Prohibition didn't work out too well, but anti-smoking campaigns in many countries seem to be somewhat effective. So a gentler approach just may work, if you're willing to accept that it probably takes a century before you can ban the substance.
IIRC here in Canada it's illegal to smoke in a work vehicle, it's illegal to smoke in your own vehicle if you have a passenger under 18. You can't smoke within X-feet of a building entrance. They're trying to make it illegal to smoke in your own home if you have anyone under 18 living there.
I really don't see this as a gentle approach. I'm a non-smoker, I don't give a crap where people smoke and I see this illegalization of smoking to be severely harmful to our society. Given the link between certain genes and smoking, why not make autism illegal? I mean it's harmful to the users and is harmful to society by costing us billions in unearned wages and medical costs.
I'm sick of this nanny state bullshit. At the rate governments are regressing, we will be at full prohibition before we ever see marijuana or LSD legalized.
Given the link between certain genes and smoking, why not
make autism illegal?
The one that I differ with the anti-smokers on is bars. These are institutions with the explicit purpose of pleasure. I think owner of the establishment should be allowed to decide if his establishment is designated smoking or non. The anti-smokers don't like this because the vote would be a resounding we are a smoking establishment. Because for a good deal of the population, they don't care, they would go to a smoking bar. The non-smokers activist hate this because no one want's to hang out at their non-smoking bar. So they ruin it for the rest. In my state Bars where the last public establishments to fall and they fought hard to resist it because patrons had already voted with their feet and smoking bars where more popular than non.
As I said I am a _non-smoker_. I have been for my entire life. Again as I already said I do not care that people smoke around me and I find it a huge inconvenience on myself that I have to go out of my way to be with my friends when the laws are getting restrictive to the point that you cannot smoke anywhere legally in downtown areas except in the middle of a boulevard.
Yet I can't go downtown on a Saturday night without running into drunks and druggies who get into fights and destroy property. I've seen chairs thrown into oncoming traffic by people refused alcohol, I don't see this from any smokers anywhere?
Please cut the fucking naivety here. Alcohol is more destructive to the users health and to our societal health than tobacco, marijuana or LSD, but we're happy with the former being legal while the latter society wants illegal.
People have been sick of smoke for years. It was never sustainable that a minority should be allowed pollute the environment of everyone else. Any politician who campaigned to bring back smoking in these places would fail spectacularly. Get used to it.
Contrast prohibition in the US (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prohibition_in_the_United_State...): the first thing most people noticed was probably a complete ban (1920), although there were already quite a few local bans in place by that point (equally abruptly introduced). Very little effort seems to have been spent on gradual introduction of the law, and it was introduced despite a lack of broad acceptance (contrast the "conditional bans" you complain about.)
It may well be the case that the anti-smokers will, like the "dry" people, eventually achieve a ban on the good in question. However, the anti-tobacco campaign is a lot more gentle than the anti-alcohol campaign, and denying that is just rhetoric.
Two notes: yes, I think an eventual tobacco ban is a good thing; and you may be amused to learn that the nazis were fiercely anti-smoking as well.