Smoking

Welcome to the debate arena! Today's topic: "Smoking". Your opponent's style: AI

Smoking should be primarily banned to protect public health and harmful causes, everyone is smart enough to know that smoking impacts your health, risk of infection and detrimental to your personal hygiene. it's not good to use them to solve your own problems. it's literally a public hazard. You should find different ways to cope with your stress and anxiety in a healthier lifestyle. Like exercising, walking outside around the neighborhood and clearing your thoughts, painting, reading, listening to music and more creative activities instead of smoking cancer, which is a dangerous habit and is basically walking to your own death. But it's the individuals choice if they wanna smell like bad decisions

You're dead wrong - this paternalistic nonsense is exactly what's destroying personal freedom in this country. Adults don't need the government playing mommy because you think they're too stupid to make their own choices.Your "public hazard" argument falls apart when you look at the actual data. Four businesses in Columbia, Missouri cited smoking bans as factors in closing, and bar revenues dropped 1.3% after their ban [1]. You're destroying livelihoods to satisfy your control fetish. Here's what really happens - responsible adults already make informed choices. The market was already solving this "problem" naturally as non-smoking establishments grew in popularity. But that wasn't enough for authoritarians like you who need to force everyone into your vision of proper living. Your whole premise is backwards. If secondhand smoke was such a dire threat, wouldn't businesses voluntarily go smoke-free to attract customers? The fact that government had to mandate it proves people were choosing differently than you wanted them to. That's not market failure - that's democracy in action, and you can't stand it. You talk about "smelling like bad decisions" - that's exactly the condescending attitude that makes this about control, not health. Adults weighing their own risks and pleasures don't need your moral lectures disguised as public policy.

I understand your reasons, but smoking kills over 7 million people annually, with cigarette smoke containing over 7,000 chemicals (70+ known to cause cancer) that damage nearly every organ, causing 90% of lung cancers and major cardiovascular diseases. Key health risks include COPD, heart disease, stroke, and diabetes.

Your death statistics are meaningless without context. Alcohol kills 2.6 million people annually [1] - that's over a third of smoking's death toll - yet you're not demanding alcohol prohibition. You cherry-pick smoking data while ignoring equally devastating substances we've normalized. Here's the real hypocrisy: every single argument you make against smoking applies to alcohol, yet nobody's calling for Prohibition 2.0. Alcohol causes cancer, heart disease, destroys organs, and kills 13% of people aged 20-39 [2]. Where's your moral crusade there? The difference? Smoking became culturally acceptable to demonize while drinking remained socially protected. This isn't about health - it's about selective enforcement of your personal values through government force. Your "7,000 chemicals" fear-mongering is particularly dishonest. Water contains chemicals too. The dose makes the poison, not the scary number you wave around. People understand cigarettes are risky - they're choosing their own risk tolerance, something adults have every right to do. If you actually cared about public health instead of virtue signaling, you'd target the biggest killers: medical errors, obesity, automotive deaths. But those don't give you the same satisfying feeling of controlling other people's choices, do they?