>>1
If tobacco (arguably the most important and influential crop in American history) were criminalized, you'd only see INCREASED usage and increased negative health/social/financial effects. Just as with previous prohibition attempts and the "War on Drugs", you will see results directly opposite of your intentions.
>less healthcare costs
First off, you obviously don't have a clue how our (retarded) health care system works. But anyway, we'd actually see INCREASED costs. Why? Because there would no longer be direct funding to the health care providers from the tobacco companies to offset the increased insurance risks. What you'd see is an increase in costs across the board to make up for the lost income.
>higher productivity (no smoke breaks)
What do you think people did BEFORE smoke breaks became almost standard? They snuck out. All that would happen would be that people start sneaking out en masse to hide in the bathroom or behind a dumpster and take a drag. Just like people do today with other drugs like pot.
>more farm land will be used to produce useful products (food, bio-fuels)
There are now less than 50,000 farms in the US that produce tobacco, averaging 7% of their harvest by land area. That isn't a lot. (There are a little more than 2,000,000 farms in the US, meaning at a rough guestimate we're using ~0.14% of our farmland on tobacco.) About 98% of our tobacco now is IMPORTED due to the high price of growing it domestically. So while this may actually be a valid point, it is very very weak.
>cleaner environment
There WAS a study done that showed cigarette smoke to be "ten times worse" than diesel exhaust, not to mention the couple hundred poisons and carcinogens in cigarettes. But suggesting that banning tobacco would stop people from smoking is retarded, so it's a moot point.
>less house and forest fires
Again, prohibition has the opposite intended effect. If anything, more people would be smoking in the privacy of their homes and such, so there would be an INCREASE in fires.
>less car accidents
What? Cigarettes don't noticeably affect the number of vehicle deaths at all. No more than other minor distractions, anyway (radio, talking to other passengers, etc). Instead you should be make a point about how 10 times more people are killed DIRECTLY from cigarettes via lung cancer, etc (~440,000/year in the US) than in ALL kinds of automobile accidents combined (~44,000/year in the US).
Then there's the fact that the US federal and state gov'ts earned over $30 billion in taxes last year on cigarettes alone.
I have never smoked a cigarette in my entire life and probably never will. I have also never done any drug other than alcohol at social events (and then only a glass or two of wine/champagne). Not saying I will never do drugs or indulge in alcohol, just that I personally don't see the point in poisoning my body for shitty products. I don't eat fast food, I won't smoke the shitty cigarettes people smoke nowadays, and I won't drink the piss that people chug down constantly.
I'm not sympathetic to smokers. On the contrary, I think those retards should be beaten to death with their own blackened lungs. I'm just saying outlawing tobacco is retarded. Along the same lines, other drugs should be legalized (with limitations, of course). By legalizing the drugs, we'll be able to tax them and regulate their production, leading to less dangerous products and stimulating the legit economy instead of the black market. Further along the same lines, I also think that performance enhancers should be similarly legalized, even if we need to segregate the sports leagues. People should be free to do what they please with their bodies so long as no harm comes to anyone else. "Harm" including second hand smoke, which is why I favor smoke-free zones where they make sense (schools and family restaurants, but not bars). If there was a way to do it without infringing on privacy, I'd make it illegal to smoke in a building with children under 18 living in it (children's rights trump adult privledges), but since there isn't, that one has to slide.
Oops. I'm ranting. /post