Resolved: Tobacco should be made illegal

C1: Unhealthy Yes, this is going to be one of my contentions AGAINST banning tobacco. Tobacco:-lung cancer-heart disease-cardiovascular disease-cancer [1]fast food:-fattening -sugary (bad for some people like ADD)-obesity -weight gain -Cancers-Just as unhealthy as tobacco [2, 3, 4]The argument here is what is sounds like: Sure tobacco is bad, but so is fast food. Many things that are very legal are bad for you, just because something is bad for you is not grounds for a goverment to ban it. C2: Tax revenue from tobacco This is one of the biggest pluses to tobacco being legal! If it is legal it is creating goverment revenues through these taxes! In 2009 the goverment was raking in 17 million dollars from the tobacco tax! [5] It is common for many local governments to be dependent on these taxes from tobacco. [6]---> Now why is this an issue? This means banning tobacco will significantly reduce revenues therefore increasing federal and local debts. Also as many local governments are dependent on this tax banning it will cause local governments to wither away. Banning tobacco is bad for the goverment, this means the state has no reason to ban this substance. ---> Sub Point, Taxing tobacco lowers users without a banNot only does taxing legal tobacco help the governments pocket books, but it decreases users without an all out ban! Raising tobacco prices through these taxes significantly reduce youth and overall tobacco users. [7] If we rose tobacco prices 10% youth users decreases 11%. [7, 8]Graph from source 9: Now data from 1970 al the ay through 2006 show a decrease in userss, and it wasn't until 2000 (when the taxes rose) when users dereased. [10] This shows we can significantly reduce users without a ban, all it takes is a tax. C3: Banning it would create a black marketThis is obvious. Drugs are currently banned, and there is a significan drug trade spreading violence and drugs ilelgally. [11] A quote from a hisory teacher:"When you ban something, people smuggle it. When you ban something, it gets used illegally, dangerously, and violently"-Mr. RyderBanning someing just crates a black market where people make the substance MORE dangerous then it already is, and the market for the substance becomes violent. We see it with drugs, [11] we saw it with alcoho (organized crime came about) [12], and it will happen againif we ban tobacco. [12] Banning tobaco will just... Increase violence of the drug usage! Tobacco is legal and is creating things called the e-cigarette. [13] Is it perfect? NO! But it is safer then normal smoking, but only legal markets can create these safer versions. If it was ilelgal all research towards making smoking safe would END, making it less safe. People would use the traditional smoking method. Making it illegal forces the traditional burn our lungs method. Allowing smoking would help fund the methods of safer smoking and therefore save lives. It would A. save lives (no black market), B. make smoking safer. Banning cigarettes create a black market and reverse all research to making it safer. |Conclusion|Banning tobacco would make smoking less safe as it would impede any research making it safer. Bannign tobacco would create a black market, killing people through worse substances (when llegal it makes it less safe as it impedes research making it better for you) and through organized crime. We can reduce tobacco users through a tax, and we don't need to ban it. We can keep it legal and reduce users. And although tobaco is bad for you, so it to much food, or computer, or anything really! If banning something soely on it is bad for you is the argument, then the same logic can be pplied for almost anything. Vote CON[1] http://www.cdc.gov... [2] http://health.nytimes.com... [3] http://www.nber.org... [4] http://www.rense.com... [5] http://www.taxpolicycenter.org... [6] http://www.medicalnewstoday.com... [7] http://www.tobaccofreekids.org... [8] R.J. Reynolds Executive D. S. Burrows, “Estimated Change In Industry Trend Following Federal Excise Tax Increase,”[9] http://www.cdc.gov... [10] http://www.cdc.gov...[11] http://en.wikipedia.org... [12] http://www.cato.org... [13] http://en.wikipedia.org...