The previous perspective on tobacco has caused so many reactions, that I have found a few reasons to come back to this topic. First, nobody has called into question the frightening statistics that I have pointed out. Everyone recognizes that tobacco is a major cause of mortality of the past and that if nothing is done, its impact will increase dramatically. Yet despite this, many voices were raised against the ban that I proposed.
Two arguments were made. The first one: why focus solely on tobacco and not ban alcohol, sugar and all forms of food known to be harmful to our health? The answer to this argument is simple: these products are harmful only to those who abuse them, while tobacco is harmful with the first cigarette. It deserves therefore a special treatment.
The second argument is more serious: Tobacco is an addiction and those who consume it cannot live without it anymore and to ban it will only push them into the arms of traffickers. The choice is then between the dealer and the tobacconist.
This argument refers to a much larger issue: can the law prohibit addiction?
The answer is obvious when it comes to an addiction to murder, rape or theft; and the law as a rule in this case makes the difference between those who are responsible for their actions and those who are not. It is less obvious in cases where it can be argued that we harm only ourselves by our actions. And we can argue, wrongly in my opinion, that this is the case of tobacco (this means neglecting the impact of tobacco consumption on the cost of health, passive smoking and the effect of imitation pushing each generation to follow closely the previous one).
For these acts of self-harm, in all their forms, the principle should be simple: a democratic society should take its members away from what can harm them. And for this it must first understand what causes them to do so. It must then educate, motivate, and then ban. But if the ban is not a perspective, at least in the medium term, society is an accomplice and education is useless. The law is the last argument, not the first. For tobacco, much remains to be done: intelligently teach children that tobacco kills. Raise the price of tobacco at a much higher level. Make brand names virtually invisible and standardize packaging. Make packs as repulsive as possible (as was just done). And announce that, within 15 years, no matter what happens, production, import, and consumption of tobacco will be banned.
There is nothing worse than an inapplicable law; it discredits the rule of law as a whole. Prior to enact a law, we must create the conditions for its social acceptability and the means to enforce it. In particular, regarding all addictions, it will be of no use to reduce supply if demand continues, so, before legislating about them, we must understand their reason for being. And it is probably because our societies do not know, do not dare to confront this issue, because they do not dare to admit to themselves that our model of development, our very nature, causes needs, that they have such a hard time banning what fulfill them.