurl.com...; 13. http://tinyurl.com...; 14. http://tinyurl.com... 15. http://tinyurl.com... 16. http://tinyurl.com... 17. http://tinyurl.com... 18. http://tinyurl.com... 19. http://tinyurl.com...