This is one debate I like because it deals with something I actually know about. =) First, let me thank the school system for giving us three drug talks a year since Grade 1. If they wouldn't have told me all that stuff, who would've told me? Certainly not the tobacco companies. (although the drug talks are really annoying now, nothing new is ever said >_<)
People say "they're free to do with their body as they wish". The problem with that is that the argument goes both ways. If they can choose to waste so much money and kill themselves, fine, but us non-smokers should be able to choose
not to kill ourselves, and as long as people are smoking, they are killing
everyone and everything. All that stuff coming out of cigarettes (and cigars) is spreading out into the air. Eventually those chemicals are going to reach other countries. Imagine that cigarette your smoking, killing a tree in Africa? Exactly, there is no such thing as "they're only harming themselves", the only fair point here is that they are only wasting their own money, thankfully.
Why should people have the right to kill us all? Isn't that the point of laws against pollution in the first place, to make our planet livable? We make laws about treating water to keep it safe for using, yet we legalize other things that completely destroy our Earth and harm everyone, like gasoline and cigarettes! If we're going to attempt to save the planet with our insightful laws, why go halfway?
I'm sure if I said this in real life, I'd get the usual "it's their choice" screamed at me, but really, let's think... the rights of a few million people, versus the rights of the ENTIRE WORLD AND ALL IT'S PLANTS AND ANIMALS. Who's more important, do you think?
Then why doesnt it happen? No smokers in crowd here I guess....
It doesn't happen because more then half the world smokes so to get them all to stop smoking outside is impossible practicly. Plus the goverment makes money from it and everyone knows how cheep they are. (Like an old saying, "We could kill off millions of people and not care as long as we make the buck")
"Half the world"? Prove it. I'd like to see how all the poor countries (which make up a significant amount of the world) can afford cigarettes.