Keep Cigarettes Legal

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ethan-nadelmann/keep-cigarettes-legal_b_32477.html

This is an article by Huffington Post's Executive Director for the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA); Ethan Nadelmann. Nadelmann's purpose for writing this article was to persuade. Throughout his article, he outnumbered his facts with opinions. An example of one of his facts is "According to a recent nationwide survey of registered voters by Zogby International, 45% of Americans said yes. Among 18-29 year olds, 57% were in favor." Then he includes a lot of his own personal opinions such as "Smoking would become an act of youthful rebellion; no doubt some users would begin to experiment with even more dangerous forms of tobacco." There was a lot of bias included in this piece, because the author was attempting to persuade the readers to the best of his ability; including many of his personal opinions. I would say other than that, the author uses ethos as he is in a high position as a Executive Director for the DPA. Also, ethos is used Nadelmann has claimed to deal with smoking in his life as he states "And, full disclosure: I hate cigarettes. I don't like the smell. I don't like the look. And I don't like the fact that my dad's pack-a-day habit no doubt contributed to the massive heart attack that killed him at 58.... But Prohibition is not the answer - not if we want to stay safe, sane, and free."

The author's point of view on this issue is to continue keeping cigarettes legal. He adamantly supports keeping cigarettes legal as he writes "Just imagine the government's "war on tobacco": hundreds of thousands of new jobs for federal, state and local police, and hundreds of thousands of new prison cells for tobacco producers, pushers and users; government helicopters spraying herbicides on illicit tobacco fields here and abroad; people rewarded for informing on tobacco-growing, -selling, and -smoking neighbors; police seizing the cars of people caught smoking; urine tests commonplace to identify users; if cigarettes were prohibited." He supports his viewpoint by writing with a tone that sets fear into the readers if smoking is actually banned. There are also text features included such as titles, bolded words, linked words (to other webs), publish date, and publisher site. The author generally used words such as 'puffing' instead of smoking, and 'covertly' rather than secretly.

I personally think that this piece is not very accurate factually, but it is a great article to get information on the aftermath of banning cigarettes. The author's credentials assisted himself a lot as he seems to know what will happen if people didn't have their cigarettes, and how he was personally affected as his father died from a heart attack at age 58. If I were to give a rating on the reliability of this piece out of 10, I would give a 4, because it is very biased, and doesn't include many facts.