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Originally Posted by Bring_Back_Shantz
Another thing to consider to anyone who is on the "Let people decide for themselves" side of the coin.
How many other products are out there that the vast majority of users will actively tell you that they wish they could stop using, and that there are huge industries to help people quite using that product?
If the entire point of your product is to get people addicted, is that really allowing people a choice?
When you've got a product that has such a detrimental effect on people, that is almost impossible to use responsibly or in moderation, and that the vast majority of users became addicted to as minors, that doesn't seem like a product that we should have sitting around on shelves. Making it illegal won't keep it out of the hands of minors, as it doesn't now, but slowing reducing access eventually will.
The obvious counter would be things like Pot, junkfood, or booze.
I would argue that all of those things can be, and in most cases are used in moderation. They certainly have their problems, and cause various degrees of damage to people and society, but the addiction rate to any of them isn't near the same scale as cigarettes. They are also major industries, so who knows, maybe there is a strictly economic argument to be made for them, vs what is increasingly a niche product.
Heck, I'll even concede that I don't want to get rid of those things because I like them. That doesn't mean I can't be on board to get rid of something else that is obviously harmful.
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I have no evidence for this but I think alcohol must be the most damaging legal substance we have available. We know that it causes damage in a variety of ways (drunk driving, public intoxication leading to fights/conflict - , bad judgement/decisions, addiction, family disfunction) Smoking a cigarette (while totally gross) won't cause someone to drive a truck through oncoming traffic, pick a fight at a bar, or neglect their career to stay in bed smoking. While the individual health costs of cigarettes are obvious, I would say the societal costs of alcohol are way worse. If anyone you didn't know was to cause you pain and suffering through their vice, its likely through alcohol, not a cigarette.
I think educating people about the harms and making it highly inconvenient for people to smoke in public has been enough. And we are kind of already there. I don't feel like smoking/smokers impact my life in any way these days, if they generally do it in their own space. Fine with me.