Pros and Cons - Debbie Newman, Ben Woolgar 2014
Smoking, banning of
Section E. Social, moral and religious
This is fundamentally another debate about whether the government should intervene to protect individuals from themselves. Many Western governments have now passed legislation to discourage smoking, including banning tobacco advertising, banning smoking in public places, raising the minimum age for smoking, significantly raising taxes on tobacco and covering cigarette packets in graphic health warnings. Are these measures enough or do they go too far? Or do we still need to stop all smoking in private as well?
Pros
[1] Smoking tobacco is proven to cause emphysema, chronic bronchitis, heart disease and cancer of the mouth, throat, oesophagus and lungs. Half of the teenagers currently smoking will die from disease caused by tobacco if they continue to smoke, 25 per cent before they are 70. The nicotine in tobacco makes it extremely addictive. It is the responsibility of the state to protect citizens from themselves, which is why bare-knuckle boxing and heroin are banned.
[2] In recent years, more and more evidence has emerged of the effects of cigarette smoke on non-smokers — ’passive smoking’. Like drink-driving, it greatly increases the risk of serious harm to oneself and to others. Growing up in a smoking household can seriously affect your health. Banning smoking in public places helps those who work in the service industries, but what about the children and spouses of smokers who are confined in cars and houses breathing in secondhand smoke all day? They must be protected.
[3] At present, millions of law-abiding citizens smoke, but 70 per cent of them say they want to give up. The banning of tobacco would be a severe but effective way of ensuring that these people did stop smoking. These people are not the sort to get involved in underground drugs activities and so would simply stop smoking. Banning smoking is a form of ’tough love’.
[4] Unlike some other drugs, tobacco has no positive effects. Alcohol can make people relaxed and sociable and uninhibited in a positive way. Cigarettes give the illusion of relieving tension simply because of the relief of nicotine withdrawal; in fact, smokers are the most tense, fidgety and anxious of all. Tobacco is particularly expensive and used more by the poor than the rich. It is not hard to use all of your government benefits on smoking. The present measure of everincreasing taxes on cigarettes does not make people stop smoking, but just makes them poorer, more unhappy and more dependent on the drug.
[5] The economic cost of smoking to a country’s health service comes to hundreds of millions of pounds each year. Millions of working hours are lost annually to industry and commerce as a result of smoking- related illness. Those who smoke 20 cigarettes a day or more have twice as much time off work due to illness as do non- smokers. This is an unacceptable economic cost for something with no benefits.
Cons
[1] Tobacco does indeed increase the risk of contracting certain diseases, but the banning of smoking would be an unacceptable encroachment on individual freedom. We allow adults to choose how much fat to eat, how much exercise to take, or how much alcohol to drink. All these decisions have far-reaching health implications, but we do not ban cream cakes, laziness or beer. Individuals must be left to decide for themselves if they want to take the risk of smoking, rather than being dictated to by a ’nanny state’.
[2] Passive smoking has been a problem in the past, but this can be effectively addressed by the banning of smoking in public places. We should also be aware that the massive air pollution caused by motor vehicles poses a significantly greater threat to everyone’s health than do the relatively insignificant ’emissions’ of cigarettes.
[3] We must allow people to make their own decisions unless certain and immediate dangers are involved (as with heroin, say, but not tobacco). People can become addicted to coffee, jogging, shopping and many other things. It is up to them to kick the habit if they want to and are able to. Banning tobacco would immediately create a culture of millions of addicted criminals, forming a black market as did Prohibition in 1920s America.
[4] Smoking is relaxing. Even if the effect is the result of nicotine withdrawal or is mainly psychological, it does not alter the fact that for many people, smoking is a genuine pleasure on which they choose to spend their money. It is true that to increase tobacco duty imposes a tax on the poor, which is why the duty should be reduced rather than increased — but that is not an argument for banning smoking. Banning smoking in some parts of public meeting places and forms of public transport is as far as the anti-smoking movement should reasonably go.
[5] In the UK, revenue from duty and VAT on cigarettes exceeds the cost to the National Health Service by more than 10 to 1. Working hours are lost through many different sorts of self-indulgence.
Possible motions
This House would ban smoking.
This House believes tobacco is a hard drug.
Related topics
Protective legislation v. individual freedom
Drugs, legalisation of
Alcohol, prohibition of