I agree that Tax and restrict is a good way to start. I dont think a ban could come around for at least a decade. Perhaps a ban on smoking in public in some Cities.
Okay.
G’wan home, everyone. No one in this thread knows anything except CK. Move along, move along…that’s it… nite, all…
Oh sorry. Guess we should just listen to Granpa Barbarian. The only guy amongst us who has a sense of social history and isn’t naive. Please don’t mind me and continue educating us. Gather round, children.
Unless you have some underlying object lesson or larger point, I think you’re trying to solve a problem that’s dwindling to non-existence for the vast majority. Smoking is largely being dealt with through a combination of banning it in public places, socially stigmatizing it, taxing the living daylights out of it, long-standing bans on advertising, and other disincentives. Basically the only place where you can smoke cigarettes any more without breaking the law or being sneered at is your own home. And even there, if you have kids it’s being irresponsible and if they’re old enough to go to school and learn stuff you’ll get sneered at even at home.
But since a significant minority continue to smoke despite all these disincentives, there clearly is some driving interest, whether it’s existing addiction or some perceived physiological effect, so I think that answers the question of what would happen if it was illegal: the same thing that happens when anything in demand becomes illegal. Namely, instead of buying it from a licensed retailer and slinking home to smoke it in the last refuge where they could still do so, many would buy it from street corner pushers and slink home to smoke it in the last refuge where they could still do so. So what difference would illegality make except to price? In many jurisdictions the social stigma and disincentives have already been cranked up about as high as they can go – the only thing left is to throw smokers in jail, and what good would that do?
That said, I have it on the highest authority that the occasional (very occasional) smoking of a fine Cuban cigar with a fine glass of rum while sitting out on the patio after a good dinner on a warm summer evening is perfectly acceptable and is the mark of an outstanding member of society. 
I’d hate to see a “War on Tobacco” with the DEA breaking down doors and raiding all points of entry. Fuck that shit.
Just ban commercial farming, manufacture and sales of cigarettes. Sure, some people would grow their own and a black market would spring up, but so what? Smoking rates would decline dramatically and kids wouldn’t pay $25 a pack for smuggled Russian Marlboros. Fewer kids means less smokers. It’s already happening in NYC with the high tax, despite the smuggling.
Tobacco sucks as an intoxicant, compared to things like weed and booze. Prohibition probably would work, imho.
Sorry but no. Yes, I’m a former smoker.
It would massively lower the amount of smokers. If tobacco were in the same realm as illegal pot, that means you’d have to smoke it like illegal pot. Potheads can wait until after work, at their house, for a smoke.
Someone who smokes tobacco is generally compelled to smoke ever two hours or so.
But if it’s not widely available, would that even be possible? It just seems to me that the way tobacco use works, it’s not viable if you can’t go get it at your corner store. Most smokers would have to vape, and enjoy the occasional cigarette when they could afford it from a reliable black market supplier.
Another tack that might work is banning cigarette sales, but allowing tobacco sales. So smokers have to roll their own, which from watching my mom do it, is pretty tedious, at least if you plan to smoke a lot.
While home-grown marijuana is fairly easy to process to get into a smokeable form, home-curingtobacco is a lengthy process.
If I were going to grow tobacco under a prohibition, I’d probably be switching very quickly to an easier cash crop: while there will always be hobbiests I doubt that illegal commercial production would be cost effective.
Banning tobacco would be great- for organized crime. Nobody made out better in Prohibition than the Mafia, making the same mistake with tobacco would likely be even worse an idea.
Even the Mafia only counted on a solid market among hardcore drinkers who wouldn’t be able to quit. They hit a gusher when almost every person in America decided that drinking Demon Rum was a great hobby.
Nah. When I want to smoke I take a paper out of the package, put a few pinches of tobacco into it, shape, roll, lick. Much faster than filling, tamping, and lighting a pipe.
If that’s too tedious, then you’re not a committed tobacco user.
Yah? Can you do it while riding a horse and shooting at the bad guys? Randolph Scott could… 
I’d think that if you were going to prohibit tobacco, your best bet would be to hit it at the cultivation and importation stage, not at the consumption stage, since there’s only one type of plant, and it’s grown in a very limited set of areas in the country, or it’s imported from abroad. Plus, you only have to deal with a few states worth of angry legislators and tobacco farmers, not a nation worth of angry smokers and dippers.
Do that, and prices would rise naturally, and users would quit of their own accord, either by choice, or by being unable to afford it.
+1
[doffs hat] Randolph Scott…
Bhutan banned tobacco years ago:
“Bhutan is the first nation in the world to ban smoking. It has been illegal to smoke in public or sell tobacco, according to Tobacco Control Act of Bhutan 2010. Violators are fined the equivalent of $232 – more than two months’ salary in Bhutan.”
Except the numbers are way different. Only about 15% of American smoke, and 70% of them want to quit. So, were dealing with only 5% of Americans are hard-core, and many of them would be satisfied with vaping, etc.
But up to 80% of American drank before prohibition.
So, the difference is less than 5% of Americans who will flout the law vs more than 50%.
Yeah. Sure some criminals would make some money but to think it would perhaps be an even bigger windfall than alcohol prohibition makes no sense whatsoever.
Smoking may be declining in the U.S. and Europe, but it is skyrocketing in China and other parts of Asia. The demon tobacco companies are alive and well, killing more millions with their deceit and greed. And state taxes on tobacco are much higher than federal taxes.