Prompt: Tobacco, mainly in the form of cigarettes, is one of the most widely used drugs in the world. over a billion adults legally smoke tobacco every day. The long term health costs are high- for smokers themselves, and for the wider community in terms of health care costs and lost productivity. Do governments have a legitimate role to legislate to protect citizens from the harmful effects of their own decisions to smoke, or are such decisions up to the individual?

It is debatable if government should create laws to prohibit smoking. On one hand where such laws can be beneficial for citizens but at same time they are invasion of individual rights too. This essay will firstly examine the benefits of making such laws followed by discussion of disadvantages before arriving at a reasoned conclusion. Ċ The are mainly two advantages of having a ban on tobacco and its products. One is that the government will not have to spend money on health care costs associated with diseases linked to excessive smoking. It is well established fact that smoking leads to a variety of diseases and makes people unfit. Other advantage is that healthy citizens are useful asset to a country as they can be productive and earn enough to support themselves, their families and others in need. Ċ Having considered the advantages, it is equally important to examine the disadvantages associated with having such laws. Firstly, such a law is invasion of individual rights. A democratic government gets elected to safeguard the rights of its people and such a law can prove very unpopular. Secondly, the governments usually earn a lot of money by taxing tobacco products heavily. By banning these altogether, government will lose a significant source of revenue. Ċ In my opinion, government can make policies to encourage people to give up smoking. For instance, there is a ban on smoking in public places in India. I disagree that a government should put a blanket ban on tobacco products as it will not be correct both economically and democratically.