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Smoking in Public Places Should Be Banned

JoAnn Thomas-Lewis

English 201, University of the Virgin Islands

Smoking in Public Places Should Be Banned

Smoking has not always been popular. According to helpwithsmoking.com, smoking became popular in the in the mid-1800s. Soldiers would smoke during both world wars and bring home this bad habit, therefore introducing smoking to others.

Opposing Viewpoints

Even though there is much evidence and much support to ban smoking in public places, there is also much support for smoking in public places. Some argue that smokers pay for their habit, so they should have a right to smoke when they want to. According to Bast (2009) smokers on average pay twice as much on purchasing cigarettes than they do on paying state income taxes and they know the health risk that they are undertaking. Some would maintain that this is valuable revenue, not only for cigarette and tobacco companies, but also for government. Others would debate that given the country’s economic crisis; any form of revenue would be helpful in turning the country’s economy around. Many might ask why some people are trying to diminish this form of revenue. A better question is at what cost is the government willing to make money? Is the U.S. government willing to make money at the expense of the well-being of the general public?

Another argument is that smokers are people too, and they as people have rights. Bast (2009) claims about 21 percent of the nation smokes and infringing on the rights of such a large percent of the nation would go against the principles on which the U.S.A. was founded on. What exactly are those principles? Isn’t the rule of thumb for many law-making procedures and voting on a whole based on the majority? “Majority rules” has been a term thrown around in various groups and forums. Because 21 percent of the population decides to smoke, should the other 79 percent be overlooked? For a bill to be passed or even for a president to be...