Tobacco is Wack...o....

The obvious answer the the question, "Should tobacco be legalized?" is no. Tobacco should be illegal or at least restricted for a number of reasons. Not only is tobacco just plain disgusting, but it causes severe health problems such as increased risk of lung cancer. Tobacco is highly addictive because it contains the drug nicotine. Every single form of tobacco, which includes cigars, cigarettes, snuff, chewing tobacco, and pipe tobacco, contains varying ammounts of nicotine and can cause you to form an addiction. Tobacco is the leading preventable cause of disease, disability, and death in the U.S. and should therefore should not be totally legal under any circumstance. People may argue that it is their "freedom" to smoke, but with freedom comes responibility, and if people are not responsible enough to realize the facts about tobacco, then their freedom should be limited. Second hand smoke also puts non-smokers at risk of certain health problems. Perhaps enforcing non-smoking zones everywhere is a bit more reasonable than completely taking away one's right to smoke. After all, if somebody wants to put themself at a high risk of getting lung cancer, who's to tell them they can't? We live in America, where freedom rings no matter how badly your poor choices will affect your life. Perhaps smoking is a means of natural selection to rid the Earth of those who can't think for themselves. However, there is certainley no reason tobacco should be fully legalized; there always needs to be some restrictions. Tobacco companies make millions of dollars off of getting people addicted to their product. Without nicotine, there wouldn't be tobacco companies. Such companies could care less about the health risks involved with smoking, so long as they can make a profit. In the end, if people know the consequences of smoking and still want to take the risk, then, by all means, let them smoke. However, completely legalizing tobacco is probably a bad idea.