If you grow or sell or are addicted to tobacco then you are among the few who in some degree benefit from the substance. Everyone else does not. We are a country about to enter the fast track to nationalized healthcare and tobacco currently kills 1 in 5 Americans. There is no genuine need or purpose for tobacco to remain part of our society. There is a tremendous need to eliminate it.

Banning tobacco on any college campus is a well intended concept but a bad idea with obvious limitations. The piecemeal whittling away of places where tobacco can be sold or used makes the situation more complex and serves to aggravate instead of educate or legislate. The country needs to accept the facts about tobacco and institute the plan to finalize its elimination entirely.

The problem with making tobacco illegal is the size of its economy and shear numbers of extant tobacco addicts. Like any problem it can be solved. It cannot be instantly ended, but it can be scheduled for total elimination in a gradual manner.

Make tobacco a federally controlled substance. Eliminate all advertising and strictly control where it can be sold. Accompany all tobacco sales with warnings about its addictive properties and diseases. Make tobacco withdrawal programs inexpensive and accessible. Then make the age to legally purchase tobacco the same in every state and increase that age by one year, every year.

In one lifetime tobacco could be largely eliminated while the chaos of making instantly illegal is completely avoided.

From a purely economic perspective, the money we collect on tobacco taxes and the money we save in social security payments to smokers dying young more than offsets the healthcare costs.

More importantly, every American understands that tobacco use is unhealthy. Most decide that the risks and costs are not worth the benefits. (I am one of them, and it sounds like you are too.) Many decide to choose differently. The fact that you think you have the right or authority to choose for them is frankly incomprehensible to me. The world would be a much better place without you or your kind.

"Make tobacco a federally controlled substance. Eliminate all advertising and strictly control where it can be sold. Accompany all tobacco sales with warnings about its addictive properties and diseases"

I don't agree with all of your suggestions but the above holds merit and ofcourse some of it has been done already. Tobacco can't be advertised on TV or to children (in theory) and warnings on packaging is mandatory (although more warning about its highly addictive properties would be better).

It has been proven that nicotine is a drug and in cigs it is in the form of a controlled, metered dose. Therefore, they should only be sold in pharmacies, just like antibiotics and any other FDA controlled drug. Thanks to Bush's new HHS 'conscience' regulation that would allow pharmacists to opt out of selling birth control, they could also decide not to sell tobacco products to anyone. Then we'd see how fast that law would be struck off.

This country does not allow people to painlessly end their own lives when they have a terminal disease so allowing them to take their own lives with tobacco is no argument. We also do not fully understand the true amount of lost revenue generation tobacco removes from society due to illness. A tobacco free society could be more productive. We do know that many tobacco diseases become serious and protracted often requiring multiple critical care episodes. We also know that insurers refuse to cover people who use tobacco so why should national healthcare be expected to do so?

Seriously we are faced with 2 practical choices. Eliminate tobacco as a known addictive substance with clear and costly health consequences. Or, allow people to choose to use tobacco under written waivers understanding and accepting the full risks of their choices with the understanding that in the event of a health problem that no care will be rendered on their behalf. They pay for their poor choice personally or they die as fast as their self induced illness can take them.

Our country cannot afford to care for a preventible disease that takes 20% of the population and clogs up the healthcare system. It would be far more efficient and do a much better job if it does not have to deal with tobacco problems.

Hi, I thought it would be nice to have a tobacco user weigh in. While I do smoke, I do not advocate smoking. It is a very addicting habit with serious health risks, risks that are apparent, or should be apparent, to one and all. If one believes that there is not enough info on these risks, then by all means advertise more (funny, whenever I see and anti-smoking commercial I feel a strong urge for a drag). In response to Scoot'r-d comment, "We also do not fully understand the true amount of lost revenue generation tobacco removes from society due to illness." This would be an excellent study to pursue. I would be very interested in those stats, for I definitely do not want to be a burden on anyone. However, after you do that study, perhaps a couple more studies could be pursued. How about a study on the true amount of lost revenue generation obesity removes from society due to illness. Or on the true amount of lost revenue generation achohol removes from society due to illness or injury. Oh, wait, this one would also be swell, a study on the true amount of lost revenue generation firearms remove from society due to excess morgue usage in inner cities.

I simply believe that if your going to ban one vice, why not take the whole shabang. It would be utopia right? No more disgusting cigarette smoke in your face, no more alchoholics stumbling around on the streets vomiting on your shoes, no more digustingly obese people for you to avert your eyes from, no more wanton killing of punks over petty beefs.

It's fairly simple logic, make something illegal and it will disapear and leave society alone. Wait a second. Let me think... haven't we been waging a war on stuff that is illegal? But... why? It's illegal, its supposed to dissapear, to lessen the demand, why are we waging a war? Does this mean simply banning a substance not work? Well surely if it cuts down the amount of users then it saves us money in the health sector right? Wait, we've thrown billions of dollars in a vain attempt to stamp out illegal substances, to little effect? Prohibition was a good start right? Oh no, you mean that led to great increases in crime and levels of corruption that would make Blagojevich blush?

I understand that health risks posed by smoking do probably put a strain on a health system, but it is only one of many strains and simply making a substance illegal has been proven extreemly inefficient economically. So if you argument is simply based on ecconomics, banning the substance might not be the best idea. By all means, I believe that if someone choses to smoke they should take responsibility for their actions, be it through increased cost of health care for smokers or through exorbitant taxes on cigarette puchases (wait, don't we already do that? How about a study focussed how those funds are utilized). For if you ban cigarrettes, or ban them in my area, I will travel quite a distance to get that cool rush, and hey, it might give me a nice way to make money on the side.

"Or, allow people to choose to use tobacco under written waivers understanding and accepting the full risks of their choices with the understanding that in the event of a health problem that no care will be rendered on their behalf. They pay for their poor choice personally or they die as fast as their self induced illness can take them."

Hitler would be so proud that one of his great legacies lives on in our own society.

pubb13... That moniker must relate to either your age or IQ. Hitler forced people to do as he wanted. People who choose to use tobacco decide for themselves to partake of an addictive and harmful habit despite volumes of clearly contrary evidence. Should they choose to proceed against the recommendations of medical science then they accept and should deal with those risks.

Tobacco is the only OTC substance that can be counted on to addict more than 90% of the users choosing to employ it. Alcohol addiction is far less. There is no other single target habit that can be focused on that leads to so much harm. People need to eat and some over do that and become obese. But society cannot exist without food. Tobacco serves nobody but those who profit from it and those who require it. If the dollar stream could be replaced society would not only survive without tobacco but IMO would actually do better.

1,200 Americans die each day from tobacco and 10's of millions more are clogging up our health systems in some stage of tobaccos death queue. Where ever you live pick up your telephone directory and look up medical oxygen. Where ever you live there will be multiple oxygen vendors competing to serve those people in your own community with heart and lung diseases. Most of them are tobacco related. Tobacco related disease is in every acute and long term care facility, in every city in this country right this second. Absolutely nothing holds a candle to the human suffering and economic costs associated with tobacco. And every last bit of it is 100% unnecessary.

Scootr, you are on the wrong track.

This country is increasingly put off by prohibition. The law suits of the 90s against Big Tobacco and the end of tobacco advertising is as far as we should go. Everything since veers towards prohibition, which has been an absolute failure in America and is increasingly unpopular on both sides of the political spectrum.

Tobacco does not constitute anywhere near enough harm to a society to regulate it in the way you're suggesting. In fact, we are moving the other direction slowly but surely. It'll only be another couple of election cycles before some candidate seriously puts forward decriminalization as a platform. Both the libertarians and the liberals agree, and the wing of the GOP that insists that drug users be incarcerated is getting older and older.

Prohibition is almost always worse than any vice it prevents. Prohibition of alcohol provided the financial underpinnings for organized crime in the 20s. Prohibition of drugs provides a similar underpinning today. Prohibition of tobacco will similarly lead to a black market, smuggling and the other debits that come with any criminal activity.

Tobacco companies certainly compete with each other for market share today, but they don't fight gun battles over turf. Prohibiting tobacco would saddle us with exactly the same problems that we see in all the other prohibitions -- criminals take over the industry and use criminal methods, including murder, extortion and other violence, as business techniques.

People have lost their historical memories. They've forgotten that the "Roaring 20s" wave of organized crime and machinegun violence was fought over the an illegal commodity -- not heroine, not marijuana, not cocaine, or ectasy or any other scheduled drug. Al Capone, the Five Families, the O'Banion Gang and all those other celebrated criminals from America's past fought bloody battles over that horrible and addictive substance known as "beer."

It paraphrase George Owell, "Prohibition bad, freedom of choice good."

"Seriously we are faced with 2 practical choices. Eliminate tobacco as a known addictive substance with clear and costly health consequences. Or, allow people to choose to use tobacco under written waivers understanding and accepting the full risks of their choices with the understanding that in the event of a health problem that no care will be rendered on their behalf. They pay for their poor choice personally or they die as fast as their self induced illness can take them. "

Haha, okay you had me going for a minute, but this was taking it a little too far. Good show all around though, you did have me thinking you were serious at first.

Well I guess if enjoying tremendous human suffering is pleasurable some of you are having a swell time, until or unless it is your turn for some of it. Remember that insurance companies refuse to insure most tobacco users. So who pays for their care? We do. The next time you get a hefty bill for medical care think about how liberal you are by allowing an industry to poison your countrymen. They get to pay through the nose for tobacco, get sick and we all pay that tab. And Phillip Morris, et al laughs their asses off all the way to the bank. Yep, that's a smart deal, eh?

Am I wrong, or do we have freedom of speech in this country. To say that we have freedom of speech implies that we have freedom of thought. So if ANYONE EVER tries to tell you it is illegal to put something in YOUR OWN BODY, they are infringing on your freedoms. Period.

If I am an adult in this country, I have the freedom to choose what I put in my own body.

That includes: Cigarettes, Alcohol, Marijuana, Cocaine, Methamphatimines, Barbituates, Peyote, McDonalds, nitrous oxide, licking toads, PCP, Ecstasy, Diet Soda.

The things that should be illegal in this country should be limited to acts that infringe on other people inalienable rights. Like if someone steals something to buy Meth. But that is different than the act of taking it.

I am sick and tired of my government trying to be my parents. I had parents, and they did a pretty good job of teaching me right from wrong, and I still smoke pot, and cigarettes.

So quit treading on me, you self-rightous non-smokers.

Oh yeah, I forgot one thing.

The biggest cause of deaths in this country is HEART DISEASE, I assume from all the people who live in this country who CHOOSE to eat unhealthy food.

They cost healthcare millions every year. Should we outlaw FASTFOOD, how about pass drachonian laws that try to persuade/force people to eat only state approved "healthy" foods.

Give me a break, just let adults make decisions for themselves. The arguements you are making lead us down a slippery slope of lost freedoms.

Hello there NateKrusi. My, my, my aren't we full of piss and vinegar. Don't like regulations is my guess. Think you know it all and really don't care if you do or don't? Self centered too I'd expect. Sure lets legalize everything so you and your friends can do anything you want. You PROMISE you won't impose your stuporous selves on anybody else. You PROMISE that none of you will ever commit any crimes against society to support your freedom of user choices. You KNOW that none of you will ever get into any auto accidents and hurt anyone. You and your friends will just be happy go lucky users of anything going to work everyday, donating to charities and would never, ever, ever let your habits harm anyone else.

You did get one thing correct. Heart disease is the number one killer of Americans. Bet you didn't know that tobacco is the number one cause of heart disease. But, who cares, just run out and get stoned ad it all just floats away.

Scoot: I'm a non-smoker. My father died at age 59 of chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder brought on by smoking (four packs a day for 35 years). I'm not in favor of smoking, qua smoking, at all.

But outlawing tobacco, which is essentially what you're calling for here, won't eliminate tobacco use -- it will merely drive it underground and make its marketing a criminal enterprise. It will turn thousands, millions, of otherwise law-abiding citizens into criminals, in the name of a health benefit that is only statistically true. While smoking is bad for your health, only about 1/3 of all smokers contract any serious illness from their activity.

When it comes to "let's legalize everything" I thought that's what the America system was about -- you can do pretty much anything you want as long as you don't hurt anyone else doing it. Smoking in public may hurt someone else, so it's largely being banned (there should be a "enter at your own risk -- smoking permitted" exception in my view). Smoking alone is only a danger to you, and it no one else's business.

You're going to weight in about the cost of smokers' health care, and I'm going to say in advance that "I don't care." A certain amount of added expense, indeed a certain amount of added risks, are the price we pay for living in a free society.