Whether banning smoking is a good idea or not.

Thank you for instigating. As CON, I’ll be arguing that banning/prohibiting the smoking (of tobacco) would be a bad idea while my opponent (PRO) argues that it would be a good idea. But since my opponent granted me power to make the first arguments, let’s begin. But, I’d like to remind everyone that in order to vote fully for the instigator, my opponent must prove that the good ideas and upsides of smoking ban somewhat outweigh or override the bad disadvantages. Case: Banning it would be a breach of the right to choose There are different activities that can be dangerous (even more dangerous than smoking), like drag racing, rock climbing, eating non-stop and not working out, but they’re legal, why? Because the people have the right to choose on what they have to do with their lives, what’s the difference of this and smoking? Do we really want to invade this personal freedom? Banning it would be far-fetched Smoking can let the person feel relaxed in a temporary time, so this might be an advantage when someone is over-stressed, like if someone is too depressed with their work, why do we need to ban this activity when it can help the worker do his job more nicely. Next, I’d have to jump to conclusions, but I sense that PRO will argue that smoking is unhealthy, addictive and harmful, therefore, it should be banned, my response, it would be unreasonable, untenable and frivolous. Why? Because if we prohibit these things just because it’s harmful then we also need to prohibit the ones I mentioned above (rock climbing, etc.) and probably almost anything that can be considered harmful. Banning it would be bad for business Surely, if we ban cigars, it would affect the business of society, bars, clubs and restaurants that allow smoking would lose customers and they wouldn’t sell cigarettes which would affect their sales, they would earn less money and eventually close, affecting people’s jobs and possibly the economy. The government would also lose tax revenue from the sale of these tobaccos, which can affect the income for national healthcare. {1} Banning it would be unnecessary Not to mention it would be unfeasible, unachievable, unattainable and unenforceable Cigars are everywhere, sure, let’s ban it, but are we that sure that we can keep the whole society smoke-free? There are people who smoke in their homes and apartments, which affect neighbours, kids, etc. Nothing will really change here. If we ban this, it’s like giving people the power to smoke it in their privacy of their own home with their kids. Banning it would probably raise crime Of course, if we ban this, people will go out and steal cigars, and smoke nevertheless, we would need more police force, where would we put the offenders when jails are overfilled? Some solutions to solve the ‘second hand smoking’ problem Now, you might argue that we should ban because it’s unhealthy, harmful, addictive and bad? Again, that’s unreasonable, see my above arguments. Plain and simple, if you hate the smoke, leave, there are lots of places to go where smoking is not allowed, mostly in a private air-conditioned place. If you want to avoid the harms it causes, don’t join in or just sit there and breathe the smoke, leave ASAP. So, in conclusion, with the arguments I’ve presented, a smoking ban is really unnecessary and unenforceable, it would be a bad idea and be a disadvantage to society and economy. I’m quite not done with this, so I’ll just strengthen them in the next round. References: {1} http://goo.gl...