Reasons Why Cigarette Smoking Should Be Banned

In the recent years, there have been heated debates globally, as whether cigarette consumption should be made illegal or not. These contentions have been fueled by other related debates such as legalization of marijuana. Many governments have encountered dilemmas on whether to ban cigarettes smoking, ban its production or to ban its sales. For instance, the Republic of Bhutan attempted to outlaw tobacco, but they were forced to make a outlaw its growing, production and sale to ensure the ban was effective.

However, the ban was not 100% successful as the possession of tobacco and its actual use became difficult to outlaw. In other words, it is difficult to outlaw tobacco as it is substance, which is consumed worldwide, and banning it will mean a cut of a major government's source of revenue. The opponents of this debate have suggest mechanism such overtaxing, stigmatizing it and cigarette awareness education to banning the substance. Thus, from these facts, the idea seems impractical, and cigarette should not be outlawed.

According statistics, Cigarette smoking is the leading cause of death compared to other controlled substance put together (Rettner, 2013). In details, cigarette is believed to contain carcinogenic substances, which can cause cancer. In this respect, habit of cigarette smoking is attributed to lung cancer, throat cancer and the cancer of the stomach, yet, the product is legal in many nations. In a health context, drastic measures ought to be adopted to force the society into eliminating this habit from their lives. These measures includes, banning, regulating its consumption as well as education campaigns against cigarette smoking. Although some of these measures appear idealistic, but banning cigarette would be extremely difficult in today's society (Rettner, 2013).

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According to a report filed by the Centre of Disease Control (CDC), approximately 46.6 million Americans smoke Cigarette as of 2013 (Hirbyand, 2015). Extrapolating this number across the world, it is nearly 20 percent of the world population smoke cigarettes (Hirbyand, 2015). With this number, imposing the cigarettes ban becomes infeasible since it is an addictive habit. As much as many would like to see cigarette banned due to its health consequences, the case is complicated since it will cost a highly to enforce such law.

Another obstacle that renders the idea of outlawing cigarette impracticable is its effect to the economy. Cigarettes have a massive contribution to many nations as it benefits many stakeholders, ranging from tobacco farmers, tobacco companies as well as the government.

Banning cigarette would mean stopping the growing of tobacco plantation, thereby cutting off source of income to thousands of tobacco farmers. In addition, all the workers in the tobacco industry will face a possibility of losing their jobs. For instance, as of 2013, approximately, 13, 750 people depend in the tobacco industry both directly and indirectly accumulating an annual wage of $ 58, 330 in the US, thus, cutting tobacco processing will render threse people jobless (Rettner, 2013).

The tobacco companies also are likely to suffer loses as well as a reduction in revenue as there will be no more exportation of tobacco around the world. For example, the US tobacco industry exports approximately 1.2 billion worth of tobacco yearly (Hirbyand, 2015). Generally, no nation is ready is ready to stop earning revenue from the taxation charged on cigarette and other tobacco products. Although the decision to ban cigarette is taken with seriousness, not all nation are likely to comply with the policy. These implies the some nations that will resist to comply with this policy willy incline to reap much the benefits in term of market sales due to less competition (Hirbyand, 2015).

Proponents of the debate argue that, banning cigarettes is aimed at perpetuating morality and paternalism. According to modern history, this could trigger dreadful consequences such as drug wars in the society. Making cigarettes illegal will also prompt rampant black market economy and this will affect the economy leading to the complete disappearance of the industry. This is evidenced by the aftermath that arisen from illegalization of substances such as marijuana and meth (Rettner, 2013).

Concisely, banning cigarettes poses more harm the good to the society. The most affected segment is the economy. There will be no more exportation and importation of tobacco products around the world hence cutting the income to tobacco farmer as well. In addition, there is danger of extensive cigarettes black marketing, which is likely to affect the Balance of Payment (BOP) and GDP of the nation dealing with Cigarettes production. Thus, it will be wise to only mitigate its consumption through civil education and economic policies such as over-taxation of cigarette products to make their prices expensive.

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