Bans work better on tobacco because unlike alcohol or drugs, they’re used habitually but generally not recreationally. That is, the role of cigarettes in society and individually is different from those of alcohol, cannabis, and the like.
I am going to hazard a guess that tobacco industry lobbying is responsible for this. They went into Eastern European nations and pitched the idea that tobacco control was bad for the country’s economy because without smokers they’d have to deal with more people who live to retirement age, and killing them earlier makes things cheaper.
Banning cigarettes removes them from convenience stores, making them much harder to buy. The work they’ve done so far has pulled the smoking population down to 8% from over 16% ten years ago, although it’s still 20% among Māori.
I would not be surprised if the ban cut that in half or more.
Bans work better on tobacco because unlike alcohol or drugs, they’re used habitually but generally not recreationally. That is, the role of cigarettes in society and individually is different from those of alcohol, cannabis, and the like.
I am going to hazard a guess that tobacco industry lobbying is responsible for this. They went into Eastern European nations and pitched the idea that tobacco control was bad for the country’s economy because without smokers they’d have to deal with more people who live to retirement age, and killing them earlier makes things cheaper.
Banning cigarettes removes them from convenience stores, making them much harder to buy. The work they’ve done so far has pulled the smoking population down to 8% from over 16% ten years ago, although it’s still 20% among Māori.
I would not be surprised if the ban cut that in half or more.