Smoking should be made illegal

You make a good argument, although I think you may have misinterpreted mine a little bit. Maybe I wasn't clear, as I often am not. what I meant was that secondhand smoke at close range is not easily avoided, and any exposure at all to secondhand smoke is dangerous. Yes smoking does cause pollution, and yes, you are correct that it is a negligible amount. We do need to reduce pollution, but that is a different debate. Your other point was pretty good. Maybe I could avoid secondhand smoke if they banned smoking in public places, as they have in Utah, because I don't smoke, and I wouldn't allow anyone to smoke within 15 feet of my house, but what if someone was a smoker that had a child. That child would be unfairly disadvantaged. Compounds in tobacco smoke can cause learning deficiencies, among other things, so the child is already placed at a lower level even before they are born. It doesn't seem fair that, until the child moves out or the parent stops smoking, that child is absolutely disadvantaged. It is horrible for me to think about. Until the child knows that smoking is bad, they can't even tell their parents to stop smoking. Let me tell you a story. When I was about 2 (way too long ago), it must have been my dad's 35th birthday party. I don't remember it at all, but from what he tells me, he was smoking a cigar. He didn't smoke often but he sometimes had a cigar at parties. He had always told me that smoking was bad. A 2 year old version of me walked up to him and reminded him of what he always told me. At that moment, he put down the cigar and never smoked anything again. The reason I shared that story was basically just to show that kids are influenced by their parents' behaviors, and they want their parents to be healthy. Luckily, my dad wasn't addicted, but many parents are, and often times, smoking calms people a bit too much. If you have ever read the book "Kluge" by Gary Marcus (if you haven't, I strongly recommend it), you will know that a kluge in the human mind puts present above future, so the parent might say to the child that the cigarettes calm them, instead of listening to a 2 year old lecturing them about how smoking kills. On a fairly unrelated note, I'd like to briefly address the issue of how I would outlaw smoking if I were "his holiness the supreme divine dictator of the United States of America" (isn't that a nice title!). Obviously you couldn't just pass a bill that outlaws it. People are addicted, so that bill would work almost as well as prohibition. What I would first do is raise cigarette taxes unfairly. That would cut the numbers down to a reasonable amount, while giving the government a few bucks at the same time. What I then would do is issue every remaining smoker a registration card which expires in 3 months. The only legal way to buy cigarettes is to scan the registration card. The only way to renew it is to join a 12 step program, or something of the like. The cards will be taxed, and the amount of time it is renewed for is based on an evaluation by the stop smoking clinic of how hard you are trying. Once again, the government has an opportunity to make a few bucks. Obviously, however much some people try, they are so hooked that they will not be able to quit. Obviously, if they are that hooked, as long as they make a concerted effort to quit, they can still renew their card for the standard 3 months. Once only those people, and those willing to contribute a fair registration tax every month, will be left, the average life expectancy of smokers are much lower than non-smokers, so within about 50 years, the country will be smoke free. You make a good argument, and I look forward to your rebuttal on this one.