This is the first debate in the first round of the SPP debating competition. The winner will progress to the second round.

Please do not post in this thread unless you are one of the competitors. If you have something to say on the issue then start a new thread with the same topic.

The motion: This House Would Ban The Smoking Of All Tobacco Products

Proposition: Wtf

Opposition: Schwa

Judges: Bonk, Ash and Zed

You know the rules. If you've forgotten they're here:

http://www.stickpageportal.com/forums/showthread.php?t=100697

This debate will conclude on the fourth of April after which point judging will begin.

You have one week to argue to your heart's content, starting ... now.

Smoking.
Referred as the act of inhaling smoke from a cigarette. Let me start this thread by saying that I do not completely disapprove the act of smoking, but I was selected to oppose so.
No matter.

"Tobacco smoking is the practice where the substance, tobacco, is burned (pyrolyzed) and the vapours either tasted or inhaled"

"Smoking is a practice where a substance, most commonly tobacco, is burned and the smoke tasted or inhaled. This is primarily done as a form of recreational drug use, as combustion releases the active substances in drugs such as nicotine and makes them available for absorption through the lungs. It can also be done as a part of rituals, to induce trances and spiritual enlightenment. The most common method of smoking today is through cigarettes, primarily industrially manufactured but also hand-rolled from loose tobacco and rolling paper. Other substances, though not as common, are pipes, cigars, hookahs and bongs."

This is what people commonly think when the smoking subject is launched in the air.
This house will now start by saying the risks that follows an active smoker.

• Cardiovascular disease
  
• Coronary thrombosis
  
• Cerebral thrombosis
  
• High blood pressure
  
• Kidney failure
  
• Blockage to the vascular supply to the legs may lead to gangrene and amputation.
  

People are not aware of those risks. Even tough companies keep warning them.
In Europe all smoking products must have labelled in big letters what are the maleficences of smoking and the benefits of leaving it:


Like this

An European law have been recently released, which in it it orders that a closed space, with small dimensions, people must not smoke under a fine of 100€ to 1500€, depending of the size of the infraction.

Even tough some measures are being taken care of, this house disagrees that smoking should be legal in any way.

It's a drug and should, like that, be taken care as any other drug.

(All I saw was a position and not much of an argument :/ )

There are many things that people can do that will cause cardiovascular disease, cancer, kidney failure and many other of the effects of smoking.

You can get skin cancer by going outside in the sun.

You can get cardiovascular disease and kidney failure from eating excessively.

You can get kidney and liver failure from alcohol.

Base jumping, swimming, driving, and sky diving are all dangerous and many people die from these every day (more people die from driving every day than smoking).

Does this mean that since it is dangerous and harmful that it should be banned and regulated by the government? Should we have an agency to keep people from eating? Should we keep people from driving, drinking alcohol, tanning or seeking thrills?

No. This would be ridiculous. If we allow the government to expand and outlaw cigarrettes that's just one more step towards dictatorship, the government limiting personal choice based on what is good for the person. This would be hell.

Show me statistics that cigarettes are worse for human life than alcohol or driving, otherwise this idea can't be taken seriously. There's a reason we don't have a 'Mothers against Cigarette Smoking'

Also, if smoking were outlawed it would create a black market and new drug for gangs to sell, which would create more gangs, more gang wars more violence lower education standard higher taxes etc.

Which is bad.

Actually there are more smokers dying every year than there is, per example, car accident deaths.

You can't possibly believe that smoking a cigarette is comparable to being outside in the sun. You'd need days, always sun, with strong rays, under the ozone layer, for you to get somekind of skin related disease. And also most skin problems, that ultimately leave to impossibility of sun exposure, come from the destruction of the immunity system, which is also one of the smokers problem.

As for the eating disorder and the alcoholism, that is also one of many problems, I don't think you can fit them in the same category, because all of those conditions, lets say cardiovascular problems, can be gained from one problem, which is obesity, per example.

When by smoking you get them all. (Problems)

It's ridiculous to prevent people to eat. As for the rest, yes.
People should take care and pay more attention to what they do to their bodies, every time you ride a roller-coaster, drink alcohol, many Neurons die and cannot be recovered.

As for statistics:



http://www.idph.state.il.us/public/hb/hbsmoke.htm
"More than 20,000 Illinoisans die each year as a result of cigarette smoking. Nationally, smoking is responsible for one of every five deaths. In fact, cigarette smoking kills more Americans than AIDS, alcohol, car accidents, murders, suicides, drugs and fires combined. "


http://www.tucsonmedical.com/pages/smoking.php

• Also each pack of cigarettes costs the state a usual tax of $2.17.
  
• Each year the United States spends more than $50 billion each year in direct medical expenditures from smoking.
  

And It would be, in my honest opinion, much less expensive to buy it in the black market.
And you say we would have more corruption, gangs and crime. Please show proof. I don't believe that statement, our forces, international or not, have plans for each drug in the black market. When they get their hands on it, they tag it and control them, thus lowering its sellers, because of their buyers fear.

To finish; Are we in a dictatorship? No. Marijuana is banned, esctacy is banned, crack is banned, heroin is banned, and so many other products. Why?
Because they are a danger to the human life. They outlaw them and by then saved a lot of money and health care.

"As for the rest, yes.
People should take care and pay more attention to what they do to their bodies, every time you ride a roller-coaster, drink alcohol, many Neurons die and cannot be recovered."

Who's job is it to take of oneself, is it the government or the person? The government doesn't need to permeate and control every aspect of your life. The government is supposed to protect the people from threats to their life, liberty, and property, not from themselves, that would be ridiculous. People are supposed to be self motivated not motivated and controlled by the government.

On this note I can understand how smoking should be banned as second hand smoke can cause cancer and disease and harms other peoples lives. But what you are suggesting is the outright banning of cigarettes when this is not necessary, and I can concede that banning in public places is acceptable. There is no valid reason why we should ban smoking for recreational uses in private. The government doesn't need to keep people from doing something they enjoy.

"As for the rest yes"

This is ridiculous. So you are suggesting that we should keep people from riding roller coasters, using microwaves, playing videogames, and skydiving because it might be dangerous for them? So the government should keep 'you' from having any fun because it 'might' hurt you?

"Many neurons die and cannot be recovered"

And honestly I can't believe you are griping about losing braincells. What are a few hundred, thousand, or even million lost braincells going to impact a person when you have billions of them? You lose more braincells from concussion from being hit by a soccer ball and breathing in car exhaust fumes. What makes smoking any different?

"And It would be, in my honest opinion, much less expensive to buy it in the black market."

I don't see how this has any relevance. If you can't buy it legally you will buy it on the black market. If you buy it on the black market you pay money to criminals. If you buy it legally you pay taxes that help fund the government and support education and law enforcement.

By banning Tobacco you take away the profit from taxes which takes money away from our war against drugs, while adding another revenue source for drug czars. Speaking of drug czars.

"And you say we would have more corruption, gangs and crime. Please show proof."

According to sources in the Mexican government, President Calderon is begging American officials to, in the words of reggae great Peter Tosh, legalize it. "Oh yeah," said an official close to the Mexican president, "Felipe is going crazy. He's screaming at everybody who comes in, 'Why don't they make this sh*t legal already! You're killing me here!' Look, everyone knows, when you have Prohibition, you create gangsters. And the more you prohibit, the more gangsters you make. El Chapo is hero now to all those slumdogs who want to be millionaires. Kids in the street, when they play games, they all want to be El Chapo, the baddest man in the whole damn town."

Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman Loera reported head of the Sinaloa cartel in Mexico, ranked 701st on Forbes' yearly report of the wealthiest men alive, and worth an estimated $1 billion, today officially thanked United States politicians for making sure that drugs remain illegal.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-henry-sterry/mexican-drug-lord-officia_b_179596.html?view=screen

Ever since President Calderon took office a year and a half ago and began trying to crack down on drug trafficking, everything has gone to hell. It gets worse everyday because using war to attack the drug supply is a terrible policy that destroys everything except the drug supply. What other conclusion could you possibly reach given what’s taking place right before our eyes?

http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle_blog/2008/oct/10/travel_alert_mexico_unsafe_thank

Gangs exist because of the facilitation of illegal drugs for profit, without this there is no profit and they cannot support their operation. The reason Mexico is so bad with its criminal empire is because of the gangs and drug lords that facilitate illegal drugs to countries where they are banned.

If you give the drug lord one more easy to grow, produce, and sell then you give them another profit venture; more profit is more crime. More crime is more violence and more violence means more money spent in the medical industry.

There is also a point raised among people who oppose marijuana that you can't be sure about what you're drying because they could be laced with something more serious. By banning Tobacco you give drug lords another medium to get people addicted to more expensive drugs by lacing the drugs with other more addictive drugs with more permanent and serious symptoms.

By banning tobacco you just add another weapon to the drug lords profit gaining arsenal.



"To finish; Are we in a dictatorship? No. Marijuana is banned, esctacy is banned, crack is banned, heroin is banned, and so many other products. Why?
Because they are a danger to the human life. They outlaw them and by then saved a lot of money and health care."

Tobacco is relatively harmless or at most as harmful as obesity.

Morbidly obese white males between 20 and 30 years old with a body mass index exceeding 45, can shorten their life expectancy by 13 years.

http://www.annecollins.com/weight_health/premature-death-morbid-obesity.htm

Male smokers lost an average of 13.2 years of life

http://medicolegal.tripod.com/pearl1938.htm
Tobacco is a life choice, one of the many choices a person will make over the course of their life. It would be ridiculous to have the government and law enforcement managing every choice and action we make. You should at least see how ridiculous this is.

Tobacco is relatively harmless in indirectly affecting someone else. Alcohol leads to domestic abuse and drunk driving, most of the people killed in car accidents are passengers. With smoking money is put into the economy, into government funded health care and law enforcement and education programs.

Banning Tobacco would be ridiculous, rather than making the problem worse, increasing gang sustainability and destroying a product that stimulates the economy and government maybe we should put money into rehab programs and actual effective drug education.

We may not be in a dictatorship yet, but if you expect and ask the government to control such trivial aspects of our lives you are inviting a dictatorship and absolute rule.

I feel a bit trapped here, you see, I'm not at all against the tobacco companies or the smoking style of life.
The purpose of these debates is to argue with fellow members a point we are given to make.
__

Yes, people cannot stop their lives because of something as fun has roller-coasters, alcohol consuming or even drugs. We must remember that not all drugs are bad, but you can bet that every drug has its side effect.

"On this note I can understand how smoking should be banned as second hand smoke can cause cancer and disease and harms other peoples lives."
This is one of the main problems I would like to argue about. Because drugs, on it's consume, will not harm directly any other party but you.
You can get beaten up, just has in alcohol, by the one who did the drug. Because he's in a dissociate state, he won't be fully conscious of its actions.
But now smoking! Well I already said that here we banned all smoking products on spaces below an adequate ratio of air and space available, but even in that places, like restaurants that separate people according its preference, aren't safe! Just think about it, smoking in a indoors place 10 meters from other person will not automaticly make you innocent, because whether you like it or not, you are harming another person. I find those restaurants and cafés and any other place with the separation politics, to be a complete bullshit. And why do they do that? Well money of course!

And the government. Truth. they can't monitor peoples lifes. But people are fully aware that when they buy an illegal product they are committing an illicit act and if they are caught while doing it or afterwords, they will be punished severely according to the terms of the country's law.

"And honestly I can't believe you are griping about losing braincells. What are a few hundred, thousand, or even million lost braincells going to impact a person when you have billions of them? You lose more braincells from concussion from being hit by a soccer ball and breathing in car exhaust fumes. What makes smoking any different?"

I can't stop thinking if you actually know the importance that those "braincells" have over our lifes and body.
Think about it. If this guy looses mildly a few hundreds of neurons while he's smoking and if, let's say, this individual will smoke its entire life, which is what will probably happen since the statistics for the healthy and complete stop of smoking is less than 20%, just do the math.
300 cells per day, twice a day for your entire life. That billion that won't restore is going to start looking a bit smaller don't you think?
And the exhaust fumes are not as dangerous as the content that a single cigarette contains.
Sure that being hit by soccer ball is somewhat stunning, I don't know if you follow this kind of sport, but in only 1 in 30 games, approximately, you'll be actually be hit hard in the face. 1 to 20 if it's a net guardian.

Quote from BBC NEWS

The Department of Health, which is keen to prevent youngsters from smoking, has cited research that suggests someone who starts smoking at the age of 15 is three times more likely to die of smoking-related cancer than someone who starts in their late 20s.

"I don't see how this has any relevance. If you can't buy it legally you will buy it on the black market. If you buy it on the black market you pay money to criminals. If you buy it legally you pay taxes that help fund the government and support education and law enforcement.

By banning Tobacco you take away the profit from taxes which takes money away from our war against drugs, while adding another revenue source for drug czars. Speaking of drug czars."

So ok.
In your opinion, we should dis-ban every thing that's illegal and dangerous and just hand it over people.
Sure!
"Hey Kid wanna a flamethrower? It would be lovely over your bed!"
"Come here! I'm giving away the best drugs!"
"No! I'm giving away even better drugs!"

I'm kinda joking over the subject there, but really. If making something illegal will have such a comedown, why not just dis-ban everything and destroy the black market completely?

"Gangs exist because of the facilitation of illegal drugs for profit, without this there is no profit and they cannot support their operation. The reason Mexico is so bad with its criminal empire is because of the gangs and drug lords that facilitate illegal drugs to countries where they are banned.

If you give the drug lord one more easy to grow, produce, and sell then you give them another profit venture; more profit is more crime. More crime is more violence and more violence means more money spent in the medical industry.

There is also a point raised among people who oppose marijuana that you can't be sure about what you're drying because they could be laced with something more serious. By banning Tobacco you give drug lords another medium to get people addicted to more expensive drugs by lacing the drugs with other more addictive drugs with more permanent and serious symptoms.

By banning tobacco you just add another weapon to the drug lords profit gaining arsenal."


I actually asked you proof, studies to show that we would have something much worse than what we have right now.

And wait. I just found out that actually there are some brands banned and illegally grown by these guys. Did you know that marijuana was legal until some centuries ago?
Farmers gained their life with it.

Not just marijuana was smoked, several brands, including some that experience flavours, to attract people into the 'business', were manufactured.

"By banning Tobacco you give drug lords another medium to get people addicted to more expensive drugs by lacing the drugs with other more addictive drugs with more permanent and serious symptoms."

And I'm going to make a somewhat strange comment here.
If smoking products are expensive, if people are in a crisis, well not many people would actually have the money to buy illegal products, now would they?
Rich people. Yes. They could afford to pay 100$ for 20 cigars. I don't see poor people being able to just g there and buy it. They would most likely forget about the cigarettes because drugs like crack have much more duration power, much more spread and are much cheaper.
And since 65% of the population on earth, is financially bankrupted or in financial troubles, I would guess that the sending of the cigars to the black market would not make it more wanted, just more forgotten.

"Male smokers lost an average of 13.2 years of life"
Well yeah. And daily passive smoke can shorten your life up to 3 years.

My mother is a smoker, even tough she's always worried about the smoke she produces to come either to me or my brother, I have asthmatic bronchitic ( I don't know if that's the name), basicly I'm more vulnerable than a healty person to the smoke and I might have serious problems of asthma. When I asked my mother why she didn't just sto she answerd me:
"I can't, I'm to old now"
So I go to my friends, which mostly smokes too, I asked them the same question. The answer was:
"We can't quit it yet."

So I ask you. Even tough we both know that the banning of the tobacco company won't lead to a drastic increase to gangs and increase of healthcare or dictatorship.
I ask you, what are the benefits of smoking a cigarette?
Less stress? No, yo smoke it because when you are stressed your brain sends a message to your body, which then activates your need for nicotine.
Does it make you look badass in front of your friends? Yes, but at what cost?
You need it. No. You need the components that come along with it. Saying that you need to smoke is absolute gibberish.

I say, if the tobacco was banned, it would be forgotten in less than 10 years, countries would find another way to fund their researches, since they would save billions over the healthcare and research of what to remove from the cigarette, and in 20 years people wouldn't have any desire to smoke a cigar.

You can admit it, the odds aren't ridiculous.

[Sorry about taking a day to respond, busy and such]

But now smoking! Well I already said that here we banned all smoking products on spaces below an adequate ratio of air and space available, but even in that places, like restaurants that separate people according its preference, aren't safe!

This is true, but why must cigarettes be banned everywhere? I can understand that smoking in any public place (or semi public place like the smoking section of a restaurants) is a danger to other's lives. What I cannot understand is why a person cannot have a private room in their house to smoke, or even private rooms in bars for smokers. Just because something is mildly harmful doesn't mean that the person should be barred from their activity in the privacy of their own home and property. If they can smoke in an area that doesn't affect anyone else they should be allowed to.

It is their choice to do what they do. The government has no right to interfere in the choices of their people. And they only have this right when it affects another's life liberty or property, as in the case of assault, murder, arson and second hand smoke. The liberty to make the choice and enjoy a cigarette is a liberty endowed to people by their government.

The government has the right to inform people of the dangers of a certain product but if it is not harming another human being thye have no right to ban it.

I can't stop thinking if you actually know the importance that those "braincells" have over our lifes and body.

According to your math (600*364*100 [Assuming you lived twice as long as the average person until you were 120 (because most people don't start smoking until their late teens)]) you would lose 21,900,000 braincells over the course of your life.

If you were to smoke the excessive amount of 10 times a day you would lose 109,200,000 braincells.

If you were to smoke the ridiculous 30 times a day you would lose 327,600,000 brain cells.

This may seem like a lot, but when you consider that the human brain contains 100,000,000,000 braincells (source http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/facts.html) these numbers become negligible. Smoking twice a day for a hundred years you lose 2.19 hundreths of 1 percent of your total brain mass. 10 times a day: 1.092 tenths of 1 percent. 30 times a day: 3.276 tenths of 1 percent.

No one can feasibly worry about less than one-tenth of a percent of anything. A stroke can kill as much as 20% of your brain cells and people can recover perfectly find from that.

In light of these facts loss braincells is a null point.

---

Now I'm going to misquote you here and use this in conjunction with your next point of contention, about making drugs illegal.

Quote from BBC

The Department of Health, which is keen to prevent youngsters from smoking, has cited research that suggests someone who starts smoking at the age of 15 is three times more likely to die of smoking-related cancer than someone who starts in their late 20s.

So if someone starts smoking in their early teens they are more likely to die. I would like to argue that if cigarettes were made completely illegal it would entice more teens to try them.

My logic is that teens are naturally inclined to rebel against their parents and their parents ideals (that's why we have a constant cycle of democrats versus republicans and such).

For example, drinking is not a problem among teens in nations where teen drinking is not as heavily prohibited and drinking is part of the culture. In America teens are not allowed to, and are encouraged not to drink. Out of curiosity many teens try alcohol at places like parties, or with a large group of friends, or experimenting on their own. Unsupervised. If they had been allowed by their parents to taste the alcohol and were explained the negative side effects of it they would be less inclined to drink excessively.

I believe it can be said that most teens drink because of the risk of having an illegal substance and consuming it. It has no redeeming values, it taste bad, it slows your reactions, you are not more attractive or charming while shit faced, and you wake up with a terrible hang over. The only redeeming value, if it can be called redeeming, is that you are doing something new, risky and rebellious, which gives you an artificial high. And through all of your exciting drinking at friends at parties you become habitually addicted to drinking excessively.

This same argument can be taken to cigarettes, with anecdotal evidence. Many people try cigarettes to rebel against their parents. If they were told straight what the effects of cigarettes are and why they are bad and why they should not be smoked they would be less inclined to smoke them because it would lose the rebellious high and attraction.

By not only making it illegal to smoke under 18, making it entirely illegal would increase the rebellious attraction and thrill of it, making it more attractive to teenagers. Moreover you cannot say that making it completely illegal to sell and own and smoke would make it impossible for teenagers to get a hold of it. Marijuana is illegal but I, and you, know many of your friends and acquaintances who can and do easily get ahold of it and smoke it regularly. Just because it is illegal does not mean it is unattainable.

Now for the anecdotal evidence. My friend was working with his dad, his dad was mad at him and my friend was getting really stressed and upset with his dad. His dad told him to go away, so to get back at his dad (rebelling against) he took one of his dads cigarettes and smoked it. Now he smokes a couple times a week. All because he rebelled against his parents.

I actually asked you [for] proof, studies to show that we would have something much worse than what we have right now.

How is the fact that Mexico's drug lords make extravagant profit from selling drugs to the United States, where they are banned, not proof enough that banning drugs only increases the problem?

If there is a market need for a product that market need will be filled , and there must be a market need for tobacco products as they have been sold and smoked for at least three hundred years. Drug lords will fill this market need.

In an ideal world people would forget about tobacco (as it is completely useless, unlike marijuana) as soon as it was banned. In the real world foreign countries and drug lords will continue to sell the drugs and they will create profit not for the government, but for the drug lords.

Ask you, what are the benefits of smoking a cigarette?

Again, going back to my friend, he found that after he smoked the cigarette (during that stressful work day) that he was much less stressed. The nicotine in cigarettes calms you by giving you an influx of nicotine.

However it is irrelevant what the positive versus negative effects of smoking a cigarette are. The simple truth of the matter is that banning cigarettes outright is not the best way to solve the problem (which we both agree is a problem) and will not work. The best thing to do would be to keep it legal but use the taxes for it on proper health education and encourage parents to teach their kids early and properly about the dangers of cigarettes. Banning them will not work and will only exacerbate the problem

"This is true, but why must cigarettes be banned everywhere? I can understand that smoking in any public place (or semi public place like the smoking section of a restaurants) is a danger to other's lives. What I cannot understand is why a person cannot have a private room in their house to smoke, or even private rooms in bars for smokers. Just because something is mildly harmful doesn't mean that the person should be barred from their activity in the privacy of their own home and property. If they can smoke in an area that doesn't affect anyone else they should be allowed to."
This is maybe the only point where I might agree.
But an area where you wouldn't remotely hurt anyone but yourself. Well you might as well just do it whit it banned. Smoke off the radar.

And It's logical that people would stop smoking if it was banned, making what you said completely senseless. Why? Because people are not willing to go to remote places to spare other people, that's what we are, we are selfish.
And even tough one or two does it, well the world has billions of people.

"In light of these facts loss braincells is a null point."
Not really. Please do remember that you don't only smoke, but also you drink, you experience adrenaline rushes, you get sick. If only by the smoke you would lose an average of, by your numbers, 21,900,000 brain cells, well add the above, and others. Why risk so many for such little pleasure, I'm sure if people saw those numbers they would reconsider start smoking. I can't say the same for active smokers, since the tobacco companies increase illegally the percentage of nicotine.
They can do it. Yo know why? Because it's one of the most money sucker companies ever created, and the profit doesn't go for research or capital funds, no, it goes for the owners, the increase of products, advertising campaigns and bribes.

"This same argument can be taken to cigarettes, with anecdotal evidence. Many people try cigarettes to rebel against their parents. If they were told straight what the effects of cigarettes are and why they are bad and why they should not be smoked they would be less inclined to smoke them because it would lose the rebellious high and attraction."

Banning cigarettes won't make more young people to try it and therefore to increase the number of smokers. Because what makes today's kids try drugs, is the rush drugs add, smoke won't give them that rush. And a lot of smokers today wouldn't risk jail time over it. So it would decrease.

"By not only making it illegal to smoke under 18, making it entirely illegal would increase the rebellious attraction and thrill of it, making it more attractive to teenagers. Moreover you cannot say that making it completely illegal to sell and own and smoke would make it impossible for teenagers to get a hold of it. Marijuana is illegal but I, and you, know many of your friends and acquaintances who can and do easily get a hold of it and smoke it regularly. Just because it is illegal does not mean it is unattainable."

Making something harder to get would, without a doubt, also decrease the number of buyers. I never said you shouldn't have the initiative to try and go buy it in other forms, I just say that if it's banned you will have more reasons to think twice before committing an act that will most eventually bring you difficulties. Remember, like another drug cigars are addicting, making you want them more and more. You will get caught eventually. Unless you are somekind of pre-prepare genius who won't move without a plan. Which most people are not.

"Now for the anecdotal evidence. My friend was working with his dad, his dad was mad at him and my friend was getting really stressed and upset with his dad. His dad told him to go away, so to get back at his dad (rebelling against) he took one of his dads cigarettes and smoked it. Now he smokes a couple times a week. All because he rebelled against his parents."

Ok he rebelled, now what? If cigars were banned his father wouldn't have smokes with him, and he wouldn't get them. And I don't see your friends going trough a process of crime just to show his parents that he smokes.
+1 addict in the world.

"Drug lords will fill this market need. "

Everyday drugs are banned, not so emblematic drugs like the famous ones, heroin or, well, cigarettes (in its whole). My point being, what if the cigar wasn't approved by the common population, after all there are several institutions that will prevent you and advice you not to smoke, such as rehab centers. I don't see anything other than 'the words on the street' to tell you to smoke. You know why? Because of profit. Even tough the profit that comes from tobacco companies is very little to the government, they feel that the population will need the smokes to keep their jobs. Thus not making such a big noise of it. Popularity is the key of success for every politic
Well people don't need it.
Studies Show Tobacco Use Does Not Alleviate Stress But Actually Increases It - http://www.planetpsych.com/zPsychology_101/substance/smoking_stress.htm

Cigarettes, if banned, will be just another second class, luxury drug that not many will be willing to try or buy. Because its effect is quick and reall not that relaxing as one would think.

This thread has been going excellantly, but the time limit is up. I am going to ask you each to make one more concluding statement before judging begins.

PMs have been sent t both participants. Judging will begin in 48 hours, regardless of concluding posts.

Judging time. I would remind the competitors not to post until it is concluded.

Neither competitor has made a closing statement so it can't count agaist either of them (or rather it counts against them both equally).

I liked Wtf's use of statistics, although I admit that Schwa would probably have been hard pressed to find some that supported him.

Wtf did miss out in some areas such as the damage to the economies growing the tobacco crop.

Schwa did well to relevantly counter all of the points Wtf made.

I'm not going to say who I think did best yet, I would like to hear from the other judges first.

Probably the best debate I've seen on this site in terms of intellectual merit and formality, as should be expected in the competition. While Wtf let himself get a bit sarcastic in post #6, for the most part both debaters carried themselves well and argued levelly.

Wtf - Started off very well, and for the first half of the debate was on top of the topic and had Schwa in the defensive. The pictures and sources were a nice addition to some good opening arguements, but when those started to have holes poked in them I felt that he went downhill and had little new material to add. While the sarcasm wasn't personal and self-noted, it took away from a respectable post. He also missed the massive point to do with health care costs in relation to cigarettes, a point that would conveniently rebut many of Schwa's arguments. Even though Wtf was against the topic, and stated so, he argued well and held up his ground amicably for most of the debate.

Schwa - The opposite of his opponent in terms of momentum, Schwa only got better as the debate progressed. His two final posts were well thought out and had some nice backing in the form of quotes from trustable sources. He made a good job of deflecting the drawbacks of his argument onto the fault of the people and not the drug, but he conceded the second hand smoke point, which Wtf had failed to even mention until that stage! Schwa played his cards right, knew how to manipulate the topic to his needs, and progressively got stronger as the debate progressed.

Because of Wtf's miss of important material and his decline to un-sourced replies, and because of Schwa's steady increase in momentum, I'm giving this debate to the Opposition.

This is a difficult decision, seeing as how both debaters had the high-ground for an equal amount of time. However, seeing as how Schwa ended on top from what I saw, and how WTF was unable to continue to counter Schwa when the debate got hottest, I'll have to go with Schwa.


BTW: Sorry it took so long for me to judge, I haven't been on SPP much in the last month.

Schwa is declared the winner and will go on to the next round. Congratulations to both of you; it was very well done. It seems a real shame to have to eliminate Wtf but sorry.

I'll leave the thread open for now if anyone at all wants to comment (non-competitors included).

I'd have to say this is one of the best debates I've ever read through.

It's such a shame that we had to loose Wtf D:

Bah, good thing Schwa won!
I hate doing research and luckily I was on vacation so I had some time spared for it.
Congrats Schwa, and I loved to debate with you on this.
I'll be quiet as a judge now, please.