It can’t be taken 1:1. Vices being banned in the past was typically because they provided pleasure in lieu of productivity, not some external reason. Therefore making those bans inherently tyrannical to habitual users and certain non-users, incentivizing disobedience.
But this time, it’s being banned for a group that’s not habitually using already, meaning extraordinary reasons would require them to become habitual in the first place. And smoking is typically not very pleasant at the start to begin with, so there’s little incentive to start. And, unlike in the past, it’s no longer cool or uncontroversial to smoke. And of course there’s the knowledge that it will give you cancer and cut your lifespan.
There’s just not much vice left, so even if 1% slips through the cracks with an underground market, there isn’t the room for growth that sustains or spreads an illegal market like for eg. recreational drugs, which is why those bans need to be enforced to perfection to work, which is why they never work.
There are so many ways for people to harm themselves that we don’t need to ban because they come with severe risk to the person, so they self regulate. The only reason smoking needs that ban is because of how widespread smoking was, and so even if way less people start smoking than before, that’s still way too many people. A ban just needs to be successful at getting far less people to start, not absolutely halt every single usage, and eventually it will fade from culture on it’s own.
It can’t be taken 1:1. Vices being banned in the past was typically because they provided pleasure in lieu of productivity, not some external reason. Therefore making those bans inherently tyrannical to habitual users and certain non-users, incentivizing disobedience.
But this time, it’s being banned for a group that’s not habitually using already, meaning extraordinary reasons would require them to become habitual in the first place. And smoking is typically not very pleasant at the start to begin with, so there’s little incentive to start. And, unlike in the past, it’s no longer cool or uncontroversial to smoke. And of course there’s the knowledge that it will give you cancer and cut your lifespan.
There’s just not much vice left, so even if 1% slips through the cracks with an underground market, there isn’t the room for growth that sustains or spreads an illegal market like for eg. recreational drugs, which is why those bans need to be enforced to perfection to work, which is why they never work.
There are so many ways for people to harm themselves that we don’t need to ban because they come with severe risk to the person, so they self regulate. The only reason smoking needs that ban is because of how widespread smoking was, and so even if way less people start smoking than before, that’s still way too many people. A ban just needs to be successful at getting far less people to start, not absolutely halt every single usage, and eventually it will fade from culture on it’s own.