This house would not ban smoking #1

In this round I'll focus on rebutting my opponent's material. Unenforceable? I agree tobacco is unenforceable. Black markets will happen. Just because a law is unenforceable does not mean it should not be banned, though. Governments have long banned all manner of drugs - from marijuana to heroin - which continue to be consumed around the world today. Government bans have not stopped murder, domestic violence, theft, arson, or pretty much any other terrible crime on the books. For that matter, the same goes for non-terrible crimes. Even so, just because it is unenforceable does not mean it will have no effect if it is banned. Banning smoking would create a social stigma against smoking, that it is "wrong" or "illegal". Heavy smokers could not really function in society without giving up the habit. Moreover, banning all smoking makes it a lot easier to enforce. One of the big problems with banning marijuana has always been that it is visually difficult to distinguish a marijuana cigarette from a tobacco cigarette, but the action of smoking is fairly unique and easy to identify. This all provides a strong disincentive both to starting smoking and continuing the habit. This is why we ban things at all when they are massively harmful - besides sending a clear message that society never endorses it, the fear of being prosecuted and removed from all they love may just be enough to convince a hopelessly addicted smoker to end the habit. All this would be true even if smokers were never actually caught, just like many users of other drugs are presently caught. If smokers are caught, then that multiplies all the incentives to quit, and besides that there are nice rehab facilities available for them to be sent to. Individual FreedomIt is a fallacy to say that smoking is simply a natural right. It is not - the existence of cigarettes creates the right, and that existence is premised on government approval. The goal of government has never been to maximise individual freedom, but rather to limit it when justified. That's why we have these things called laws. Every single law inherently limits freedom in some way. Since pro has already accepted that such limitations on freedom can be justified in cases where the harms associated with that freedom are sufficient, individual freedom cannot be taken as an excuse for commodifying death. The role of the government is not simply to disseminate information about making good decisions. Everyone from charities to churches do that already. For example, the vast majority of democracies do not allow false advertising, despite the fact that nobody other than the consumer is directly harmed. To prevent serious harms, sometimes the government needs to step in and limit your personal freedom. This is also relevant to my addiction point. While not denying smoking is addictive, pro claims smoking is a choice. What I am saying is that this "choice" is not "freely made". This is why most smokers do want to quit, but also why so few do. The whole point of protecting choices is also to protect the ability to go back on those choices, not merely provide that ability like pro suggests governments should do, and are doing already. It clearly is not sufficient, because right now the majority of smokers have lost their ability to choose - they have chosen to stop smoking, but they can't help it. The fact that the addiction is so strong that it happens in spite of all the government, family and friend support that smokers get, as pro correctly demonstrates, only strengthens the point that smoking is highly addictive. Freedom of choice is therefore not a valid excuse for allowing smoking - smoking is an act that undermines that individual's right to choose. JobsIn Africa, there has recently been a large movement to help farmers convert their farms from tobacco to maize, which both earns the farmers more money and helps drive up tobacco prices. Now they're starting to fare much better. The biggest harm has actually come from the tobacco crop itself, which ruins the soil and has thus contributed to many of the great famines in Africa. There is no reason why farmers could not transition to more high-yield crops. This is why tobacco production is relatively rare in the first world. The actual manufacturing process of cigarettes is almost entirely automated. There are no huge job losses. A really big machine simply puts the tobacco on a long line, rolls paper around it, and cuts it into cigarette-sized pieces. As the process has continually become more automated over the last 30 years, more and more jobs have already been lost. Compared to other industries, transitioning out of tobacco is not hard at all as tobacco manufacturing involves very few specialised skills. The biggest loss will be made by the filthy rich executives of these companies, their sly marketers, and deadly lawyers. Lawyers and marketers can transition to plying their trade legitimately in other sectors, using their considerable experience in working with tobacco. Executives have it harder, but at least they would retain their wealth. DeadlinessPro claims smoking is only a "contributing factor" in death. The point is that smoking seriously increases the risk of dying in the near future. The evidence is clear that smokers are much more likely to suffer from diseases. We also know that it's statistically impossible for these smokers to have had these diseases at their age were it not for their habit. Why? Because the science is that tobacco smoke is poisonous in hundreds of different ways. It isn't just a lifetime of smoking that can kill you. A single, secondhand exposure is enough to cause cancer. We now have more than enough evidence that cigarettes are the single most deadly product that people can buy at a supermarket, being directly implicated in more deaths than every other product combined, and that includes alcohol (negating his point that other drugs aid the process of cigarettes killing). The link to lung cancer, for example, is undeniable - almost every lung cancer patient is a smoker. Yes, eating a lot of McDonalds will harm you, but at least there is a safe level of McDonalds consumption. The same is not true for tobacco. Far too many people die from it, and for what? PointlessnessPro gives two reasons to smoke. First, to socialise. I dealt with this point in my last round. Second, to release stress. This is because smoking poisons your brain's ability to be stressed. This is hardly a benefit. My opponent's claims that it's irrelevant simply fall flat - there is no benefit to outweigh the massive costs to society that are caused by smoking. ExpensivenessPro notes smokers have the right to demand money from me for their habit to allow me to be social. In doing so, he concedes smoking has harms on others. It's true that getting sick generally hurts society quite a lot, which is why it's so bad that smokers tend to get sick a lot more than everyone else. Pro's only other counter was the government gains in tax revenue may in part offset this cost, which is true in terms of the cost of the hospital bed - but not the economic cost to the rest of society as a whole, nor the cost in terms of time, nor the cost of patients who are denied hospital beds because the hospitals are full of terminally ill smokers. What's really anti-social here is smoking. CommunityPro agrees smoking should be prohibited in public. Remember that according to the resolution he must defend that smoking should never be banned, so this amounts to a concession. Moreover pro does not respond to the point that often people NEED to be with a smoker in their private space, such as in the case of a smoker's children. Disassociation is not anti-social if it is justified. In this case, I cannot think of any stronger reason to disassociate from someone than that they are anti-social enough to try to kill themselves and everyone around them by smoking death sticks. The resolution is negated.