Should we ban tobacco outright?

Recent legislation in the UK has seen another blow to the tobacco industry, with retailers no longer allowed to display tobacco and tobacco products on their shelves. Instead, these products must be kept in shuttered cabinets, with the shutters only opened at the precise moments of need. This is a further attempt to discourage youngsters from viewing the purchase of tobacco as a 'normal' activity, and further legislation might well get passed which enforces the sale of these products in plain, non-brand-designed packaging, to increasingly de-glamorise the industry. This move is already being implemented in Australia from December this year.

Clearly we are heading towards the point where sales of tobacco are eventually eliminated entirely. Certainly the current direction of policy is to marginalise the practise of smoking as much as possible - it is becoming harder to buy cigarettes, and the ban on public smoking sends addicts (an inflammatory term I very deliberately use) out into the freezing rain to get their fix. It would seem, then, that we are moving toward a society where smoking is banned outright.

Let me go on the record now to say that I agree with this outcome. Smoking should be banned, because it is an addictive, harmful activity with no benefit other than to satisfy a craving which only exists due to smoking in the first place. It costs the NHS something like £5bn per year, as well as having a knock-on effect onthe family and friends of smokers, not least through second-hand smoke inhalation.

Pro-smoking lobbying groups (often sponsored by, if not officially part of tobacco companies themselves) will argue that to smoke is the right of the individual, and that it should be a personal choice. To some extent it should be considered thus - after all, who are we to prevent others from making their own choices in these matters? On the other hand, though, imagine if tobacco was introduced to the world for the first time in 2012 - it would instantly be legislated against as a harmful drug, probably in Class C of the UK system, much like cannabis. It is only our history of using this drug, coupled to a perceived lack of impact on personality (unlike, for example, heroin use), which prevents it being considered quite as harmful as perhaps it should be.

Of course, a total ban is probably an impossible dream. Tobacco companies know they can't win the war, but they're fighting all the way. They support both the Conservatives and Labour in the UK, and as such can guide policy towards measures which, while they appear to be aimed at curbing the uptake of tobacco, will have very little effect on existing users - if you need your fix, you'll get it. We must also consider the revenue from tobacco sales, which is predicted to be £12.1bn for the 2011-2012 UK tax year, a not inconsiderable sum. Pro-smoking groups would argue that losing this revenue would dramatically harm the UK economy, and to a point they have a decent argument - the revenue certainly outweighs the quoted cost to the NHS, though in my sums I'm ignoring costs to the economy due to time off for smoking-related illnesses.

I don't know the answer, but I suspect it lies in the re-invention of the tobacconist, a shop type which has morphed into what we would now call a newsagent. Further marginalisation of the sales process is probably the only feasible means by which we will continue to decrease the demand for tobacco and tobacco products. Eventually there will come a time when the revenue from smoking begins to fall (according to the figures quoted in the link above, they have steadily climbed since 1990, and probably before that), and we will see a decline in the power of the pro-smoking lobbyists. Only at that point will a complete ban be on the cards.