Smoking tobacco kills more than alcohol, drug abuse, car crashes, murders, suicides, and fires combined. World-wide some 3 million people die from smoking each year, 1 every 10 seconds. Smokers are more than 20 times more likely to develop lung cancer than non-smokers, and smoking can lead to a host of other health problems, including emphysema and heart disease.

One of the main responsibilities of any government is to ensure the safety of its population, that is why taking hard drugs and breaking the speed limit are also illegal. It would therefore be reasonable to ban smoking - an activity which kills millions of people each year.

Smoking tobacco not only gives the smoker a high chance of an early grave it gives those around him/her the same chances due to second hand smoke. What does all of this lead to? An irresponsible government that lets Americans continue to poison ourselves and do nothing about it.

Wow I love ignorant morons here is a little something from just about everyone who is the law with health and cancer.

Does exposure to secondhand smoke cause cancer?

Yes. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the U.S. National Toxicology Program (NTP), the U.S. Surgeon General, and the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) have classified secondhand smoke as a known human carcinogen (cancer-causing agent) .

Inhaling secondhand smoke causes lung cancer in nonsmoking adults (4). Approximately 3,000 lung cancer deaths occur each year among adult nonsmokers in the United States as a result of exposure to secondhand smoke (2). The Surgeon General estimates that living with a smoker increases a nonsmoker’s chances of developing lung cancer by 20 to 30 percent (4).

Some research suggests that secondhand smoke may increase the risk of breast cancer, nasal sinus cavity cancer, and nasopharyngeal cancer in adults, and leukemia, lymphoma, and brain tumors in children (4). Additional research is needed to learn whether a link exists between secondhand smoke exposure and these cancers.

That is from http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Tobacco/ETS, yeah CANCER.GOV

So um OWNED and get the hell out of here. That was worth the first down vote since the new update came out.

why do people need tobacco its killing them....thats so stupid

perhaps thay should just ban nicotine! that is the main physically addicting substance in cigarettes. then it would be like smoking pure tobacco. less people would then use it because its only purpose would be to make you stink and poison you. does anyone have a problem with this solution?

The only cure for the cigarette smell is to smoke for about 3 years, then you won't be able to smell it anymore.

Buy them online from overseas, you won't have to pay our exorbitant taxes.

My point of the debate was should tobacco be banned. My reasoning? When people smoke tobacco the chemical nicotine physically addicts them to the drug, therefore in most cases making them addicted. Then after smoking for a good couple years most people start to lose their physical abilities by a slight margin. Then after smoking for lets say 25 years and now they are in their 40s. Many people will come down with lung cancer, emphysema, etc etc. My reasoning is that the government bans the smoking of pot, cocaine, meth, etc etc. Is it not the governments responsibility to not allow people to do drugs ( or anything else ) that subject other people to injury?

My main point is second hand smoke. That is my main reasoning for why smoking tobacco should be banned. People that are being subjected to second hand smoke are doing so against their own will. That is wrong in many counts. I never listed the amount of people that do not die from smoking I only listed the amount of people that DO smoke and die because of health complications do to smoking tobacco.

I addressed my debate topic. The reason it should be banned is it physically addicts people to the substance. Kills more than alcohol, drug abuse, car crashes, murders, suicides and fires combined. It kills people that are merely subjected to the smoke. Now tell me how I missed my own debate topic. What the hell do abortions have to do with anything? We are talking about tobacco. Do not count abortions as murder as the fetus feels nothing up to a certain point in the pregnancy. That is a different debate all in itself.

Going by your once in awhile outlook on smoking a pipe or a cigar. What about smoking some crack every once in awhile? If I shoot up some crack once a week I am probably not going to die now am I? Does the government ban crack? They sure do. Does crack kill nearly as many as tobacco? Hell no.

I mostly agree with you, except I don't think the government is responsible for saving individuals from themselves. I think the reason we should ban tobacco is that smokers cause harm to other people by using up our health care resources.

everything is killing us slowly. even oxgen kills us slowly. i think it should be banned because it has such a high mortality rate. not to mention my parents smoke and i dont want them dying anytime soon. plus it smells horribly! it sinks into my clothes and it won't come out! does anybody have a cure for that by the way? i was thinking something with baking soda but i dont know.

True but crack and marijuana are already banned. Tobacco kills millions MORE per year than drug overdoses per year. Prohibition of alcohol didn't work back when we had wagons, who expected it to? I'd say it works with cocaine since there is a very slim number of crack heads on this planet.

I fully agree.The second hand thing was great. so yeah.....................

heres an idea don't give in to peer pressure..... peer pressure is another reason it should be banned.

I definitely agree, 2nd hand smoke is a horrible way to die it should be considered as murder. Here's a joke!

So a man gets diagnosed with lung cancer by his doctor, the man asks if this was of natural occurrences or if he was near radiation ( jokingly of course ), the doctor looks at him and says you can't fool me this report says you smoke cigarettes! The man utterly confused says no my wife does!

Wasn't that hilarious! The man DIES A COUPLE YEARS LATER!!!! Punch line? Who needs 1 when you have GOLD LIKE THAT!!!

Not true, are you forgetting about wars? We don't use sticks now do we. We use guns. Tobacco has not killed nearly as many people as guns have all in all. Murder and gun incidents are at just a couple thousand a year in the USA while tobacco is nearly to a million just in the US.

...

What smokers get hooked on is a chemical that MAKES your body PHYSICALLY ADDICTED to the substance the chemical is called nicotine. You must realize that people do many things illegally and on a very large scale. But if it was legal? A gargantuan scale.

If tobacco is made illegal the number of smokers will dwindle that I guarantee. The food industry? Last time I checked McDonald's wasn't selling carcinogenic McNuggets. Or were they selling food that had a physically addictive substance in it? Oh wait no probably not.

You as a person just don't get it. Nothing is going to replace cigarettes, if cigs are banned nobody is going to call anything legal that they come out with ' the new cigarettes'. Tobacco has been used since the Indians were around! And it has not gone out of fashion yet!

Food is nothing like tobacco! If people are shoving their face in with food are they going to kill their family? Maybe their son or daughter due to second hand eating? No they are not.

You are radiating incognizance to the point of where I find it unbearable!

Tobacco doesn't compare to other drugs in terms of buzz. Alcohol makes people feel good and more outgoing. Cigarettes don't do much besides getting you addicted and making you look like an idiot.

Good point about tax dollars though. The War on Drugs has shown us the futility of trying to enforce a ban. But there are better ways to curb tobacco use, like taxing the hell of it, for example.

Should cigarettes be illegal? Yes, cigarettes should be illegal. They would be illegal except for the fact that the government, state and federal, makes so much money off taxing them. Any other substance, plant, etc., that causes as much physical harm as tobacco does not, and will not, get FDA approval. Imagine, if you will, if tobacco products were just discovered today and the growers wanted to get approval to market it. There is no way that would happen. Tobacco has no redeeming qualities, at least none that I am aware of. So I say that cigarettes should be illegal.

Cigarettes should be illegal because they the effects of smoking are dangerous. They take 443,000 lives of people every year in United States, alone. Then over the whole world, there are over millions of deaths in a year. Many states and restaurants have already started to try to control the issue. Some states have a law that says people can only smoke outdoors and many restaurants have special seating areas for smokers. While this does help it doesn't eliminate the problem completely. Also smoking also leads to alcohol use. It leads to it because both are intoxicants which are harmful to life and your body. Then alcohol use leads to many accidents and deaths.

Also, cigarettes should be illegal because there are many theories and speculation about using cigarettes. The industry of tobacco is not doing well, because there are many other companies that worked hard to beat this company. For example, there is a company that many electronic cigarettes. You blow in the cigarette and then smoke comes out. There is also another one that is a candy cigarette. It has a shape of it but instead of smoke, sugar that you can eat comes out. Also, there is a new injection that is still being tested in labs that clean out your lungs. My source here is healthcare magazines. Also, there are many foreign countries problems along with the cigarettes. For example, the country who import the cigarettes to us, may add a certain deadly chemical that is very harmful to the body.

Cigarettes should be illegal because they are a grave public hazard. There are many health care risks with smoking. Cigarettes contain more than 4000 chemical compounds and at least 400 toxic substances. When you inhale, a cigarette burns at 700°C at the tip and around 60°C in the core. This heat breaks down the tobacco to produce various toxins. As a cigarette burns, the residues are concentrated towards the butt. The products that are most damaging are: tar, a carcinogen (substance that causes cancer) nicotine is addictive and increases cholesterol levels in your body carbon monoxide reduces oxygen in the body components of the gas and particulate phases cause chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder (COPD). The damage caused by smoking is influenced by: the number of cigarettes smoked, whether the cigarette has a filter how the tobacco has been prepared. Smoking is also a delivery system for toxic chemicals and carcinogens. The nicotine in cigarettes is HIGHLY ADDICTIVE, and mostly can’t be unavoidable.

Yes, you can challenge his statiostics, but whether they are totally correct is not the point. The fact of the matter is, smoking undeniably kills millions each year. That is the statistic that should unanimously decide whether smoking or any form of tobacco should be legal. DEFINATELY NOT!!!

VERY TRUE SMOKING IS DEADLY WHY WOULD YOU WANT TO KILL ALL OR THOSE THINGS....YOUR WALET AND YOUR LIFE IS THE WORST...POLLUTING THE AIR IS BAD TOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Smoking kills people and it kills people who are inocent too. Second hand smoke is more dangerous than the actual cigarette in most cases. SMOKING KILLS!!!!!!!! IT KILLS THE PLANET, OTHERS, YOUR BODY, YOU, YOUR WALET, ETC!!!!!!THIS IS A MAJOR THING...IT SHOULD BE BANNED....WE CAN HELP THOSE WHO DON'T LIKE THE BAN BUT IT WILL COST LESS THAN TO HAVE TO HAVE FUNERALS AND MEDICAL BILLS FOR THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE EACH YEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Side Effects of Smoking Cigarettes

Every year hundreds of thousands of people around the world die from diseases caused by smoking - Smoking KILLS.

One in two lifetime smokers will die from their habit. Half of these deaths will occur in middle age.

Tobacco smoke also contributes to a number of cancers.

The mixture of nicotine and carbon monoxide in each cigarette you smoke temporarily increases your heart rate and blood pressure, straining your heart and blood vessels.

This can cause heart attacks and stroke. It slows your blood flow, cutting off oxygen to your feet and hands. Some smokers end up having their limbs amputated.

Tar coats your lungs like soot in a chimney and causes cancer. A 20-a-day smoker breathes in up to a full cup (210 g) of tar in a year.

Changing to low-tar cigarettes does not help because smokers usually take deeper puffs and hold the smoke in for longer, dragging the tar deeper into their lungs.

Carbon monoxide robs your muscles, brain and body tissue of oxygen, making your whole body and especially your heart work harder. Over time, your airways swell up and let less air into your lungs.

Smoking causes disease and is a slow way to die. The strain of smoking effects on the body often causes years of suffering. Emphysema is an illness that slowly rots your lungs. People with emphysema often get bronchitis again and again, and suffer lung and heart failure.

Lung cancer from smoking is caused by the tar in tobacco smoke. Men who smoke are ten times more likely to die from lung cancer than non-smokers.

Heart disease and strokes are also more common among smokers than non-smokers.

Smoking causes fat deposits to narrow and block blood vessels which leads to heart attack.

Smoking causes around one in five deaths from heart disease.

In younger people, three out of four deaths from heart disease are due to smoking.

Cigarette smoking during pregnancy increases the risk of low birth weight, prematurity, spontaneous abortion, and perinatal mortality in humans, which has been referred to as the fetal tobacco syndrome

If we get rid of smoking, it will be easier to breathe, we'll stop some polluting, hospital beds will be freed up because there are no longer people getting sick from the drug and everyone will save money...in a year enough to pay for a ski-doo or a used car!!!!!!!!! SAY NO TO DRUGS!!!!!!!

should be BANNED!!!! yeaaa

it hurts our earth and your lungs

Of course it should it kills millions of people a year! But that will never happen. If the Government tries to ban tobacco people will rebel and smoke anyways, just like when they tried to ban alcohol.

Myth One is right, but the others....

Myth 2: Tobacco is poison to the body and therefore is morally wrong.

Counter Argument

(1) Smoking stimulates open-mindedness as it allows conservatives to interact with risk takers and to explore alternative philosophies to life.

(2) Smoking can be a catalyst in aiding people to be more focused on socially positive attitudes by taking a stance advocating quality of life vs economical productivity

Myth 3: Smoking is bad for your health:Yeah, it is.

(1) It prevents mental illnesses by providing an outlet for stress:True, but it harms your body, called video games or trolling.

(2) It protects you from worser addictions such as:

- sexual addiction leading to rape:How?

- heroin addiction leading to broken homes:How?

I don't have much to support me, but I really disagree with any type of alcohol, drug, or otherwise smoking use. So I think it would be great to have it banned, though the crime rate would go up, and those who are already addicted to it right NOW (is tobacco addictive...?) would have difficulty with this new law.

Crack and cocaine are not available in your average drug store. Whether or not it is illegal it is hard to obtain.

Tobacco is as easy as it gets to obtain, why? It is legal. If the only way to get tobacco was on the streets I guarantee you a lot less people would be smoking tobacco.

Drug related crimes would take a nose dive sure. Children doing drugs would have the opposite effect. Now they can have their brothers, sisters, and older friends go into Walgreens and buy them a nickel bag? Doesn't sound ideal at all to me.

Cant innocent people just not live in the hood? Is it the shooters fault that they were in their part of the ghetto? According to your logic they should of just avoided the bad area. What about a child living at a home where smoke is constantly in the air ( smoke lingers even when there doesn't appear to be any making 2nd hand smoke still a factor ). Considering how many people DIE a year due to second hand smoke I think it should be closely looked at.

"it eliminates ability to control your emotions."

No, it diminishes your ability. Important difference. Even when I've gotten completely shitfaced, I have never violated any of my core values, and I've had opportunities to do so. I have done things I probably wouldn't have done sober, but that's half the point of getting drunk.

"and, like i said, second hand smoke has not been proven as a true killer."

Actually, that's the opposite of what you said.

"it doesn't drown away emotions, just makes you sadder."

This sure as hell isn't what happens to me. Or anyone I know for that matter. Have you ever been drunk?

When I'm drunk I feel confident, outgoing, and yes happy.

Note that I'm talking like 6 beers here, not completely shitfaced.

And even the few times I've gotten shitfaced I didn't feel sad, I felt basically the same as before, only drunker. You do understand that the word "depressant" doesn't mean "makes you feel sad", right?

I can't tell what you're trying to say in your last paragraph. What do you mean by "second hand smoke has been proven as a TRUE killer"?

Anyway, drinking and driving is indeed a problem -- that's why we have laws against it.

Which is one of the reasons for why it should be banned, not continued.

My main concern is second hand smoke. What do you call killing someone without their consent? Murder. That is not legal so why should tobacco if 2nd hand smoke kills hundreds of thousands a year?

Well I think tobacco should be banned from public stores & that all the tobacco crops should be replaced with food crops.

It shouldn't be illegal for anyone to use because that would create alot of problems.

It's stupid that liberals want to ban guns because people have been killed by them but they support smoking which has killed alot more people than guns.

It wont change anything? Seriously? It would change the fate of more than 3 million people on this planet a year. If there was no tobacco my grandma would still be alive.

Of course my grandmother and about 2.6 million of those smokers are smokers by choice the other 400k+ are second hand smoke inhalers. People that are subjected against their will to breathe all of the chemicals that are inside of that little paper wrapped carcinogenic treat. It would change the lives of a plethora of people.

Another vice? Like what? There is no other vice like that of tobacco, it is the vice of the world.