I actually do believe this could work if implemented correctly.

You have to show ID to purchase tobacco products. They even have signs at some convenience stores which say the year you must be born to purchase tobacco products, which the year is the current year minus 18.

Stop changing the cutoff year. This will allow the current generation of tobacco users to continue, but ban future generations from it.

I cannot understate how much I hate this, despite not smoking, because it violates our most important rule: before the law everybody is equal. We except children, for obvious reasons, but with the promise that when they get a certain age they get the same right as anybody else.

Odd that, on the graph in the link, one of the spikes in deaths seems to come immediately after an increase in consumption, but the next, bigger spike in deaths from ALD comes BEFORE a similarly large increase in consumption.

I'm suspicious, mostly because it goes against the conventional wisdom that alcohol consumption increased during prohibition.

Hardly unbiased sources, but....

http://www.druglibrary.org/prohibitionresults1.htm http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/History/e1920/chicagodea...

I'd unreservedly support banning the substance except that (1) organised crime would profit from it, and (2) nicotine itself is not the problem, but rather the combustion of tobacco leaves which is not the same thing at all. I think prohibition is not a great idea but I wouldn't be averse to some jurisdictions trying it out and analysing the outcomes of the long term, like 25 years or so.

"nicotine itself is not the problem"

Be careful with this... It is the vapor salesman's false pitch. Nicotine is a known neurotoxin, it increases inflammation, lowers your hdl, raises your ldl, and stresses your endocrine system (adrenal et al.). While ecigs may deliver fewer toxins than analogs, that doesn't erase the fact that you are much better off without nicotine.

Be careful with this... some think that it can help with Alzheimer and Parkinson.

Unless there's a demonstrable, important (life affecting) effect, I wouldn't care too much about nicotine. Maybe some people are even naturally balancing some of their brain chemistry with it.

I wouldn't surprised if in 30 years we 'discover' that nicotine was okay all along, just like eating fat.

By the way, what is your opinion on caffeine?

I support the right of folks to do either drug if they want, but I don't think it is fair for nicotine to be portrayed as safer than it is... it fairly well understood to be an addictive cardiac nightmare.

I miss the neurostimulant effect badly... if you are right about nicotine being exonerated, I'll jump for joy and pick some up that day.