The anti-tobacco lobby is developing plans to prohibit smoking altogether, writes Chris Snowdon:
A recent paper in BMC Public Health has suggested ways of going about it. The study – entitled ‘Daring to Dream’ – puts forward three different methods by which prohibition could be introduced ...
1. Incrementally reduce the number of cigarettes produced each year until it reaches zero in ten to 15 years.
2. Make a law to force the tobacco industry to reduce smoking prevalence (punishable by fines).
3. Change the law to make it easier for individuals to sue the tobacco industry, thus bankrupting it.
He adds:
Notice that all these strategies embrace the prohibitionists’ fallacy of assuming that industry is the root of the problem. It is a constant trait of those endowed with the certainty of the zealot to believe that people desire products because industry produces them, and not – as is the reality – that industry supplies products because people desire them.
Full article: Planning for Prohibition (The Free Society)