Fire_wings 50th debate: Smoking Ban

Thank you, Con.Rebuttal I: Liberty.Con's case of Liberty is simply too vague. As I mentioned in my own Premises, freedom is not the endgame. The goal of men is to find the balance of liberty and law. Con's own philosophy greatly underestimates the complexities of liberty, and presumes that more freedom = good.He brings up the harm principle, which is good... Since the impacts of smoking on the economy is great, and it hurts ALL people. The economic loss is around $580 per adult citizen. And an additional $420 in taxes per tax payer. Another $260 in expanses per adult. The total cost is $1250 a year per citizen. I, a non-smoker, pay in costs and losses, $12,500 a decade for the "liberty" to smoke.Of course, there is also secondhand effects, which will cost 5,600,000 children, alive today, their lifes. As my own arguments made clear, the impact of secondhand smoke escapes the home. Restricting it's use to the house does nothing to stop it's impact on homes nearby. Since most smokers are poorer, they tend to live in apartments with others, each at risk of cancer and potentially death. Secondhand smoke itself kills 42,000 non-smokers alone every year, 900 of whom were babies (1). Secondhand smoke even causes serious long-term issues, such as learning disabilities. 21.5 million children will likely have reading disabilities because of secondhand smoke, found in a study by Yolton (2). Another study by Batty found that children exposed to secondhand smoke are likely to be, on average, 3 IQ points lower than non-effected children (3). It is assumed that women exposed to secondhand smoke are 68% more likely to have a miscarriage (4). The effects of smoking are economically huge for non-smokers, and the smoke itself is destructive. I will save the many other effects and harms for my defense. The problem with Con's case is that liberty is only a benefit. It can, and gravely is, undermined by the vast negative impacts of smoking. The invasion of the liberties of every non-smoker far outweighs the very meager freedom to smoke.[1] http://www.livescience.com...[2] Yolton, K. et al., "Exposure to Environmental Tobacco Smoke and Cognitive Abilities of U.S. Children and Adolescents," Environmental Health Perspectives, 113(1): 98-103.[3] Batty, G.D.; Der, G.; Deary, I.J., "Effect of maternal smoking during pregnancy on offspring's cognitive ability: empirical evidence for complete confounding in the US National Longitudinal Survey of Youth," Pediatrics 118(3): 943-950, September 2006.[4] "Secondhand smoke raises odds of fertility problems in women," Science Daily, December 5, 2008.Rebuttal II: Economics of Smoking.Con seems to presume all $310 billion in losses are gains for the tobacco industry, but they aren't. In economics, there are two types of expenses... Negative and Positive. Losses and Stimulus. Some expenses boost the economy while others hurt it. Medical expanses are considered negative expenses. More medical expenses make insurance more expensive and can even hurt an already overly crowded medical industry.So the $310 bn isn't stimulus... They are all losses. $145 bn in actual losses from death, lost expenses, lost productivity, and lost taxes. Of the $170 bn in medical costs, $105 bn is Government expenses. If we were to take taxes into account, the Government would get only, at most, $10 billion from expenses, and pay $105 billion to get it.The Dependency argument is economical in origin, so I'll include it here. Con says there are 800,000 people working on a Tobacco farm, and a likely 10,000,000 in total... This is a silly number, as no farm in the world would hold more than a few hundred workers at max. And his source is about safe areas in bars, mentioning nothing about the industry, farms, or jobs. The industry, as a whole, actually employs only 660,000 workers, and $15 billion in payrolls... However, many of these workers are children, even in the US, some as young as 7 years old [6]. These children face severe issues doing so.The 660,000 jobs are meaningless. Cigarettes kill hundreds of thousands of US workers. If JUST half of the 480,000 annual Americans killed by smoking were workers, then the tobacco industry has killed 1,200,000 US workers since 2010 (7). The number goes as high as 2,400,000. This far outweighs the 660k workers of the tobacco industry. And the $15 billion in payroll is outweighed by the increased cost of living and the lost $145 billion the economy never saw.[5] http://www.encyclopedia.com...[6] http://www.cnn.com...[7] http://www.cdc.gov...Rebuttal III: Illegal Drugs.Con says cigarettes will become an illegal drug like cocaine. However, cocaine use became rampant in the 70's and 80's, but has since been nearly wiped out by US drug policy (8). Cocaine is perhaps one of the US's greatest success stories. Regardless, Cigarettes don't have an aggressive enough addiction rate to last long in the US. Not only are most addictions born only because the drug is legal, but it's hard to quit because the circumstances (it's legality) allow it to be. Trying to quit is hard when you see hundreds of variants of the product lined up colorfully in the entry of every shop in the US. It's legality is why it's addiction is so aggressive. If the drug were illegal, it'd be far easier to quit.Another reason why banning smoking wouldn't lead to a massive black market is because the product is so widely hated by Americans, and secondhand smoke is such a popular topic. Drugs like marijuana have popular opinion on their side. We see that public opinion leads to larger black markets because only the drugs with a positive public image have growing/large markets, while unpopular drugs (cigarettes being included) have dying markets.[8] http://www.dea.gov...Rebuttal IV: Smoking Areas.My first argument in R1 addresses this... To copy my case, smoking in a designated location does nothing, as the smoke travels. So much so that the user can effect houses nearby. A study by San Diego State University shows that smoke will contaminate nearby apartments (9). Other studies show the same (10). Even third-degree smoke is considered a thing now, as people can pass on secondhand smoke to those around them.Restricting smoking to certain areas doesn't work, as a study by Gideon St.Helen found that such areas simply contaminate the bar and surrounding areas (11).[9] http://www.nature.com...[10] http://www.usatoday.com...[11] http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov...Summary:The effects of smoke on the economy and others negates any case for freedom, and puts an end to the idea that tobacco is healthy for the economy.