Smoking (not marijuana) should be banned

Time for my slicker rebuttals to your rebuttals. You said "It does not matter how many people die from smoking. It is not my problem. Just because it was their choice and they did not take responsibility for their actions does not mean someone else shouldn't smoke." I disagree and think it is a serious problem if 1/5 of our population are dying from it. You are more likely to die from secondhand smoke than something like Ebola. ( We now know that 53,800 people die every year from secondhand smoke exposure http://www.no-smoke.org... and 4,493 have died from Ebola http://www.bbc.com...) So to be realistic this could become your problem very easily if someone around you is smoking. You go on to say that they did not take responsibility for their actions but that statement doesn't make sense at all. I will point out some problems with that 1. Look at these numbers ( According to the report, 68.8 percent of current smokers say they want to quit and 52.4 percent tried to quit during the past year. http://usatoday30.usatoday.com... ) That alone disproves your argument that they didn't take responsibility, 52% means that more than half (the majority) of smokers have tried to quit, therefore they have tried to take responsibility but it was too late. This brings me back to my research on how addicting smoking is. Since smoking is so addicting you could just try it 1 time not intending to ever do it again and you could become addicted and still get affected 2.("Smoking begins to cause damage right away and is highly addictive. Several studies have found nicotine to be as addictive as heroin, cocaine, or alcohol; it is the most common form of drug addiction in the United States. http://www.quitsmokingsupport.com...) This is another clear argument that disproves your statement, this means that if someone smokes just a couple of cigarettes and manages to quit (which is very unlikely but would mean that they took responsibility of there actions) they are still extremely likely to cause longterm health effects and possibly die from smoking so even if you do take responsibility you are still at risk. If the US government can stop ban the #1 preventable cause of death they definitely should. This is not about you con so why even say "it is not my problem" because that doesn't matter, what does matter is that if Tobacco kills up to half of its users, and 42.1 million people (over the age of 18) use it, then it is a serious issue for our country and should not be allowed. 2."You describe how bad smoking is. Irrelevant." How is that irrelevant, the reason I want to ban it is because it is so bad so this is not irrelevant. Usually a pro smokers defense for smoking is that it is not very bad for you and not very addicting. That is why I have supplied the data showing that it is bad and addicting. Now you are showing me that you can not prove that smoking isn't horrible for your health so you will write it off as being "irrelevant". So I would like you to explain how this is irrelevant without using your one strong argument that if people want to smoke it is their right. 3. I posted this video http://www.youtube.com... This video points out 3 things, 1.People that smoke do regret it 2.Once again it shows how bad smoking is for your body 3. This one is really important. The C,D,C or center of disease control was the branch of government to create this video Centers Of Disease Controls:The US agency charged with tracking and investigating public health trends. The stated mission of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, commonly called the CDC, is "To promote health and quality of life by preventing and controlling disease, injury, and disability. (" http://www.medicinenet.com... ) This agency was created by the government to help prevent the most important public health issues, so If they are worried about smoking then we should all be worried about it because it is most definitely a very serious issue. And to Con's argument about smoking being a right i have a very obvious counter, IF THE GOVERNMENT THINKS SOMETHING IS A DANGER TO OUR COUNTRY (Guns for example) THEN IT IS NO LONGER THE RIGHTS OF THE CITIZENS because the government is meant to make those important decisions and that is exactly what they are trying to do with smoking. (note that my opponent had no rebuttal to this.) 4. I explained how addicting and dangerous smoking is and Con simply went back to his "rights" argument but again I will tell you that if the Government thinks something is so dangerous that it is a threat to our country than it is their right to Ban it. Also a lot of people do not intend to smoke around 60% but because of addiction they can not help it. Banning smoking would help prevent these people from making a bad decision because it is a proven fact that not as many people will do something when it is illegal. 5. Con's rebuttal that the reason cigarettes are so expensive is because "the government taxes the living HELL out of this product to discourage people from buying it because it's bad for your health. Maybe if these liberals just REALIZE that they don't get to make other people's decision then people wouldn't hate them as much." First of all this is a very unprofessional argument in which you bring your political views into the debate which is overall just silly. Secondly it does not matter why they are expensive, My point was that it is a burden on middle to low class family's and will decrease the quality of life, and though it is clear that you do not care much for others I do and I am sure that addiction is the problem and not that they really enjoy smoking. I also find it funny that you mention that it is not the governments decision what we do when it actually is. We in fact do not have the right to do whatever we want or this country would be a mess. 6. You did not have any rebuttal to this. 7. You actually had a fairly impressive solution on this one and at first one would think it would be a perfect solution but think about this, you have places you can and cannot smoke in public, People are still going to smoke in there homes and in less densely populated areas so although it would help it would not be as effective as an all out ban. Now I would like to address your arguments for smoking: 1."smoking is a right of the people" like I said before since the government has control it can actually take away our rights if they think it is reasonable and also according to the numbers I have shown so far If there was a vote a ban on smoking would very likely pass, therefore it would be a decision by people. Also if you do a bit of research you will find out that "tobacco manufacturers or libertarian viewpoints focusing on individual freedom are often partially or completely discarded by politicians" (http://www.forbes.com... ) Meaning that this argument would have little to no affect in an actual voting situation. 2. Easily your best argument here you talk about the impact on the tobacco industry and the economy. Now I will give it to you that the tobacco industry would take a big hit if a ban of smoking took place But there are many other forms of tobacco (chewing etc) so they would still be growing it meaning farming would not take a huge blow, also this new space made from not growing something that kills 1/5th of our population could go to a good cause by helping grow more food that could help keep us alive. It is a fact that we are running out of farm land and with that we get more commercialized farming which means more disgusting meat from overcrowded farms.With all of the room we could free up by stopping the growth of Tobacco we could have bigger farms therefore better healthier meat, I'm not sure about you but I would rather have the food industry make money than the Tobacco industry. Finally I would like to bring to attention that studies show that bans of smoking actually increase the income of small businesses " An analysis by the University of Florida's Bureau of Economic and Business Research, released in June 2004, found that restaurant sales were up 7 percent one year after state's the smoke free law that made all public places and restaurants 100% smoke free took effect on July 1, 2003" http://no-smoke.org... 3. Your third that making Cigarettes illegal would make them have a more dangerous black market and you used the example of meth. First of all if 60% of smokers want to quit then only 40% of smokers would still want to smoke, from their less than half of them are realistically going to commit a serious drug offence to get a smoke and out of that 20% less than 10% will end up getting smoking and selling cigarettes, therefore making cigarettes illegal would stop about 90% of there use and would most likely stop almost all use in public due to not wanting to get caught (people do not walk down the street doing heroin and meth) As for the cartel, sure they will probably smuggle cigarettes over if there is enough of a demand but it will not have much of an affect simply because the cartel will always be smuggling things and there will always be drugs under demand that they will have to smuggle therefore cigarettes wont actually make much if any difference. Thank you for reading this long debate and taking both sides into account.