Effective Measures to Reduce Smoking Rates
https://www.humantruth.info/smoking_measures.html
By Vexen Crabtree 2025
There are some uncontentious and proven steps that help reduce national tobacco use. (1) Use tax to increase the cost of cigarettes and tobacco; the evidence is 'crystal clear' that this reduces consumption1,2. (2) Break the positive image of smoking in society - the expectation of something good drives continued involvement in smoking before addiction becomes the main factor behind consumption3. (3) Starting with Ireland in 2004, 79 countries have come to protect non-smokers with smoke-free laws4 especially in indoor areas such as restaurants, although sometimes also in general public areas "like parks and beaches"5. This ensures that smokers and non-smokers can both freely exist, without impeding on each others' rights to choose. (4) Mandate health warnings on tobacco products as the industry has utterly refused to educate its own customers. These were introduced in 2003 across the EU6 and since then, at least 110 countries have followed suit4. (5) Enforce a minimum age for purchasing tobacco1 to ensures that customers have a better chance to understand the seriousness of the risks before they choose to get involved.
There are also a few harsher steps that are required if the tobacco industry rejects public health moves, continues to campaign with health misinformation, or undermines the other measures that government can take: (6) Insist on plain packaging on cigarettes with no PR content removes the positive (and often deceitful) messages that tobacco firms put on packaging7. Finally, (7) ban tobacco advertising altogether, a step taken by 68 countries4. Every one of these measure has been opposed by the tobacco industry and politicians within their influence8.
1. About Smoking
#cancer #democracy #health #smoking
Cigarettes are the most lethal consumer product on the planet, responsible for over 7 million deaths annually4 and therefore the biggest preventable cause of disease in the world9. A billion people smoke10. The tobacco industry has resisted with misinformation and well-funded public-relations campaigns, opposing and undermining health measures wherever it can; if defeated, firms continue the same abuses in other countries11. The industry has such rich and influential lobbies that most governments find it difficult to make progress in curbing smoking rates.
If you smoke, you are more likely to drink. If you smoke or drink, you are also more likely to do drugs. Only 15% of men in the highest professional classes smoke, but 42% of unskilled workers do12. Smoking is higher amongst those who are already in trouble: single mothers smoke at 55%, most homeless do and practically all drug addicts do12. Smoking during late pregnancy reduces the IQ of babies by an average of 6.2 points13 and causes increased antisocial behaviour. Aside from the financial cost to taxpayers and the health costs to individuals, indirect negative economic effects result from increased rates of disease and sick days lost from work4.
For more, see:
2. Light Steps
2.1. Increase Product Costs
The evidence is 'crystal clear' that consumptions goes down at the price of cigarettes goes up1,2. The opposite happened in the 1880s when cigarettes became much cheaper as a result of the invention of cigarette-rolling machines14. Although increasing costs doesn't work as well on the heaviest smokers15, it at least reduces the numbers who become heavy smokers. The World Health Organisation states in 2025, that only 41 countries have meaningful taxes on tobacco4.
2.2. Engage With the International Effort
Many governments have fought battles with the rich and powerful tobacco lobby, and the international community has collective experience in what to expect, and how to combat the lobby's legal techniques, social campaigns and disinformation drives. A key element to improving public health is to link up with international health bodies and think-tanks who have documented these struggles.
“Over 150 countries have already ratified the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, which requires countries to take a range of anti-smoking measures. Last July negotiators agreed on international norms for banning smoking in public places.”
The Economist (2008)16
2.3. Break the Positive Public Image of Smoking
The social context is a key part of the promotion of smoking3; the expectation of something good drives continued involvement in smoking before addiction becomes the main factor behind consumption. "Almost no-one enjoys their first cigarette, and it's only because popular culture is saturated with positive images of people smoking and because friends encourage it that anyone smokes a second cigarette"3.
2.4. Ban Smoking in Public Places
Ireland was the first country, in 2004, to introduce this kind of measure9. By 2025, 79 countries had come to protect non-smokers with smoke-free laws4. Aside from indoor areas such as restaurants, some countries also ban it in general public areas "like parks and beaches"5.
The arguments are clear: there is no moral way to insist that non-smokers must sit in enclosed places with smokers - we do not accept the transmissibility of risk in any other arena; cars are too dangerous to drive through parks, you can't swing dangerous bladed weapons in public and you can't mix poisonous chemicals next to food preparation areas.
The tobacco lobby likes to campaign against any smoke-free laws, stating that it will mean more parents will smoke at home near their children. But, the statistics clearly shows that this doesn't happen1. Once the cultural message is set that it's rude to expose others to smoke, parents naturally and intentionally avoid doing so near their children.
They also argue against this measure in the name of freedom, but, this argument makes little sense, however clever the PR adverts are. People should be free to smoke just as they should be free to not smoke7: banning smoking in enclosed and public places enforces the freedom from smoke, and still allows smokers to continue their habit, in fact, in most places there are designated smoking areas for just that purpose.
There is evidence that making smoking less convenient in public can help consumers fight addiction3, which is otherwise very difficult, and makes it less likely that ex-smokers are drawn back in3. The health advantages are clear and its cultural message is clear: there is no disadvantage to banning smoking in public places.
2.5. Mandate Health Warnings on Tobacco Products
These were introduced in 2003 across the EU6, making almost impossible for consumers to remain uninformed about tobacco risks. The World Health Organisation stated (in 2025) that 110 countries "meet best practice for graphic health warnings" to help educate users in a way that works4.
2.6. Enforce a Minimum Age for Purchasing Tobacco
This reduces smoking rates, and reduces demand1, and ensures that customers have a better chance to understand the seriousness of the risks before they choose to get involved.
3. Heavy Steps
Some anti-smoking steps infringe more directly on the corporate freedom to do things that most would expect them to be able to do, in the name of public health. These require more care to present the case for the changes to the people, and to allow democratic debate before they are undertaken.
3.1. Plain Packaging
This harsher step removes the positive (and often deceitful) messaging that tobacco firms put on packaging. They love to use bright colours, pictures of filters removing carcinogens, and words like "mild", all "to give the impression that these cigarettes will be healthier, when research shows that the harm they cause is the same as any other brands"7.
3.2. A Ban on Advertising
The World Health Organisation says in a 2025 news article that 68 countries have banned all tobacco product advertising4. It's possible that if tobacco companies didn't resist every other health measure with such aggression, extraordinary steps like this would not be required.
3.3. Make Smoking Illegal?
Making smoking illegal is unlikely to ever be effective, and instead, despite best efforts, much more likely to make everything worse.
"Criminalisation would create a huge black market, and would probably face so much non-compliance that it would be unenforceable"17. The World Health Organisation is right to point out that black-market tobacco trading is difficult to stop, and they insist that the most effective method is instead to reduce overall smoking rates4.
The large emerging black-market products would not have plain packages, health warnings or adhere to minimum age requirements. It would grant criminal organisations a huge source of income whilst simultaneously undermine the tax that governments gain from tobacco sales which are nearly always put back into the health industry.
Making smoking illegal is also problematic as the government doesn't have a right to force people not to take risks - there are many risky activities which people in a free world should be free to pursue, including poor lifestyle choices.
4. The Opposition of the Tobacco Industry
#capitalism #health #smoking #tobacco_lobby
Tobacco companies are fundamentally opposed to public health, and rely on generating addicted customers4. They have resisted, undermined and campaigned against all programmes that aim to educate the public on the harms of smoking or that try to reduce smoking rates. When child labour was made illegal throughout much of Europe and health and safety laws prohibited the direct handling of toxins by factory workers, tobacco firms like British American Tobacco simply moved production abroad and continued those horrendous practices elsewhere18. They have opposed limits on advertising cigarettes to children and continue to do so in countries where it is still legal. They've refused to put health warning on products and ran legal battles against attempts to make them do so under grounds of intellectual property rights. They've campaigned against legislation against smoking in public places in order to protect non-smokers and children from the effects of passive smoke and created fake organisations that pretend to be 'citizen's groups' who oppose such bans. Tobacco firms have created fake science reports, funded many reports and then only published ones that cast doubt on established health science. They put more money (billions upon billions) in PR campaigns against public health messages than government and health bodies are able to match, permanently and successfully causing the public in most countries to severely underestimate the risks and harms of smoking.11,4,9,19,20,21,22
For more, see:
- " The Tobacco Lobby: Fake Science, Legal Aggression, Lies and Misinformation" by Vexen Crabtree (2025).
There are citizen movements that do genuinely oppose government intervention based on their own ethical and theoretical beliefs: these tend to be those espousing "libertarian" ideas that reject any government interference in free-market capitalism. This nearly always creates an atmosphere where powerful organisations are unimpeded, with an intensely negative effect on public freedom and public health, as individuals and small communities simply cannot resist the PR, pressure and desires of profit-driven companies.
Libertarianism suits only a certain demographic, but the young, the old, the ill, and the unfortunate, are all cast aside. The movement produced a moment of irony after 17: "one of the 20th century's most famous libertarians, Ayn Rand, spent a lifetime arguing that state interference was immoral, but ended her life on Medicare being treated for smoking-related lung cancer". Public health requires improving public education and safety measures, and that requires government action.