Smoking should be illegal

Pro begins, "I'll respond by saying that con's first argument is false. The government may not have the right to tell people what to do with their own body, but they do have the power to make the sale and usage of cigarettes illegal." In the last round, I never denied that the government had the power to do such a thing but merely argued that they did not have that right. Pro never disagrees, thus he never proves that my argument is false. Unfortunately the government has the authority to criminalize cigarettes, but they do not have the right to do such a thing. Something is not necessarily right just because the government approves it. For instance the government kept slavery legal for many years; does that mean that implementing slavery was the right thing to do just because the government could legally enforce it? Pro's point that the government CAN criminalize cigarettes is completely irrelevant as he must prove that the government SHOULD criminalize cigarettes. Next, Pro writes, "Con states that we cannot criminalize smoking cigarettes just because its dangerous. That is the main reason in which we should criminalize it." He then goes on to present the exact same statistics he did from the first round about the number of people dying. Of course this completely ignores my rebuttal. In the last round I explicitly explained why just because cigarettes are dangerous that they should not necessarily be illegal. Pro has not responded to any of those points. For instance, I asked whether we should criminalize other things that are dangerous. Heart disease is the number one killer in the United States, even more than cigarettes. Should we criminalize eating steak because doing so is dangerous and potentially fatal by contributing to heart disease? Pro ignored this, my analysis and other analogies from the last round, so please extend them. In response to criminalizing cigarettes sending more people to jail, Pro writes, "It is not the government s fault if they decide to make cigarettes illegal and people continue to smoke and they must be arrested." Active resistance to illegitimate policies is acceptable. Consider the Civil Rights movement. Were the African Americans who fought against unjust policy wrong for resisting? Nevertheless it doesn't matter because Pro conveniently drops the biggest part of my argument with this response. First, Pro never responded to my point about how criminalizing people for this is completely unnecessary and in fact immoral (since there is no victim). Second, Pro must justify the effects of this policy on both the "criminal" and their family. Third, Pro completely dropped my black market and the legal repercussions thereof argument. Additionally, Pro must explain why criminalizing cigarettes, therefore needing more police, therefore expanding the criminal justice system immensely, therefore costing the tax payers an exorbitant amount of money would be worth it on a cost/benefit analysis. Keeping drugs illegal costs the government over 76 billion dollars a year [5], and it logically follows that criminalizing cigarettes would cost a lot more! In conclusion, Pro overall dropped the most important contentions of my rebuttal. Pro must explain that the government has the RIGHT and SHOULD criminalize cigarettes - not just that they have the power to do so which is obvious. Furthermore he must prove that doing so would be beneficial to society on a cost-benefit analysis. While he mentioned that criminalizing cigarettes might save lives, he never argued why the people don't have the right to make their own personal decisions. Hopefully my opponent addresses these arguments and analogies, and I look forward to a great third round. Back to you, Pro. [5] http://blogs.reuters.com...