Resolved: Tobacco use should be banned in the United States

This debate is mostly about usage. If usage indeed decreases due to a ban vote Pro. There are main reasons why criminalizing tobacco use decreases use. 1. Most people do not want to be criminals and violate law; therefore, they will abide the laws of society, as most people are not criminals. Some people will break the law in every case (murder, robbers, etc. ) but these people are few 2. Prohibiting something reduces access to something, restricting the supply 3. Because of lower supply, the price goes up There is clear evidence on this, as in the historic example of Prohibition. . http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov... According to Blocker, PhD, in the National Library of Medicine, "Nevertheless, once Prohibition became the law of the land, many citizens decided to obey it. Referendum results in the immediate post-Volstead period showed widespread support, and the Supreme Court quickly fended off challenges to the new law. Death rates from cirrhosis and alcoholism, alcoholic psychosis hospital admissions, and drunkenness arrests all declined steeply during the latter years of the 1910s, when both the cultural and the legal climate were increasingly inhospitable to drink, and in the early years after National Prohibition went into effect. They rose after that, but generally did not reach the peaks recorded during the period 1900 to 1915. After Repeal, when tax data permit better-founded consumption estimates than we have for the Prohibition Era, per capita annual consumption stood at 1.2 US gallons (4.5 liters), less than half the level of the pre-Prohibition period. " He cites Miron and Zwiebel from National Bureau of Economic Research. . http://www.nber.org... Miron and Zwiebel use data of cirrohsis rates, alcoholism rates, alcoholic pyschosis, and drunkeness arrests. Using their data they found that alchohol usage fell to 30% of Pre-prohibition level, and then went to around 60-70% of pre-Prohibition level. This is a 30-70% reduction. . http://www.nytimes.com... Mark H. Moore,professor of criminal justice at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, wrote "alcohol consumption declined dramatically during Prohibition. Cirrhosis death rates for men were 29.5 per 100,000 in 1911 and 10.7 in 1929. Admissions to state mental hospitals for alcoholic psychosis declined from 10.1 per 100,000 in 1919 to 4.7 in 1928. Arrests for public drunkennness and disorderly conduct declined 50 percent between 1916 and 1922. For the population as a whole, the best estimates are that consumption of alcohol declined by 30 percent to 50 percent. Third, violent crime did not increase dramatically during Prohibition. Homicide rates rose dramatically from 1900 to 1910 but remained roughly constant during Prohibition's 14 year rule. Organized crime may have become more visible and lurid during Prohibition, but it existed before and after. Fourth, following the repeal of Prohibition, alcohol consumption increased. " This is clear that overall usage decreased, while violent crime rates did not increase significantly. Even CATO Instititute, a staunch libertarian think tank against prohibition and supporting drug usage stated in an article AGAINST prohibition: "At first glance, the evidence seems to suggest that the quantity consumed did indeed decrease. That would be no surprise to an economist: making a product more difficult to supply will increase its price, and the quantity consumed will be less than it would have been otherwise. " CATO admits that usage went down overall. Before my opponent attempts to use the graph from the CATO source, the graph was based off of Warburton, and the source itself stated "Warburton's estimates are the most reliable, although he felt that he might have underestimated the sales of the most potent products--spirits" Warburton is more unreliable than my highly qualified experts and irrerutable logic. Using clear logic and evidence we see that prohibiting a substance reduces usage. Reduced usage is a overall benefit to society. Extend all evidence- the hundreds of thousands of deaths to users, the hundreds of thousands to non users, and medical costs, along with environment, "28 states have already banned smoking in enclosed public spaces. [8] I am defending the status quo by extending the laws the majority of states already have to every other state. " No, the status quo is it legal to smoke in enclosed public places in 22 states. It is legal to smoke in public places such as parks in all states (Correct me if I am wrong). ". http://www.nature.com...... . http://www.usatoday.com...... . http://tobaccofreeca.com...... These studies prove secondhand smoke can "from a neighboring apartment can travel through ventilation systems, pipes, walls, open windows and doors, electrical sockets and even tiny cracks in plaster and drywall. ". Studies " found smoke residue on surfaces and in the air of both smoking and non-smoking rooms in 30 California hotels where smoking was allowed. ""Volunteers who stayed overnight in the smoking hotels also ended up with sticky nicotine residues on their fingers, whether they stayed in smoking rooms or not. ""Cigarette fumes probably become lodged on the hair and clothes of parents as they smoke outside, says Matt. The particles could then be brought back inside the house, where they would hang in the air or settle in dust. Family members may then inhale them directly or unwittingly transfer them from hand to mouth. Infants are particularly at risk as they spend most of their time indoors and often put objects into their mouths, says Matt. Contaminated dust can settle on toys, carpets and bedding and may remain there for months, he adds. " Secondhand smoke is a large danger to society and can only be eliminated through a ban, as it can travel through everything. Smoke is a gas, so even if banned publicly, it will travel and harm innocent non users. 16k is defending the status quo of banned in enclosed public spaces for 28 states, but a ban is needed for the well being of all. Economic is not as important, but I still prove a multi-billion dollar loss. Even the monetary gain of tobacco, the "revenue", is taken from addicts into the hands of big business. Economic comes second to morally correctness. No one should profit off of mass-production and sale of poisons that go straight to users- tobacco. Environment:"A huge amount of my opponent"s case was about global pollution. My opponent drops all of this for domestic littering statistics. " Ok but. .. From last round "Environment should still go to me. He doesn't mention my evidence that US smokers contribute 250 billion cigarette butts and that the litter is toxic. They kill 1000 a year and cost billions to clean, as they are the majority of litter. " This is about domestic smoking. "Tobacco plants carry chemicals that kill parasites that have killed many bee populations, and when bees fertilize tobacco plants, the parasites in the population begin to die. " OK, so you admit tobacco has poisonous chemicals that kill animals, this is not all good. Tobacco use has been proven to poison marine life, as stated in round 1 (opening). I will turn his ENTIRE honeybee case around. . http://naturalsociety.com... "A new joint study from the USDA"s Agricultural Research Service in Beltsville, Maryland and the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Science in Beijing published in mBio, the American Society for Microbiology"s journal, suggests that aside from neonicotides, parasites, pesticides, and other bee killers, a tobacco virus is what is killing our bees. The study calls it the Tobacco Ring Virus (TRSV) and points to it as a probable cause of CCD. It seems strange that a virus could jump from plant to animal, but in the mad science world of biotech, it isn"t uncommon. The really scary part of the TRSV virus is that not only is it jumping from one species to another, but it is moving up 6 levels in biological hierarchy from the plant to animal kingdom. For those of you who have not studied biology, there are normally stop-gaps, or checks in balance in mother nature via 9 levels, namely: species, genus, family, order, class, phylum, kingdom, domain, and life. The plant virus spreads horizontally between bees and vertically from eggs to queen bees. " Tobacco creates viruses that DIRECTLY kills bees, and this Tobacco Ring Virus jumps from species on 6 levels. . http://mbio.asm.org... "Here we provide evidence that a pollen-borne plant virus, tobacco ringspot virus (TRSV), also replicates in honeybees and that the virus systemically invades and replicates in different body parts. " Conclusion Vote Pro for 3 main reasons. First, usage will go down with a ban. Second, tobacco usage is inherently bad for killing innocents-secondhand smoke. Third, environmental- litter, air pollution, and killling animals, Thanks for a great debate.