Smoking should not be banned.

At the moment this debate is just going to be you stating stats then me stating stats and the stats will always contradict eachover. This argument is more about morals and logic than stats ans science. You, me or anyone else should never have the right to tell other people what to do with their bodies. There is scientific proof that second hand smoking isn't harmful in anyway, there is also scientific proof that it is harmful. There is no conclusive evidence about any of the effects of smoking. People that smoke now are educated about the health risks, and this is a good system, it allows people the right to choose what they want to do with THEIR bodies. Rebuttals- "Not to mention how much a pack of smokes cost" Do you know why a pack of smokes costs so much? Because the government taxes them at extortionate rates. This brings me to another con of banning cigarettes, the amount of money the government brings in from them. The United States government brings in an anual tax revenue of $5,860,000,000 from cigarette tax. How do you think this would effect the non-smokers in society? They would have to pay almost 6 billion more dollars on taxes a year, something tells me theat once the people that want smoking banned realise this they won't be so eager to ban smoking. "You are assuming that all food leads to obesity and that is not true." 1) Does all smoking lead to cancer? Nope. 2) I stated all FAST food is bad for you, an important detail, my point is, if you are so eager to improve everyone else's lives by taking away their rights then why dismiss thinks like fast food which as you say, may not be linked to lung cancer but is proven to cause health problems. "Yes--just like selling drugs on the streets is illegal. We can enforce the law and security." Is this a joke? Because I have to say I laughed a little when I read this. Its not like in Mexico (where drug use is illegal) there are cartels running around gunning eachover down and beheading eachover on the internet. Yeah I'd say drug control is going pretty well. www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2014/02/26/where-7-mexican-drug-cartels-are-active-within-the-u-s/ latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2014/08/12/mexican-drug-cartel-violence-spreading-to-rural-us-as-police-crackdown-in-major/ "But also how smoking is basically suicide and homicide." Suicide - "The action of killing oneself intentionally" To be honest I dont only find this false but I also find it offensive to smokers, for someone that wants to help peoples health you sure aren't the nicest treating person calling them murderers etc. Homicide - "The deliberate and unlawful killing of one person by another" Once again this is very insulting towards smokers. You seem to not only not be a fan of people's rights to make decisions for themselves but you are also rude and insulting towards them. "You chose to rebut only the part of my argument about the side effects of smoking, that's sad." So even though I clearly stated at the start of the debate that I undrstand that smoking is a health risk you have chosen to try and humiliate me by finding non-existant flaws in my argument, that's sad. As for these videos, I cant see the link so... I will give you more reasons smoking shouldn't be banned now. Oh yeah you may remember a time in history when the american government tried to ban something else, alcohol, back in the 20's and early 30's. How did that go? Oh yeah competing gangs started everywhere selling unsafe, untaxed alcohol to people stead of regulated, safe alcohol being sold. This resulted in massive amounts of violence and lots of innocents being killed, is this what you want? There's an old saying "learn from your mistakes" it applies here. Thousands of jobs in the tobacco industry would be lost, that means thousands more lives ruined by your plan to ban smoking. A smoking ban would disregard property rights, why should the politicians or people like you have the power to tell someone what they can do on their own property? This is another breach of basic rights. The smoking ban removes freedom of choice. The smoking ban is not democratic, as much as I criticize your much loved democracy, it is clear that this isnt a democratic choice, "the UK office of national statistics found 68 per cent of people were opposed to a total ban." [1] [1] www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/9278#.VBTDtn3TXMI My summary of my argument is this- If you are a fan of democracy the smoking ban is undemocratic. If you are a libertarian the smoking ban takes away peoples rights to make their own basic decisions. If you value a co-operative society then the smoking ban doesnt because it would take a man or woman away from his or her family and throw them in jail, and ruin the lives of them and their children because they made a poor health choice. It would increase the crime rate, it would also increase the amount of taxes everyone would have to pay. Prohibition on alcohol has failed before, so has the prohibition on drugs so why would a smoking ban be practical? Thank you for reading my debate I hope you choose freedom over being controlled.