Resolved: The USFG should ban smoking in restaurants and bars nationwide

Framework: I accept the burden of proof, but I wish to amend it to include restaurants as well as bars. Since the resolution cannot change once the debate has started, it will not include bans outside of restaurants and bars. 1. Liberty: My plan does not violate the harm principle, because it only limits smoking in public restaurants and bars where others would be exposed to secondhand smoke. This plan is consistent with the harm principle because it prevents people from harming others through secondhand smoke. I agree with Con that smoking should be legal - just not in public restaurants and bars. As for the claim that people can avoid smoking by getting out of places that allow smoking, this is a situation where allowing people to smoke in those places would actually inhibit the freedom of others. For the 25 million Americans who have asthma, avoiding secondhand smoke is not a choice, but a medical necessity. In the status quo these people have their freedom to patronize restaurants and bars without visible No Smoking signs infringed on in states that do not have smoking bans. The CDC warns that exposure to secondhand smoke can cause asthma attacks, and says that people who have asthma must avoid secondhand smoke. http://www.cdc.gov... Even if the smoking ban that I proposed did violate the harm principle, that would not be a reason to reject it, as Con has not provided a way that violating the harm principle creates negative effects that can be weighed against the benefits of a smoking ban through the lens of net benefits. This debate should be evaluated based on net benefits for the following reasons: 1. Net benefits is an ethical standard that is good for judging debate because it allows the good and bad impacts of a potential policy to be weighed against one another fairly and objectively. For this reason, nearly all Parli and Policy debates in real-world competitions are judged on net benefits. 2. This is a debate about policy, so we should evaluate it in a way that is related to how real policymakers would evaluate it. The fact that recreational drugs are illegal proves that the United States Federal Government does not determine policy based on the Harm Principle for real. In fact, cost-benefit analysis is the standard means of deciding whether to adopt a new federal policy. It is used by the FDA to regulate tobacco, so it is the best way to evaluate a new tobacco regulation. http://tobacconomics.org... 3. This is a debate about policy, not philosophy. DDO has a separate section for philosophy debates, so there is a place to debate whether the harm principle is good or bad, but this is not it. If debaters can argue for whatever value they want in a debate, each side will pick the value that best suits their position and a substantial portion of the debate will come down to which value is better, resulting in debates being won and lost based on the subjective philosophical preferences of judges rather than the merits of the policy being debated. We should default to net benefits because it is the most predictable criterion based on real policymaking and competitive debate in the real world. 2. Illegal Cigarettes: This argument does not link to my plan. People who try to smoke in restaurants and bars in a world with a federal smoking ban will be asked to leave whether or not their cigarette is legal. This would be a good argument if I proposed that smoking should be completely banned, but I did not propose that. 3. Economic Impact/Depending Workers The CDC says that smoking costs the economy $300 billion a year in medical costs and lost productivity. http://www.cdc.gov... This outweighs Con's claims of how much tobacco companies spend by a factor of 30 to 1. Also, my plan would not put the tobacco industry out of business. Smoking will not be banned in private places or in public areas that are not restaurants or bars, so there will be no massive job loss in the tobacco industry. And this does not affect sales to foreign countries, so the tobacco industry will stay in business because most tobacco grown in America is exported to foreign countries. http://www.starnewsonline.com... I also wish to contest Con's claim that there are 180,000 farms and 200 people per farm. If you multiply 180,000 and 200, you get the incredulous figure that 36 million people work in the tobacco industry in America! This is obviously not true, so Con's claims about job loss should be disregarded due to inaccurate data. The CDC conducted a study of smoke-free laws in restaurants and bars in 9 states that proved smoking bans do not cause any harm to the economy: http://www.cdc.gov... Answers to rebuttals 1. Secondhand smoke is dangerous Yes, there is already too much pollution in the air - which is exactly we need to reduce the amount of pollution in our cities. I cannot be expected to solve for all pollution, because restrictions on cars and factories would not be topical. Cars and factories have an essential role in our economy, but smoking only brings personal pleasure and satisfies an addiction. Doing something to reduce secondhand smoke and save lives is better than keeping things the way they are. Counterplan This counterplan does not solve as well as the original plan. In restaurants where they are designated areas for smoking, non-smokers will still go into those areas and be exposed to secondhand smoke. Not everyone who could be harmed by secondhand smoke will go out of their way to avoid it. Restaurants do get crowded, and if the non-smoking area of the restaurant is full, non-smokers will sit in the area where smoking is allowed and get exposed to secondhand smoke. Waitstaff at the restaurants have to go into the smoking area to serve the smokers, so they are exposed to secondhand smoke, increasing their risk of death and illness. It also is less of a deterrent than a full ban in restaurants. My opponent concedes the empirical evidence that smoking bans reduce heart attacks, and provides no evidence that designated smoking areas do the same, so in the world of the counterplan fewer people quit smoking than in the world of the plan. For the reasons I have listed above the counterplan saves fewer lives than my plan and should not be preferred. Vote Pro. 2. Smoking Ban's are effective Extend the empirical evidence that smoking bans reduce the risk of multiple fatal illnesses. Con's answer to my point about reducing addiction is inaccurate because I am not creating a complete ban. Over two-thirds of American smokers want to quit http://www.cdc.gov..., and if there are fewer places where they can smoke, more of them will quit. The counterplan does not solve this as well as the plan because making access to smoking inconvenient is empirically proven to reduce smoking, as my opponent concedes. 3. Federal Action is Best I will allow my opponent to answer this contention in the next round, and I will rebut his answers in Round 4.