Cigarettes Should be Illegal

Food comparison: My opponent advocates a healthy life, I advocate a life where one can choose between a healthy and unhealthy life. My opponent's objections to cigarettes being illegal are that it is unhealthy, but why do we necessary have to live healthy lives? The meaning of life varies among many people, there are those who seek to live as long as possible, there are others who choose to live for the moment. If a man decides that smoking a cigarette is worth the risk of the illnesses and a short life, then who are we to prohibit that? Health care: Certain rights are expensive, that does not mean we shouldn't have those rights. We pay for things we don't believe in all the time. Marketing to kids: Advertising cigarettes to kids are illegal, and it is illegal for "kids" to smoke cigarettes. If kids choose to break the law, why should cigarettes be illegal to adults? The same can be said about video games, which exploits sex, violence, crime, along many others. Simply said, the product cannot be banned because the producers may market to children. The choice: "Cigarette smokers have the right to smoke. Non-cigarette smokers have the right not to be forcibly exposed to secondhand smoke and not to have to pay the hidden health care costs for smokers." Smokers don't go around nonsmokers with a mission to give them second-hand smoke, furthermore there are laws put into place to minimalize second and third-hand smoking, such as banning indoor smoking. If you don't want to be around secondhand smoke, don't be around them. Compromises can be made, and have been made. [1] "Although fast food and alcohol have some addictive properties, quitting either of them will not give you withdrawal symptoms." Actually quitting alcohol abruptly can kill you and alcohol does give you withdrawals [2], along with caffeine and sugar [3]. If anything that gives you withdrawals should be illegal, then sugar, caffeine, and alcohol must be respectively illegal. "If we can remove a choice to do other addictive drugs like heroin, why can we not do so with nicotine? We recognize in our society that addiction is not truly a choice." Heroin can be overdosed very easily, which leads to death. Long time users develop a tolerance for it, to a degree where the user needs to inject have amounts just to feel "normal". People do not overdose on nicotine, and neither does cigarette have nearly the potency to do what heroine does. "I'd like to note that at the end of the day, my opponent has no response to the fact that the hidden productivity and health care costs mean that non-smokers have to pay $7.18 for each pack of cigarettes that a smoker purchases. This unfair economic burden is why cigarettes should be banned." There are a plethora of wasted tax dollars [4], point being, we all have to pay for things we don't want to. In the case of cigarettes, we pay the price for the right to smoke. Prohibition: While agreeably, there are not as many smokers as drinkers, this does not mean that prohibiting cigarettes won't increase crime rates. It opens a new black market and makes America a hot zone for organized crime. Economic benefits of smoking: Banning cigarettes would mean that Tobacco farmers would lose their primary patrons. People can only chew so many nicotine gums, and competition to export tobacco to other countries will be fierce. The damage this would do to farmers is evident. In addition, the $2 billion added to the economy from smoking is completely outweighed by the $157 billion lost every single year from the economy from smoking due to lost productivity and higher health care costs. Banning cigarettes won't make smokers quit (Similarly to the Prohibition Era), there are plenty of drugs that are illegal and still widely abused, which means that the lost productivity and health care costs could face no real change. However, if we do ban smoking the tax revenue from cigarettes will be definitely lost, and millions of employees would lose their jobs as a result from it. If anything, rebellious teenagers will be more attracted to cigarettes if they become illegal. Right to smoke: "Remember from before that others have the right not to be exposed to secondhand smoke and not to have to pay higher health care premiums. Society must decide whose rights are more important." Secondhand smoke can be avoided by the electronic cigarettes. [6] "In addition, people may have the right to do heroin, that doesn't mean that we should allow them to do so." No, people do not have the right to do heroin. That right is denied by the government. "Maybe people should also have the "right" to have a consensual sexual relationship with a child." People don't have that right, and I don't see how sex with children is relevant to smoking cigarettes. Indeed, children do not have the ability to make the most rational choice, but that doesn't mean adults should suffer as a result of that. "In summary, ban smoking because it is not really a choice – most people choose to smoke as children because they are inundated with advertising convincing them to do so." It is illegal to advertise cigarettes to children [7]. If anything, teens start smoking due to peer pressure [8]. In summary, banning cigarettes won't make people quit. If anything, it will become "cool" and more daring to try, especially for teens, which is counterproductive. At the same time, we lose all tax revenue from cigarettes, if we were to ban the product, not to mention, myriads would be unemployed as a result. All of us are accountable for the choices we make in our lives, some choices will be bad, others good. It is ideal to make only good choices in life, but once we start enforcing the "good" choices, we have no choices to make at all. Regarding my opponent's objection that smoking is not a choice. If a smoker really wants to quit, they can do it [9]. There are numerous ex-smokers, who CHOSE to quit. Sources: [1] http://en.wikipedia.org... [2] http://alcoholism.about.com... [3] http://www.caffeinedependence.org... [4] http://alcoholism.about.com... [5] http://www.rd.com... [6] http://www.ecigaretteschoice.com... [7] http://en.wikipedia.org... [8] http://smoking.ygoy.com... [9] http://forums.quitnet.com...