De@th (PRO)Hello,
It is only ideal that in these days of our existence, where we witness the earth moving towards catastrophic collapses, a topic as volatile and critical like smoking comes into the picture and am here supporting the topic that smoking should be criminalized...
Thinking on a most global scenario, there is a famous saying, "mother earth is a place of worship, not a dustbin"...but on the contrary what do we do and witness today? We smoke our earth to death...!!! Through increasing environmental pollution and aiding the global warming, smoking proves to be great threat to the very existence of life. Its only very trivial that those who are in support of smoking might argue that the global warming caused by smoking is very less, but then poison is always poison, whether it is just a drop or in liters. And the environmental hazards of smoking go beyond global warming. The smoke as well as the minute particles left off continues to contribute to air pollution perpetually, causing a variety of health hazards, debilitating and sometimes fatal. They can lead to conditions such as asthma, bronchitis, and emphysema, and are also a risk for lung cancer.
Now are the harmful effects of smoking restricted only to air-pollution and related hazards? The answer is an emphatic "no"....!!! According to statistics, tobacco companies produce 5.5 trillion cigarettes every year—approximately a 1000 for each person in the world. Of those, 4.5 trillion have non-biodegradable filters that are tossed away, representing as many as one out of every five pieces of litter. Cigarette butts require months or even years to break down, releasing almost 600 chemicals into the soil and water bodies as well, hence altering the normal soil chemistry and texture, increasing soil and water pollution to an extent unimaginable. The story doesn't end there; the cultivation of tobacco itself puts a serious hit on the environment. The plant being very demanding absorbs six times as much potassium from the soil as most crops do. Farmers in many underdeveloped nations grow tobacco until the soil is useless and then encroach the forests for fresh land. Result being that, more than 600 million trees are felled and burned annually to dry and cure tobacco leaves. Additionally, four miles of paper an hour is used to wrap and package cigarettes. Setting aside the pollution generated from manufacturing cigarettes, just losing this many carbon-dioxide-absorbing trees leaves at least 22 million net tons of CO2 in the atmosphere, roughly equivalent to burning 2.8 billion gallons of gasoline.
Does these statistics make any sense to the smokers?? If yes, start a better life right now on...and if no, evidently the extended use of tobacco and smoking has got you retarded...!!
Moving to the health hazards, smoking is a leading cause of ‘preventable death’ globally. Recent studies indicate that over a third of China’s male population has a life-span significantly reduced because of smoking. China being the country with largest population, the numbers are left for imagination. Increased risks of heart problems, lung cancer, vascular stenosis, chronic obstructive lung disease, ADHD in fetus etc. being some of the common health hazards associated with smoking. In addition, the fine particles in the smoke caused chronic respiratory diseases like asthma, emphysema and even lung cancer. And often, health hazards due to passive smoking or ETS (environmental tobacco smoking) is more intense than direct smoking, though quantity or duration is comparatively very less. ETS being unfiltered, unlike the mainstream smoke, contains more intense chemicals and are of higher temperature. And the health hazards are almost the same as the regular smokers. ETS in pregnant women can be fatal to the fetus and might even result in miscarriage, stillbirth etc.
Now coming to the legalities, in most countries and for a very long time, suicide and related attempts are treated as a crime. Now what is smoking, if not a slow and deliberate murder of the self? In that context why shouldn’t it be treated as a crime?
But more than the murder of self, smoking in a public place is even more diabolic and devilish of the kind…”am dying because of this, lemme take a few with me”… Effectively innocents (well, in this aspect at least) are also victimized because of a few smoking ‘criminals’. How different is this from a suicide bomb attack, except that the rather quick and easier death by explosion is replaced by a slow painful death, coughing the lungs out and spitting blood…..??
Now, on a more vicious scale, the hazardous effects of smoking don’t end with the smokers or those who suffer from the immediate effects. Many a times, its effect is long time biological and genetic, even causing problems to the generations ahead. So more than a suicide or a mass murder, smoking is like a nuclear attack, causing large scale genocide and penetrating wombs of the mothers to the generations to come….
So, I’d like to end this round reminding that the mother earth is no waste bin and that smoking is something as critical and comparable only to the likes of a nuclear attack, impairing even the generation to come…
Thank you….
Return To Top | Posted:
2014-01-05 21:50:36
| Speak Round
admin (CON)I thank my opponent for opening his case.
My case
1. Efficient way of getting rid of stupid people
My opponent has kindly proven for me that smoking is a stupid decision that kills its users. I say great - the world has an overabundance of stupid people!
Consider how many idiots there are in the world today - stupid politicians, criminals, business-people... the list goes on. And this is WITH smoking currently causing a GENOCIDE of stupid people! Imagine if smoking were not here to do that, how stupid the world would be!
As a first principle, a smart world is desirable because we need smart solutions to the world's problems. With a large dumb population, the signal-to-noise ratio of information we need to overcome problems decreases, as dumb people fail to put forward valuable solutions to the problems. This means finding good solutions is that much harder when a smaller proportion of the population are smart.
Smoking works by causing early death in a proportion of the stupid population who smoke. Rather than paying 40 years of resthome nurses' salaries taking expensive life-prolonging medicine, a smoker may spend as little as three months dying in a hospital ward of some terrible uncurable cancer. Not only does this result in huge financial savings for the healthcare system, but it also frees up hospital beds and time for doctors, with more patients having shorter stays.
However, the biggest advantage is that with more stupid people dying sooner, there are less stupid people. This means society makes smarter choices, which bodes really well for our future.
2. Scarface will get you
Right now, cigarette industries are heavily regulated. This is good. Governments are doing everything in their power to ensure that customers are fully aware of all the risks when they choose to smoke. The problem is that when you make smoking illegal, you effectively also make the sale of cigarettes illegal, driving the industry underground.
This has several harms. First, there is no way of assuring the quality of such goods. Second, your local drug dealer won't tell you what the harms of those drugs are, this not being in their business interests. Third, such underground groups invariably attract other types of more violent crime. And fourth, once hooked, a smart dealer will use that to get you hooked on even more dangerous drugs, the so-called "gateway drug" effect. By having a legal alternative to underground drug networks such as (in most countries) marijuana, you destroy a lot of the recreational drug market for gangs. By allowing drug lords to monopolize it, you bring all the harms of a dangerous industry to hundreds of millions of smokers worldwide.
Rebuttal
1. Environmental damage
Littering issues can be completely resolved by throwing cigarette butts into a bin. From there they can be safety taken to a dump. We live in an age where we have to figure out what to do with discarded iPads, containing hundreds more dangerous chemicals than a cigarette butt. Smoking is not the problem here.
I'm all for sustainable agriculture, and that means not farming tobacco too intensively. There's nothing incompatible about scaling back tobacco supply and not banning smoking.
600 million tons of CO2 are released by volcanoes each year. Aircraft produce about 700 million tons. 3000 million tonnes is produced by all the humans on the planet breathing naturally (a fact that proves the uselessness of citing high figures for CO2 emmissions since the human body is actually a carbon sequestration device). 22 millions tons is about 0.085% of non-natural anthropogenic CO2 emissions, which is not going to heat the planet in any significant way. The real problem of climate change lies in deforestation and an over-reliance on fossil fuels.
2. Health hazards
I accept that smoking is a very significant risk factor for many health problems. It's important that people are made aware of the risks of smoking. Ultimately, however, the discretion as to what level of risk is acceptable for each person must be made by the individual. If somebody chooses to take an action you disagree with, you can't hold it against them if they then suffer the consequences of their own decision. Playing lotto or betting on horses is in my view a bad financial decision, but the prospect of losses does not entitle me to claim the moral high ground and make it illegal, any more than me dictating what firms are good investments on the share market means that I get to control the whole economy. It's not just that I might be wrong (and it should be noted that some smokers suffer few ill effects at all) but that there's no causal link between my beliefs about risk and your choice about risk. Unless my opponent can justify that, the point fails.
3. Legal
The same argument could be made about anything that might increase your chances of death. Driving a car to work might equally be considered a slow and deliberate suicide attempt that takes other people out with you because of exhaust fumes (causing 53,000 deaths per year - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_emissions), but governments do not ban cars. Having a two story home is suicide because it increases the risk of dying by falling down stairs. Choosing to live in a hurricane-prone region is suicide because when a hurricane inevitably strikes there is a good chance of dying. And so on.
Smoking does carry significant health risks, but accepting risks is not the same as suicide. It's a legal slippery slope that would challenge the notion of parliamentary supremacy because it falls well outside of the intention of such law, which is solely as a deterrent to a specific and immediate rash suicide act. Rarely are people actually prosecuted for attempts to commit suicide to avoid victimization that would create further harms to society.
4. Second-hand smoke
I agree that this is a genuine concern, which is why I'm running a counter-model in today's debate - segregation. If smokers want to smoke, I say that's their right, but only when they do so in such a way that does not limit those who choose not to smoke. That's why I support policies such as indoor smoking bans in pubs, clubs and workplaces, to ensure that such environments are good for everyone. Smokers can still smoke in designated areas. In private establishments such as homes, special areas could be set aside for smokers to protect other family members who do not wish to be exposed to smoke, or smokers could go outside to light up. Nothing about the actual act of smoking requires secondhand smoking to happen. I think it's unfortunate that practically no country in the world has opted for complete segregation.
It is true that there is now some evidence that DNA damage from smoking is passed on to children of smokers. Generally these mutations weaken the immune system slightly, causing such children to have an increased risk of colds, ear infections, or SIDS, and increasing the severity of asthma attacks (http://www.smokefreephilly.org/facts/how-smoking-affects-your-children/). This degree of damage hardly qualifies as genocide, if it even qualifies as damage at all. Alcohol likewise causes irreversible DNA damage just like smoking (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-515913/Mens-smoking-drinking-damage-health-future-children.html) but producing a range of so-called "fetal alcohol spectrum disorders" including craniofacial abnormalities, stunted growth, neurological damage, learning difficulties and more. Compared to that, smoking's inherited "damage" is entirely benign, almost entirely cancelled out by the fact your parents will likely die when you're young, to be replaced with better, smarter foster parents who don't do dumb things like smoke. It's the secondhand smoke itself that's so dangerous, and that's what my counter-model eliminates.
The resolution is negated.
Return To Top | Posted:
2014-01-07 14:07:34
| Speak RoundDe@th (PRO)Hello all,
Now that my opponent has presented his arguments, let me proceed with mine. My apologies if I sound a bit harsh, its just that the humanity in me hasn’t died totally.
Going with the ideas my opponent has presented,
1) ‘Efficient way of getting rid of stupid people’
I sincerely wish that my opponent has taken his time to read what I’ve written, particularly when I drew a comparison between smoking and mass murder and genocide in the later part. If the damage is only to that person who smokes, well my opponent’s thought that he is stupid would have held the chance. But as I mentioned “And often, health hazards due to passive smoking or ETS (environmental tobacco smoking) is more intense than direct smoking” and “ETS in pregnant women can be fatal to the fetus and might even result in miscarriage, stillbirth etc”.
I wonder how my opponent could have a mindset to let smoking continue, stating that it an ‘efficient’ way to get rid of stupid people, while its shown that its actually the other way round.
I wonder how my opponent could have a mindset comparable only with that of old German gas chambers set up to kill the ‘stupid’ Jews…!!!!
2) “This has several harms. First, there is no way of assuring the quality of such goods. Second, your local drug dealer won't tell you what the harms of those drugs are, this not being in their business interests.”
Interesting, in the 1st point my opponent wants to get rid of stupid smokers. And in the 2nd point he becomes a benevolent god-man to them, worrying on the quality and harmful effects (as if the present day cigarettes are meant to make the world healthier..!!!) of the illegally sold cigarettes….
By doing this, my opponent is contradicting himself and I would suggest that he reconsider his entire stand. However, for the sake of debating I’ll continue with my ideas.
Even if such an ‘underground cigarette world’ comes into existence, which is only probable, the harmful effects of smoking would obviously come down. Just imagine and compare the present situation where cocaine or any other drug is illegal and is dealt more in an underground nature and a situation where they are sold in open. Which would be more harmful for the mainstream society?
And even more, driving it underground will make occasional smokers or casual smokers come out of it, effectively saving their life as well…!!!
Now that my opponent has gone to the extent of rebutting very critical and sensitive issues, let me give a few input from my side.
1) Environmental damage
My opponent in his opening statement tells that smokers are stupids, who don’t care for themselves. And now my opponent believes that these ‘stupids’ will always ensure that their cigarette butts are thrown into a waste bin and disposed off proper???
If he thinks so, I can only smile at it because, it they ensure proper disposal very meticulously by throwing into dustbins, they are not stupid. And my opponent has once again contradicted himself.
Now, how does my opponent intend to scale down tobacco supply?? There is an ever burgeoning demand for the product, which is not illegal until now, and correspondingly supply will only increase. Which means, associated deforestation and the so called ‘sustainable agriculture’ is impossible…
My opponent tells that, it matters only if poison is drank in liters….but he forgets that to cause a death, one needs just a drop of poison rather than an ocean of it. How many deaths have been caused due to volcanic eruption or aircraft pollution? On the other hand how many deaths/damages has been RECORDED (unrecorded ones can only go steepingly high) due to smoking?
Factually, pollution caused by 3 cigarettes is equivalent to that caused by a diesel car. 5.5 trillion cigarettes are produced every year—approximately a 1000 for each person in the world. Now this is equivalent to burning 2.8 billion gallons of gasoline.
Now, isn’t smoking equivalent to what my opponent has told “The real problem of climate change lies in deforestation and an over-reliance on fossil fuels”, with at least 600 million trees cut and additionally four miles of paper an hour is used for wrapping and packaging and the pollution being equivalent to that caused by 2.8 billion gallons of gasoline. And hence it is very obvious that my opponent is actually supporting my idea here.
2) Health hazards
My opponent again and again assumes that smoking creates problem only to the smokers. But as I mention, over and over with a hope that he understands, it effects by-standers and next generation in a more sever manner.
And my opponent has brought in the topic of individual freedom here, the freedom of choice. Now if the smokers smoke by digging a pit and sitting inside it away from every mainstream society, then the freedom of choice can be respected. But otherwise, one can’t forget the legal quote, “The right to swing my fist ends where the other man's nose begins.”
A situation where a human values his likes more than the healthy existence of his own family and society, I don’t think he deserved to be called a human since he lacks the very basic humane nature and rationality which makes us what we call humans. And in such a situation, his arguments for his personal freedom don’t hold good considering the greater benefit of the society.
3) Legal
Now my opponent is confused with the entire thing. Why do we have traffic laws? To avoid accidents and fatalities to the best possible, I assume. But with smoking how can you ensure that? The only way being criminalization of smoking, at least in public areas. And again I say, an individual smoking and he alone suffering is not what exists. For his personal likes and choice, the entire society is suffering. And this is a serious offence.
And it would be better if my opponent doesn’t feel confused between a risk and a deliberate harm to the self and others around. Driving in a crowded road is a risk. But driving rash and crashing into nearby things or causing fatalities is a crime.
Hope my opponent is clear how the legal aspect works. And as matter of fact, in most countries suiciding and helping it in any manner is a criminal activity. In the same manner, smoking, killing the self as well as the society, and related activities should also be criminalized.
4) Second-hand smoke
Criminalization of smoking means criminalization in all public places, not just enclosed spaces. It is a practical impossibility to go and check every home. However, production and sale of cigarette or even cultivation of tobacco can be criminalized, hence ensuring a reduced intensity, even in public places.
Now, coming to segregation, it can act as an introductory step to the total ban and criminalization. Smoking lounges can be setup in every place, at frequent intervals and with this smoking can be completely banned in all public places. And subsequently and gradually stricter regulations can be brought on production and sale, finally leading to a total ban, just like any other drugs like cocaine or hash.
And my opponent agrees that smoking creates DNA damage and alteration, causing weaker immune system. Effectively, the kid will be troubled by every small disease, causing frequent colds and allergies and becomes prone to more fatal diseases easily. ADHD is another effect of smoking on subsequent generations. And smoking in pregnant women results in a higher possibility of fetus getting killed. So isn't it genocide in a way?
To end, smoking is not something that should b branded small/medium/large like shirt size, on the contrary, we should be looking at the bigger picture and the large scale effects.
So, something that doesn't do a single good, but causes this much troubles/damages/hazards. Why not criminalize it and help the cause of saving the society?
Return To Top | Posted:
2014-01-07 17:12:29
| Speak Roundadmin (CON)I thank my opponent for continuing his case.
My Case
1. Getting rid of stupid people
My opponent refers to genocide and mass murder, but is yet to prove why those things are bad. My analysis is that if we can objectively prove that these people are to a significant extent responsible for every other harm that exists on this planet today, through their proven drive to make bad decisions affecting their lives (aka "stupidity"), then them suffering actually accrues a benefit for the rest of us.
I proved that in terms of lower taxes, better healthcare, and better decisions in government, business, and society. None of this has been directly rebutted by my opponent, so I take them as conceded.
What made the Holocaust so bad was not that a bunch of people died, but that their deaths were arbitrary. Nobody bemoans the soldiers on both sides who killed other soldiers, and let's not forget the civilians who died in the war. But smoker's deaths are not, for the most part, arbitrary. Smoking is a choice, being of Jewish descent is not.
I deal with third party harms in the 4th rebuttal point.
2. Scarface
At the point at which you can lace tobacco with PCP or methamphetamine, that actually does create a significant harm to the world - for instance meth creates aggression which actually has lead to murders. It's not because I care about smokers that I worry about the quality of the supply. Moreover, when you don't know what you're buying, you can't make a rational choice about consumption. Right now it's a rational choice because people know the risks and rewards, but when these become unknown because of varied quality, you can no longer prove a smoker was stupid.
Just because drug consumption and supply happens underground does not mean the effects of drug use stay underground. My opponent completely ignores and therefore accepts my weight of analysis proving that forcing it underground creates more violent crime in society, increases the market power of drug lords, reduces the ability to addicts to smarten up and make the choice to quit, and so forth.
As for fewer users using the drugs as a result, there is absolutely zero evidence of that, any more than prohibition reduced the use of alcohol (which it didn't). All it did was sweep the problem under a rug where politicians could forget about it until the mob became too powerful. Casual smokers will still exist just as there are casual marijuana users, and just as legalizing or criminalizing marijuana has had negligible effects on use at best. If anything, the number of smokers would rise under my opponent's model due to the forbidden fruit effect.
Rebuttal
1. Environmental damage
Yes, I do think smokers throw away their cigarette butts, because it takes way more brain power to see a complex relationship that might not take effect for another 50 years than to obey the printed order "Put your cigarette butts here". The problem is that such facilities are rarely made available, particularly in public places in cities, but then constructing buildings and roads destroys soil still more in those areas than cigarettes could ever hope to accomplish. Nevertheless I believe making proper refuse areas available in dedicated smoking areas is a wise choice.
Tobacco is sustainable so long as it is grown sustainably. The problem is that all too often it isn't, as poor farmers with little education grow heaps to get lots of money, and then lose it the day after they get their paycheck as they have little idea how to best spend it without education. Often they don't know that other crops are actually more cost-effective and can be more sustainable for the same yield. Controls can thus be put in at a government level, through aid organisations, through education and more. Overall this is a third world problem with smoking supply, not smoking consumption as pro wants to criminalize.
My opponent refers to CO2 pollution specifically when it comes to poison entering the atmosphere. I proved that the CO2 pollution of smoking is next to nothing. If global warming can be said to have any recorded deaths, none are due to smoking.
Equivalence to cars or fossil fuel tons is another meaningless fact. Aircraft burn the equivalent of about 90 billion gallons of gasoline compared to smoking's 2.8. The number one anthropogenic polluter is actually electricity generation. This matters because it shows my opponent's solutions don't tackle the causes of the harms.
Most of the trees cut in the tobacco industry are not in the paper, but in the primary stage where they are taken for clearing land and drying. The paper industry is entirely sustainable, and bad agricultural practices are a problem, but not one exclusive to tobacco. Soy, for instance, has seen exactly the same thing happen especially in South America.
2. Health
I agree that a person who would willingly harm others is inhuman. By pro's logic, every smoker fits that definition due to secondhand smoke, perhaps deserving death. I agree, and I call that my point about stupidity. All this is a nice distraction from my awesome unrefuted analysis that there must be a presumption of free choice.
Again, I'll address the third parties thing under the relevant point, and keep this point for personal health concerns for the smoker.
3. Legality
First of all, segregation does limit fatalities, in the same way as confining rash drivers likely to crash to Formula One speedways limits fatalities. But that's a different issue. I wasn't referring to motor vehicle deaths. I was talking about the 53,000 proven annual deaths directly caused by car exhaust fumes. This is relevant because like with tobacco smoke, there's lots of damage that spreads beyond the original user. So it's my opponent that confused the issue, not me. One might as well outlaw lighting any fires at all, among a multitude of other things.
I think my opponent is using a broad definition of harm, deciding that therefore all smoking causes harm, and claiming that therefore smoking should be covered under existing suicide law, since suicide is also a form of self-harm. This is not how law works. An existing law can only be applied to the class of actions that it was intended to deal with. It is far beyond the purpose of suicide law (as I examined last round) to include smoking, or any other "harms to the self". For example, having a baby often leads to the death of the mother, but that doesn't mean having a baby is suicide. Smoking can lead to death too, but it doesn't always, and regardless it isn't suicide. It's a risk.
4. Second-hand smoke
Child abuse is already universally banned in every home. The government doesn't generally check on every parent to ensure their homes are always child-abuse free, but it's still a practical ban because it reduces child abuse. The same is true of segregated smoking.
While segregation can be an "introductory step", this is a classic slippery slope fallacy. It's possible to take a minor action that reduces harms without going too far and increasing harms in the process as my opponent wants to.
Again, the effect of a slightly weakened immune system is not significant. People with AIDS manage to live long and healthy lives, albeit on medication. People with smokers for parents don't need anything more than perhaps one or two extra sick days due to asthma attacks and common colds. Being of a genetic heritage with a risk for certain diseases such as Alzheimer's this is not - if they eat apples and drink orange juice they'll be fine. Such limits exist for most people, for example I have really sensitive skin that requires me to wear sunblock whether I want to or not whenever I go outside. Occasionally, adverse circumstances like these are things one needs to deal with in life. It's a very far cry from genocide, let alone death.
The resolution is negated.
Return To Top | Posted:
2014-01-07 19:35:27
| Speak RoundDe@th (PRO)Continuing with the problem,
1. Getting rid of stupid people
The same arbitrariness exist in the case of smoking also, with no control over who is effected or to how fatal extent, because of the effect of passive smoking and hereditariness. So my point that smoking is only an extended and a large scale diabolic version of NAZI gas chambers holds stand very well.
My opposition says, "I proved that in terms of lower taxes, better healthcare, and better decisions in government, business, and society."
Am wondering when my opposition will say that we should kill all the aged people and physically challenged, since they pose a heavy weight on health taxes and all the related things as mentioned by my opponent...!!
2. Scarface
My opponent who has now turned god-man to the smokers shows unending worry for them. With his previous idea, he argues its perfectly OK that very smoker and passive smoker and every new generation baby that is effected are stupids and hence should be killed, which is being done by smoking...and now he is worried about crimes and rational choices made by smokers...!!!
On one hand he argues that they are all stupid and in the very next argument he contradicts himself giving those 'stupids' the ability of rationality...!!!
And as i told very clearly, driving something underground will obviously reduce it's effect on mainstream society which we are more concerned of, rather than the smoking individuals as such.
And as i told, imagine a situation where cocaine or marijuana is legal and the present situation where its illegal.
Which is better?? The same applies for smoking too...
And large scale hazards due to cocaine or marijuana is very less on mainstream society and are restricted to the users, which is exactly the opposite with smoking.
So even the formation of underground chain is better than the present situation.
wondering on the audacity of my opponent to down-show every smoking related hazards, let me try to put my idea,
1. Environmental damage
Containing more than 600 chemicals, throwing away of cigarette butts and they polluting soil and water bodies is not a something that takes 50 years to show their hazardous effects. And it should not be forgotten that most of the cigarette butts are non-biodegradable. Even more, my opponent is here creating a false idea, stating that the smokers throw off their cigarette butt random because there is no proper disposal facility, while it is obvious that every building and on most road-sides there are dust bins meant for throwing waste...!!!
And tobacco is never a sustainable agriculture, just because of the sheer necessity of the plant and it literally drains all the vital components from the soil, making it dead. To add, it also requires enormous quantity of pesticides.
And if smoking is not put on control, the demand is only gonna increase, leading to more deforestation and degradation in soil quality, effectively damaging the ecosystem and adding to green house effect.
And when i mean pollution it is not restricted to CO2 and I wonder how my opponent could draw such disastrous conclusions from my words...and factually global warming is yet to cause any direct death, but smoking has resulted in death/casualty of an enormously high number and a good percentage of them due to passive smoking and chronic respiratory problems caused by fine particles in the cigarette smoke.
Smoking, every year, is equivalent to burning 2.8 billion gallons of gasoline. Aircrafts burn the equivalent of about 90 billion gallons. Does that make smoking any less bad?
Aircrafts/vehicles is a necessity. But the last time I saw the society, smoking was never a necessity..!!!
To end the discussion on this point, unlike what my opponent says, most of the tobacco cultivation happens illegal, encroaching and clearing the forest land...!! Every year, in Brazil alone 60 million trees are cut for curing, packaging and rolling cigarettes..!!!
2. Health
On the contrary to what my opponent says that his idea of free choice is unrefuted, I wish he had read what i wrote.
"A situation where a human values his likes more than the healthy existence of his own family and society, I don’t think he deserved to be called a human since he lacks the very basic humane nature and rationality which makes us what we call humans. And in such a situation, his arguments for his personal freedom don’t hold good considering the greater benefit of the society."
So my opponent's idea of personal choice is not just refuted but shown totally incorrect and irrelevant in this context.
3. Legality
Compared to my opponent's statistics of 53,000 proven annual deaths due to car exhaust fumes, I present a staggering 440,000 deaths due to cigarette smoking, in the United States alone. Again one cannot forget that, while one is a necessity, other is not. And to add, the efficiency of cars are increased day by day and stricter regulations are brought in. And while a stricter regulation in smoking can only mean total criminalization of smoking in every public places.
Again my opponent draws wrong assumptions from my words. I had never spoken about covering smoking under existing suicide laws, on the contrary I'd prefer it to be more like a mass murder, if not a genocide.
And over and over, my opponent shows the tendency to compare smoking which is no good my any measure with things that are necessary and required like motherhood, aircrafts and cars. Makes me wonder if my opponent has ran out of sane and relevant ideas...!!!
4. Second-hand smoke
My opponent here draws an improper comparison of child abuse in homes with smoking. Child abuse, anywhere, is a crime...but only when reported/caught. SO government assumes that any such cases would get reported. And how does that comparison now work with smoking? And I've mentioned, its impractical to got to every home and check. However, smoking in ANY PUBLIC PLACE can be banned and criminalized. Also stricter controls can be brought on it's production and sale.
And segregation is an introductory step that can be taken along with ban and criminalization of smoking in public places.
And my opponent takes a weaker immune system as something so trivial. People with AIDS survive, but their sufferings and the economic burden it puts on the individuals is not very trivial. So effectively a weak immune system is highly dangerous considering that any day you can contact any disease, even resulting in fatality and as a matter of fact, it is totally different from a specific allergy for which specific precaution can be taken. Because here, you never know what precaution, when, where and how...!!!!
And once again my opponent draws wrong assumption from my words. Comparing genocide with smoking doesn't mean smoking is genocide. The comparison was made in the sense that it penetrates generations and has a reach far greater than the immediate present.
Once again, to end, as I have stated, smoking is not something that should b branded small/medium/large like shirt size, on the contrary, we should be looking at the bigger picture and the large scale effects.
So, something that doesn't do a single good, but causes this many troubles/damages/hazards. Why not criminalize it and help the cause of saving the society?
Return To Top | Posted:
2014-01-07 23:11:53
| Speak Roundadmin (CON)My opponent's case has shifted from a total ban on smoking to banning smoking only in public places. That's fine, but I want to point out that all his harms are much more pernicious in private, usually enclosed spaces than public spaces.
1. Getting rid of stupid people
On the contrary, when you choose to smoke a cigarette, that is not arbitrary, much like choosing to murder somebody is not arbitrary. Such people would be deserving of the death penalty even if they did cause third party harms, but the simple undeniable fact is that nobody is harmed more from smoking than the smoker.
My opponent completely concedes that smoking reduces the number of stupid people in the world, and that this creates the benefits I claimed. Other models that could produce even greater savings are beyond the scope of my model, but I feel pained to point out that not all old people meet the basic premise of my argument of being stupid or dying because of their own dumb choices. In fact, old people in general often have an important role to play in passing knowledge from one generation to the next.
2. Scarface
Children of smokers do not suffer any life-threatening ill effects. Let's clear this up and not confuse everything with my opponent's third party harms case, because this was actually a good independent argument.
Stupidity and rationalization are not mutually exclusive. I could rationalize my suicide right now, perhaps by saying that nobody loves me, but that would still be stupid (in this case, because it's a non-sequiter). Indeed, my argument for stupidity relies on smokers having a degree of rationality, which is why mental institutions are usually smoke-free areas.
Just because my opponent tells you something does not make it true. It is irrelevant how clearly he tells it either. I've been saying things clearly too.
The reason we ban drugs like marijuana and cocaine is that both impair judgement to the extent that the drug itself causes people to commit external crimes (for example, Amsterdam's experience with legalized marijuana saw a massive increase in property crime, other drug trafficking etc). Alcohol is the only legal drug that falls into that category, and for the most part it is kept legal because such effects only take place in very large doses. Drugs such as caffeine and nicotine, however, do not. But whenever you ban a drug, all the harms that I talked about do accrue - for instance, there is a well established link between existing drug cartels and violence. Ultimately other drugs are again beyond the scope of my counter-model, but there is a strong case they are significantly more harmful. This is also the reason why bad quality of tobacco is problematic.
My opponent does not refute any of my further analysis on this point, which is quite substantial.
Rebuttal
1. Environment
I think my opponent misread my 50 years thing. He does make the claim that waste-bins are frequently available (not actually statistically true) but even if they were, a waste-bin is not where you put cigarette butts. That's actually dangerous and the cause of most waste bin fires, a major problem in much of the world. The correct bin to use would be a cigarette receptacle or an ash urn, demonstrating pro's ignorance on existing solutions to combat the litter problem. And if pro didn't know they existed and thought smokers can just use waste bins, that proves they cannot be as ubiquitous as he claims.
Before tobacco was grown by humans, the plant already existed and was not taking over life on its own, but surviving with no human intervention (including no pesticides being used). It's people that cut down trees to allow more tobacco plants to grow than is sustainable for a given area of land. It's people that throw on the pesticides. Of course people could always use the tobacco plant, and they can grow it just like it grows in nature, or they can overgrow it on some land and destroy the land in so doing.
Just because demand increases doesn't mean supply has to magically meet that demand, however. That's up to the growers. When growers grow less tobacco, supply comes down, and with demand coming up, simple economics tells us that prices will increase, and consumption will be reduced. As I explained in the last round, this is not a problem with consumption but production. Illegal growing is affected by these forces just as legal growing is, because believe it or not illegal growers care about things such as their own income as well. It isn't actually a majority of cultivation but that's irrelevant.
We could debate the global warming thing another day, it is clear my opponent has finally accepted that cigarettes do not contribute significantly to greenhouse gas emissions. The other harms he talks about are secondhand smoke which again, pro has put under the wrong point.
Aircraft are not a necessity. Human beings existed long before aircraft did. The same is true of cars, or any kind of refined oil. They are a luxury, just like smoking. They also carry inherent risks and rewards. Smoking is much "less bad" than aircraft in terms of gasoline equivalency by a ratio of 90:2.8, though I have also shown that the figure is meaningless.
Once again my opponent has dropped a ton of analysis under these points.
2. Health
I did read the passage pro cites, and respond to it. Note that his argument is against the personal freedom OF PEOPLE WHO HAVE ALREADY CHOSEN TO SMOKE. The argument does not work for people who have not yet made that choice. So for the relevant people this point is talking about, I stand by my claim from both previous rounds.
3. Legality
I do not doubt one is a bigger issue. I am simply saying that the law does not discriminate like that on the judicial side (just as it does not discriminate for motherhood or cars, as there is no judicial test for "requirement" - ie "I had to commit fraud, it was REQUIRED of me" does not exculpate the defendant). The exact same argument I made for suicide is also true of genocide. The point is that there's no common legal basis for the argument from inconsistency of relative harms to crimes. On its own, the legality point is not an argument for criminalizing smoking, and anything more is a public policy issue that can only be resolved by the remaining points.
4. Second-hand smoke
My opponent is wrong. Child abuse is a crime even if there were no offenders. Crimes are about more than retribution or rehabilitation, but also (more importantly) prevention. The same that is true of child abuse is true of segregated smoking - unsegregated smoking can be reported, caught and prevented by making it a crime. Nothing about stricter controls suggests the criminalization of smoking either. Ultimately pro has not proven that secondhand damage is inherent to the act of smoking.
Let's talk about a weakened immune system in children of smokers and the harms of that. AIDS is the most extreme form of weakened immune system disorder you can get. But there are other reasons the immune system might be weakened that aren't so bad - type 1 diabetes, for example. And some are even more benign still, requiring no medication at all to manage effectively, and being extraordinarily unlikely to lead to a death even a day earlier than what it would be without. People with smokers for parents fall into this category. They live happy, healthy lives with virtually no marginal sufferings other than the odd extra cough and runny nose, and no major economic burden. Even if it was as bad as AIDS it would not be genocide, but as it is it's hardly even a minor inconvenience, just like I need to put on sunblock to survive.
What pro needs to prove
Pro needs to prove not only that tobacco is not bringing the benefits I described, but is actually creating significant harms that cannot be mitigated, for instance by my counter-model, without justifying banning.
The resolution is negated.
Return To Top | Posted:
2014-01-08 08:44:14
| Speak RoundDe@th (PRO)It gives me a great deal of open-mouthed gaping, wondering why my opponent is forgetting that smoking is more hazardous to the innocent people around more than the smoker himself, not to add the harmful effects it passes on to the generations to come, impairing them, making them weaker and hence creating later generations that will subsequently grow only more weaker....!!!
Now coming to individual points,
1. Getting rid of stupid people
Like I mentioned, rather than direct smoking, ETS or passive smoking is more dangerous. So my opponents point of "getting rid of stupid people" is totally ruled off.
To add, treatment of the diseases only adds financial burden, either to the family or to the government and in either cases it results in wastage of money that can be used for a productive reason.
2. Scarface
One can never trivialize the harms that will happen to the coming generations because of something that is of no use like smoking. To add, subsequent creation of such weaker generations will only result in a large scale genocide, over time.
But, as my opponent says, "smoking kills stupid", and according to him, the passive smokers who are effected more intensely and generations to come are all stupids...!!!
And by saying that he is worried because of the after effects of use of bad quality tobacco, which is basically a psychological after-effect, he is clearly down-showing the immediate psychological effects of present day cigarettes. Smoking results in increased blood pressure, increased anxiety and depression, all of which has very high chance to get associated with criminal/erratic behavior, and it is no wonder that more than 60% of criminals are regular smokers.
And again I'd like to ask the same question, "imagine a situation where cocaine or marijuana is legal and the present situation where its illegal.Which is better??". The same is with smoking. So driving it underground will be beneficiery for mainstream society. To end this point, unlike my opponent's idea, there is little/no effect of any underworld drug cartels in majority of mainstream societies.
And i refute with the subsequent point also stating that the occasions of casual using as well as the number of casual users will only come down once the law is strengthened, as is evident with other drugs.
Now on my opponents trivial treatment of critical issues,
1. Environment
Throwing cigarette butt in regular waste bin is far better than tossing them off random. As a matter of fact, the waste treatment in most countries is by incineration or as landfills, either of them ensuring minimal damage to the ecosystem. So my opponents argument that there is no disposal point is ruled out totally.
I wonder how my opponent can think that tomorrow on tobacco will start being cultivated in a sustainable manner with minimal pesticide and without encroaching forest area, when there is a global ever-burgeoning demand for the same?
For things like cigarette, which make people addicted, supply can keep up with demand and pric can still be hiked. Simple economics tells on an enormous profit...!!!
And the cultivators think on their income alone, like my opponent says in support of me, effectively damaging environment more and more.
And as a direct effect of increasing smoking, 60 million trees are cut for curing and packing of cigarette, which does NO good, in Brazil alone, not to mention the forest land being encroached, all these DIRECTLY influencing global warming and still my opponent tries to misguide all of telling that cigarette doesn't contribute to global warming...!!!
To add, all the gases (not just CO2, but even more troublesome & poisonous ones) and fine particles left into atmosphere, polluting it...!!!
And then my opponent puts in the imprudent statement that in the MODERN world aircrafts and cars (motor vehicles) are not necessary, comparing with stone age probably...!!! Seemingly my opponent is running out of wits, otherwise am sure he wouldn't have gone for such a statement.
And just by stating that I've dropped a tone of analysis, it is very clear that my opponent is in no position to invalidate their authority.
2. Health
Unlike what my opponent states, I made it very clear that smokers are those who value just their personal freedom over the healthy existence of their own family and society and hence their argument for personal freedom is irrelevant.
And I've clearly mentioned the health hazards to direct smokers, more intense effects of ETS on passive smokers and those to the generations to come and my opponent doesn't disagree with any of those health related facts.
And I've clearly mentioned that reported deaths every year in the US alone due to smoking is 440,000. Imagine the productive population and resources being wasted away, just like that.
3. Legality
Now, in my introduction, my comparison of smoking with suicide, murder and genocide was qualitative. And that holds accurate. Now, for legality it is not required to have quantitative consistency. Imagine my opponent tries to poison 100 people, the effect is quantitatively different on each. Some die instant,others in an hour, some may just be critically injured and by the sheer chance of probability which my opponent believes in, there might be a few still healthy as a horse. Will this make my opponent innocent as he says? Or is he a criminal here?
The situation is an exact reproduction of smoking scenario. Just think..!!!
4. Second-hand smoke
Child abuse is a crime. We all know that. But my opponent misconstrues my statement that an offender/criminal can't be brought in front of law unless reported.
Now, when something can be controlled more strict and criminalised, why just segregate it?
And again I say, criminalisation here can PRACTICALLY mean only in public. Its impossible to go and check in every houses and bunkers. But effectively remove it's effect from the mainstream society is what law should intend here.
And as I previously mentioned smoking lounges can be constructed by government as an introductory step, followed by greater control on cultivation and production.
Now in his concluding statement my opponent says "...tobacco is not bringing the benefits I described". Am shocked hearing someone say on the benefits of smoking. And until this moment, since my opponent has not really told ANY such BENEFITS of smoking, I'd rather invite him to enlighten the world pointing them out.
And exactly because law is more about prevention than punishment we should criminalise smoking so that we could prevent world being poisoned, trees being cut, soil being depleted, water bodies being polluted, productive population getting physically and mentally addicted and then getting damaged partially or fully (read as dead), innocents being executed, generations being made weaker and souls being sold off to the devil of smoke....!!!
Would not these harmful effects suffice to criminalisation of something which does NO GOOD on the other hand???
And seeing the effects, it is obvious to any rational being that there could be nothing worse to compete and win against 'smoking' in these aspects...!!!
Once again, to end, as I have stated, smoking is not something that should b branded small/medium/large like shirt size, on the contrary, we should be looking at the bigger picture and the large scale effects.
So, something that doesn't do a single good, but causes this many troubles/damages/hazards. Why not criminalize it and help the cause of saving the society and the future?
Return To Top | Posted:
2014-01-09 06:21:46
| Speak Roundadmin (CON)I thank my opponent for continuing his case.
My case
1. Getting rid of stupid people
First of all, my opponent has never shown that secondhand smoke is more dangerous than firsthand. This is simply not true. Second, the point about financial burden and strain on the healthcare system I have already rebutted, all the way back in round one.
As I said last round, however, even if everything my opponent said is true, then smokers deserve death for their crimes. If smoking is akin to genocide and somebody smokes under his model, how else is he going to punish it other than by accelerating what he believes to be the inevitable ultimate effect of smoking, namely death? Let's face it - stupid people are unlikely to be swayed by laws when there isn't a policeman watching. This is why rehabilitation clinics for drugs typically average a lower IQ than the general population. The reason this matters is that it shows third parties are irrelevant - if third parties are impacted, that only further justifies the need to get rid of stupidity, not undermines it.
Ultimately, pro has not responded to my central two premises: that getting rid of stupid people is desirable, and that smoking gets rid of stupid people. My conclusion follows logically. All the side-issues that have been discussed do not take away from this central point, and have been thoroughly rebutted.
2. Scarface
I'm going to ignore my opponent's appeals back to his points from now on. He actually needs to rebut my arguments, and quit distracting people by bring up his again and again when they are totally irrelevant to my point. External harms of a black market industry has nothing to do, for example, with the intergenerational, internal harms of a legal industry. As should be obvious, I never said that generations to come will have any mental impairment as a result of smoking. Humans have smoked for thousands of years and the Flynn effect is still happening.
I'd rather that 60% of criminals aren't engaged in gang warfare and other inevitable consequences of drug lord control of the tobacco market. If tobacco is that much of a psychological problem, then stronger stimulants laced with it like Methamphetamine, unwittingly added to much of the air breathed by 60% of criminals, would be disastrous. And that's not to speak of all of the other external harms I mentioned. Ultimately pro continues to drop more than half of my case from round one.
However, the 60% figure is what's known as a correlation. It isn't causation, and it's important to distinguish those facts. The average IQ of prisoners is about 10 points below average. Therefore they are significantly more likely to be stupid, and stupid people are significantly more likely both to commit crime and smoke. Stupidity is generally the cause of both, but both are independent. That's why only about 0.5% of smokers are incarcerated (calculated based on latest available figures and assuming pro's 60% figure is accurate for all countries).
Other assertions, like "there is little/no effect of any underworld drug cartels in majority of mainstream societies", are nothing more than assertions. They are not backed up by any facts. The Mafia grew to prominence over illegal alcohol trading, and gained a reputation for a very good reason. He also has no evidence that the number of users of other drugs has come down as a result of making them illegal, and I have already clearly rebutted this argument with regards to tobacco.
Rebuttal
1. Environment
I never said that there are no disposal points. I said that there are few. I also think you'll find that there are many locations on the planet where it is legal to smoke but where there is no bin available. I so happen to know that the nearest public bin from my house is 1.6 km away, and most peoples in the world are currently further away still. The nearest bin for cigarettes is about 5km away, and I'm lucky. Many countries don't have them at all. I ask voters to consider where the nearest public bin, and cigarette disposal facility, is to their homes. Again, segregation answers this problem. If you make smoking illegal smokers won't throw their butts away or risk being caught.
I don't believe changes to tobacco growing practices will happen overnight, much like changes to any other kind of intensive agriculture won't happen overnight. There's been a lot of really great work that's been done in this area already, particularly by NGOs such as World Vision, but ultimately to reach a long-term solution takes time. If you force these farmers to stop growing tobacco overnight, then their choices are literally either to starve or to grow tobacco illegally, since they don't know about anything else.
Profit is not made by the farmers, but by the corporations. While cigarette companies could pay more to farmers to entice them to stay on, they have instead been progressively undermining the human rights of their suppliers and driving them into increased poverty (see also http://www.fairtradetobacco.org/). Corporations cannot pass on much more because they need a massive reserve in case they lose lawsuits and such. Cultivators thinking on their income would do much better to switch to other crops, though they also need to learn how to farm responsibly.
Trees being cut is again, a problem with poor farming, not legal tobacco. Smoking itself does not contribute to global warming. Poor farming - of ANY crop - does. It's no reason to ban tobacco any more than rice or soy.
It's not enough just to mention arbitrary pollution. Pro actually needs to tell us what he's talking about specifically.
If aircraft are essential to the modern world, so are cigarettes. Aircraft are simply a convenience, making us happier in the knowledge we can get places faster. Cigarettes, coffee etc are likewise mere conveniences to make us happy. Unless my opponent can tell us what makes aircraft essential to the modern world the point fails.
2. Health
It's a non-sequiter to say that because I value something, I should not have it. I value my personal freedom myself, so does that mean I shouldn't have it?
440,000 people can't be dying each year in the US from smoking because in total only about 251,000 people die from anything (death rate being only ~0.8 per 100,000 population).
However, this all links in to my first argument. Stupid people dying is good.
3. Legality
Cigarettes are poisons, but so is alcohol. So is caffeine. So are many medicines. The legal definition of poison is quite restrictive, while the biological one is more inclusive, and this is where my opponent is confused. Not all poisons are illegal to give to somebody under the law.
4. Second-hand smoke
Pro ignores my prevention point in a criminal context, and the other analysis that shows just as children can be protected from abuse in private, so too can they be protected from chemical abuse ie smoking. Smoking near a child is, so far as I can tell, child abuse. That is why segregation is so important.
There's no need for segregation to be an introductory step to banning. Segregation has all the benefits without accruing any of the harms I presented. These benefits are things like killing off stupid people and dethroning drug lords.
As for preventing an underground market, I again hasten to point out that it doesn't work. Banning an activity outright is qualitatively different from restricting when that activity can be conducted. One is a lot easier to accept than the other, much like how prohibition didn't work, but laws forbidding the sale of alcohol at certain times of day or to certain groups of people (ie minors) generally do.
I look forward to the final round.
The resolution is negated.
Return To Top | Posted:
2014-01-11 11:56:04
| Speak RoundDe@th (PRO)Hello,
my opposition has a very peculiar taste of down-showing critical issues, branding them trivial and introducing a mist of improbable uncertainty and cobwebs of altered facts, which I feel in this case will deny the readers the facts on the harms & hazards of something as vile & diabolic as smoking.
To begin-
1. Getting rid of stupid people
Primarily, my opposition makes this 1st argument on which his has built his entire ideas, that everyone effected by smoking are stupids, which is highly biased and inappropriate and false by the very nature and is ruled out.
Even the smokers need not be stupid/unproductive. If doing one thing stupid makes an individual stupid, then the entire world would have got filled with them. My opponent's argument here was stupid. But does that make him one? According to his argument it makes him one too..!!
It would have been better if my opponent found time to read my 1st round, where I mentioned how ETS and passive smoking is more hazardous, the smoke being more of unfiltered nature, effectively making it more critical when it comes to health and pollution.
So unlike what con says, smokers need not be stupid and smoking effects non-smokers(who are the only non-stupids according to my opponent) more intense. So my opponent's 1st case is ruled out TOTALLY..!!
2. Scarface
My opponent seems to have got a bit nervous how his entire idea is threatened by a single question. But my idea remains the same, which I have already discussed, "imagine a situation where cocaine or marijuana is legal and the present situation where its illegal.Which is better??". Can't forget my opponent's supporting idea on how legalised marijuana troubled Amsterdam.
Its obvious that the number of casual users of these drugs have also come down by making these drugs illegal. And unlike my opponent says, the effect of any underworld mafias on the major mainstream societies are also minimal. So obviously it is fine, even if an underground smoking mafia arises out of the new law.
Concluding, the influence of underground mafias/drug cartels on most mainstream societies are negligible and pose far less threat that the devil of smoke itself...and WHEN IT IS SAID THAT MORE THAN 60% CRIMINALS ARE SMOKERS AND THAT CRIMINALS HAVE A REDUCING IQ AND WITH MY OPPONENTS STATEMENT THAT "SMOKERS ARE STUPID", I'D LIKE THEM ALL TO BE REREAD AS SMOKING CAUSES A CONTINUOUS MENTAL, PHYSICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL RETARDATION, GIVING ONE MORE JUST REASON FOR CRIMINALISING SMOKING.
Coming on to my opponent's cobwebs of 'trivialities'
1. Environment
Am not sure if my opponent lives so far from the civilised world, because according to him he doesn't have a public waste bin nearby..!! Even taking that into consideration, it would be nice if he could have a waste bin in his own home and then take it to public bin every other day or so. So giving excuse of lack of proximity of waste bin is only a trivial one...A RATHER GOOD EXCUSE WOULD BE LACK OF INTEREST.!!!
And change in tobacco cultivation wont happen overnight, neither will it happen in a decade unless it is criminalized and treated with stricter laws. AND I'VE CLEARLY SHOWN HOW THE CULTIVATION OF TOBACCO AND PRODUCTION OF CIGARETTES DIRECTLY ADDS TO GLOBAL WARMING AND THIS WILL ONLY INCREASE BECAUSE OF INCREASING DEMAND. (seemingly, my opponent's thinking that it would decrease with increasing demand is only because of sheer lack of business mindset, nothing to worry...)
And when it means pollution it means, AIR POLLUTION (smoke that consists of green house gases and other chemically reacting ones and fine particles), WATER POLLUTION (because of direct cigarette waste and due to dissolved chemicals in rain water that comes from atmosphere), SOIL POLLUTION (because of increased waste and increased tobacco cultivation), GLOBAL WARMING (increased greenhouse gas content, but more because of the large forest land being encroached for cultivation and trees cut for production) and more....and still my opponent is confused by the word 'pollution' and wonders how smoking damages nature...hilarious...!!!
Am happy that my opponent din't say food is just another convenience to keep us alive and same with clothing, shelter etc. ANYWAY, HIS THOUGHT THAT AIRCRAFTS AND MOTOR VEHICLES ARE JUST LUXURIES IS RIDICULOUS CONSIDERING THAT WE ARE NO MORE LIVING IN STONE-AGE..!!
2. Health
It only means that you will be denied what you doesn't deserve. Just like a terrorist who kills others are often denied right to life...!!!
Once again I wonder at my opponent's height of ignorance in this topic. And his depression is clearly visible now...!!!
I'd like my opponent and others to go through what government says as per, http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/index.htm
AND FINALLY WITH MY OPPONENT'S ARGUMENT THAT "STUPID PEOPLE DYING IS GOOD" IS IRRELEVANT SINCE THERE IS NO GUARANTEE THAT THOSE DYING ARE STUPID...!!!
3. Legality
"Not all poisons are illegal to give to somebody under the law.". LAST TIME I READ, CIGARETTE SMOKING DOES NO GOOD TO HEALTH IN ANY WAYS, UNLIKE THE MEDICINES. And for caffeine to become a poison, it requires to be in overdose, UNLIKE cigarette, which is poisonous in any amount.
So criminalising smoking in any and every public place is certainly legal and a stricter regulation and ban on tobacco products need to be brought in to conserve productive population and their skills as well as the environment.
4. Second-hand smoke
Every harm of "criminalisation of smoking" my opponent has put in has been proved as very well framed diabolic ideas to mislead and misinform the public.
And segregation does never give all the benefits of total control.THE ILL EFFECTS ON INDIVIDUAL & ENVIRONMENT INCLUDING THE INCREASING DEPLETION OF FOREST LANDS AND TREES ADDING TO GLOBAL WARMING STILL EXISTS. My opponent tells that he lives in a place where, government don't even provide public waste bins. IT WOULD BE HIGHLY IMPRACTICAL TO THINK THAT THE SAME GOVERNMENT WOULD PROVIDE SMOKING LOUNGES, THAT TOO CONSIDERING THE NUMBER OF SMOKERS, IT IS PRACTICALLY IMPOSSIBLE..!!!
So the easiest and the most efficient way would be total criminalisation of smoking in every public place, followed by strict controls and bans on cultivation,production and sale of tobacco products.
To conclude from my side, summarising the effects of smoking-
1. ADDITION TO GLOBAL WARMING (SECTION ENVIRONMENT)
2. AIR, WATER AND SOIL POLLUTION (SECTION ENVIRONMENT)
3. INDIVIDUAL AND PUBLIC HEALTH DEPLETION (SECTION HEALTH)
4. WEAKENS THE GENERATIONS, RESULTING IN GETTING PRONE TO MORE DISEASES, THREATENING THE VERY EXISTENCE (SECTION HEALTH)
5. PSYCHOLOGICAL INFLUENCES AND ADDICTIONS RESULTING IN CRIMINAL BEHAVIOR (SECTIONS HEALTH AND SCARFACE)
6. KILLS/HARMS PRODUCTIVE POPULATION.
7. MEDICAL BURDEN OF TREATMENT EITHER ON GOVERNMENT OR THE FAMILY.
8. WRONG MODELS TO NEWER GENERATIONS, MAKING THEM ADDICT AT EVEN YOUNGER AGE.
THE ONLY SOLUTION BEING "CRIMINALISATION OF SMOKING". SO, SOMETHING THAT DOESN'T DO A SINGLE GOOD, BUT CAUSES THIS MANY TROUBLES/DAMAGES/HAZARDS. WHY NOT CRIMINALIZE IT AND HELP THE CAUSE OF SAVING THE SOCIETY AND THE FUTURE??
Urge the readers to go through the ideas and the weblinks and decide for themselves and their family and society and their future generations...
Reference
1) http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/index.htm
2) http://www.treehugger.com/green-food/smoking-environmental-and-social-impacts.html
3) http://www.lung.org/stop-smoking/about-smoking/facts-figures/general-smoking-facts.html
4) http://kidshealth.org/teen/drug_alcohol/tobacco/smoking.html
5) http://www.leavethepackbehind.org/tob_environment.php
6) http://www.ehow.com/list_7298348_environmental-effects-cigarette-smoke.html
7) http://changelabsolutions.org/publications/no-constitutional-right-smoke
Return To Top | Posted:
2014-01-12 18:59:32
| Speak Roundadmin (CON)About half of my opponent's case has been dismissing my points as outdated or hilarious or stupid. At the same time, pro dodged almost every crucial point in my case. He has frequently engaged in ad hominum attacks against me, and even persistently misquoted his own statistics.
Let me go through pro's alleged effects of smoking first...
1. ADDITION TO GLOBAL WARMING (SECTION ENVIRONMENT)
I have shown that the impact to global warming is impossibly small even by my opponent's figures, and almost wholly driven by poor farming practices not inherent to smoking.
2. AIR, WATER AND SOIL POLLUTION (SECTION ENVIRONMENT)
My opponent never showed why this pollution is significant or even what this pollution is. Sure cigarette smoke is a little toxic, but so long as it is confined to a specific area the wider environment is not significantly impacted.
3. INDIVIDUAL AND PUBLIC HEALTH DEPLETION (SECTION HEALTH)
Individual health is a person's free choice to deplete. My counter model deals with the public health issue without resorting to banning smoking.
4. WEAKENS THE GENERATIONS, RESULTING IN GETTING PRONE TO MORE DISEASES, THREATENING THE VERY EXISTENCE (SECTION HEALTH)
I proved nobody's existence is under threat, any more than certain racial immunities or lack thereof of certain peoples does not mean that there is a significant harm.
5. PSYCHOLOGICAL INFLUENCES AND ADDICTIONS RESULTING IN CRIMINAL BEHAVIOR (SECTIONS HEALTH AND SCARFACE)
I showed that this is not a causation of smoking, but of dealing with gangsters of the sort pro wants smokers to go to. The correlation between smoking and crime is exactly that - it is not a causation. I also already provided the figures to back up that it's just a correlation.
6. KILLS/HARMS PRODUCTIVE POPULATION.
Pro never explains why people who make a free choice to make themselves unproductive (vis-a-vis smoking) should not be killed or harmed.
7. MEDICAL BURDEN OF TREATMENT EITHER ON GOVERNMENT OR THE FAMILY.
I showed right back in round one that smokers usually have less of a medical burden than non-smokers over the course of their lifetime due to young deaths.
8. WRONG MODELS TO NEWER GENERATIONS, MAKING THEM ADDICT AT EVEN YOUNGER AGE.
Intelligent young people can see that a past generation's choice that leads to their death is not a good role model to follow.
All of these rely on several unproven assumptions, the most important of which being that banning smoking will be effective in stopping smoking.
I might add that all of this actually misses much of my opponent's case as well, just as much as he has missed large portions of my own case. To wrap up a few loose ends, actually caffeine is poisonous in any amount even if the effect is minor, banning gives less control than segregation, my opponent should check the definition of a luxury good, and my analysis on the treatment of farmers rebuts the rest of his environment point.
Right, now on to what's actually important in this debate.
I provided two benefits of legal smoking - Scarface won't move in to your neighborhood, and smokers die off.
I explained that smoking must be a free and fair choice. I showed that illegal smoking has a gateway drug effect. I showed that the illegal drug industry attracts other forms of crime that destabilize society. I claimed that there would be more addicts, due to the forbidden fruit effect and the incentives on gangs to get people addicted (whereas cigarette companies can be heavily regulated to prevent that).
Despite a large number of more specific, direct rebuttals that my opponent has come to drop on this point (mostly because ), he persists in claiming smoking is analogous to other drugs in this regard. I therefore bought up the fact that alcohol prohibition has universally produced exactly the result that I predicted. Other drugs have too, but to a lesser extent. What sets a drug like cocaine apart from a drug like nicotine is, as I explained earlier, that the extent to which they impair judgement is quite different (I also explained why alcohol is an exception to this rule which cigarettes also are covered by, so even if this were not the case my benefits stand). My opponent never responded to my analysis that other, illegal drugs have substantially more harms.
The most important thing you should take away from this debate, however, is that smoking helps destroy stupid people.
In the last round pro posits the ridiculous case that not all smokers are stupid, with no reason or explanation for his assertion. By contrast, in round one, I showed that the very act of choosing to smoke as a free decision is a poor choice because it incurs personal harms and no personal benefits, with neutral externalities at best and terrible ones at worst. It's logical as opposed to biased, relevant as opposed to inappropriate and fair as opposed to tautological. See, I can use assertions too.
As for the claim that one stupid decision is not enough to warrant a death penalty, I find that ironic given that my opponent's entire case has been likening smoking to high crimes like genocide. Insofar as such crimes deserve serious treatment, so too should smokers be extinguished from the planet before, as my opponent said, the world comes to a catastrophic collapse. If my opponent is right about his entire case, smoking is at worst a problem that fixes itself. Smoking should be treated no different from other terribly bad decisions because it's indicative of an impaired thinking/rationalization process.
The other rebuttal pro kept up is that the effects of smoking are also interpersonal. He demonstrated this with two mechanisms - intergenerational harm and secondhand smoke. The intergenerational point I showed to be too minor to even be considered a public health issue, as those affected do not have their immunities compromised in any really significant way, unlike most immune deficiencies. The secondhand point I dealt with in my counter model. I demonstrated how such a law would be consistent with conventional legal approaches to dealing with other interpersonal crimes such as homicide, and how segregation doesn't necessarily mean smoking lounges. It might be something as simple as a room in one's home designated for smoking family members, or the provision that in a given household family members only smoke outside, away from neighbors. The basic premise is that everybody has a basic right to be smokefree, but that's no reason to criminalize the activity totally, much like everyone has a right not to take risks like going skydiving, but that's no reason to criminalize skydiving.
Then my opponent pulled out 7 links, most of which aren't even relevant to the exact issues we've been discussing.
What it all comes down to is whether the harms of smoking outweigh the harms of banning smoking.
As you can tell, I'm no smoking advocate. I do believe, however, in minimizing harms, and therefore believe segregation to be the best compromise. For smokers, they get to smoke. For people like me, we don't have to touch the stuff, and we have all the benefits of less crime, less gangs, lower healthcare costs, less stupid people and so forth. It's a win-win if I ever saw one. Under my opponent's model, all that is undermined.
Ultimately, that's what matters at the end of this debate.
The resolution is negated.
Return To Top | Posted:
2014-01-15 14:38:04
| Speak Round
Judge: nzlockie
I'll allow it.Posted 2014-01-14 01:23:03
Slight obvious factual misstatement I made here: (death rate being only ~0.8 per 100,000 population) should be (death rate being only ~0.8% per 100,000 population). Can't believe I missed the percent sign there.Posted 2014-01-12 10:07:44