2 or 3 decades ago Canada decided to heap big taxes on cigarettes. A black market promptly emerged, complete with drive-by shootings. Canada rescinded those taxes and the black market (and its associated crime) evaporated.
(obviously I'm ignoring the fact that "decriminalizing" doesn't mean the same thing as "legalizing", so those hard drugs aren't legal)
"Under the new laws, which take effect next year, the country’s smoking age of 18 would be raised year by year until it applied to the whole population. Beginning in 2023, those under 15 would be barred from buying cigarettes for the rest of their lives." -NYT
That's the only one I know of. I thought I heard about one other country considering a similar ban?
My presumption is that the commenter was speaking about the US, since that's been the context of the thread thus far.
Contrast with hard drugs, most of the users are not addicts, they are recreational users.
At the time when tobacco was first sold in the US men were allowed to duel each other to the death. Attitudes about what you can do to and with your body were different.
Smoking opium, long known to be powerfully addictive was legal until the early 1900s, mostly for racist reasons
Am I just misunderstanding this sentence, or are you saying that most users of hard drugs aren't addicts?
My dad told me about smokers in the B-17s in WW2. They'd fly at 35,000 feet in unpressurized airplanes. There wasn't enough oxygen to keep the cigarette lit. So what they'd do is take a breath from the oxygen mask, blow it on the cigarette, whereby it would burn like a torch. Then they'd take a puff. The cigarette would begin to sputter and die, whereupon they'd take another breath from the oxygen mask, and the dance would repeat.
After the war, things were pretty bad in Germany. People would follow GIs around, and when they were done with a cigarette, they'd flick away the butt. People would rush to grab the butt, from which they'd harvest a few grains of tobacco. Eventually, they'd get enough to roll into a new cigarette, and sell it.
Market size seems like a better bet, yeah. Plus nobody takes weed as seriously as opiates.
This is completely incorrect.
The taxes remain and have in fact been increased, and the black market has remained, but mostly shrunk as the pool of smokers has decreased due to the increase in taxes and other national campaigns to reduce the amount of smokers.
In a black market, violence is a competitive advantage in many cases. The most violent has the most ‘authority’ (can assert the most control), so in a competitive environment there are strong incentives to be the most violent. Too violent for other players to want to mess with.
It’s why cartels, warlords, etc. end up becoming so terrible.
And sure, cops suck quite often. I am yet to see cops en masse shooting up those reported for ripping others off in one way or another. On the other hand, you have unfortunately very common “drug deal gone wrong” incidents that end in pretty deadly “illegal prosecution”.
Now you see them in the sketchier areas of cities as well.