Prohibition against ownership or sale of tobacco

Even today, cigarette smuggling is a major issue in the US, smuggling cigarettes from low-tax states to high-tax states. I'd expect TTL to see something similar.
 
Hi! I just saw an article which showed Washington State was one of several states who tried to prohibit the sale of tobacco around the turn of the 20th century:

http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?DisplayPage=output.cfm&file_id=5339

Would it have been feasible for a separate Prohibition act to ban tobacco, issued roughly at the same time as the alcohol Prohibition act? If so, would it have been repealed as well?

Here's an interesting piece of information -- I don't have a whole lot else to add, but this may be food for thought:

Historically, efforts to abolish smoking and drinking ended in large part because they prevented governments from taxing those activities and imposed additional costs in the form of law enforcement and incarceration.

The classic example, of course, is Prohibition. It could come into existence in the first place only because the income tax had given the federal government a way to replace revenue from the alcohol tax. The vast increase in income taxes during World War I significantly reduced alcohol taxes as a share of federal revenues -- by 1918 they were down to just 12 percent of federal receipts.

Needless to say, Prohibition caused alcohol tax revenues to collapse, although they never completely disappeared because of some permissible alcohol production. The onset of the Great Depression, however, led to a sharp decline in all federal revenues. The potential revenue gain to the government became a key argument for those in favor of repealing Prohibition.5 Thus, revenue considerations were crucial both to the rise of Prohibition and to its abolition in 1933.[6]

A parallel story is told about cigarettes. During the 1890s and the early part of the 20th century, there was a powerful national campaign to abolish smoking that was no less intense than the drive for Prohibition.[7] A key reason the campaign ultimately fizzled out in the 1920s was the government's need for tobacco tax revenues, especially after alcohol tax revenues dried up. The Republicans' cuts in income taxes in the 1920s also increased the federal government's dependence on tobacco tax revenues, which rose from 4 percent of federal receipts in 1920 to 11.2 percent in 1929. The onset of the Great Depression, the concomitant fall in income tax revenues, and the inelasticity of demand for cigarettes caused tobacco revenues to rise to 20.7 percent of all federal receipts by 1932.

Link.
 

LordKalvert

Banned
Enforcement is always the issue with these things. Prohibition failed because many states lacked much commitment to it and refused all cooperation.

Tobacco is easier to ban than alcohol. While a basement distillery is possible, growing tobacco requires much space. Cigarettes are also a rather bulky product to smuggle and demand would plummet once the addiction starts to wear off

Tobacco prohibition is more likely to work than alcohol especially in America with its decentralized government.

What changes would be needed to bring Tobacco to the ban list like alcohol is beyond me
 
Tobacco cannot be banned, but cannabis can, for very simple reason.
Tobacco is convenient to grow in large number, which makes it convenient crop for large companies who make good lobbyists. Its difficult to grow on small scale in city apartments in pots, so little competition from small-scale private individuals.
Cannabis on the other hand, is not very convenient to mass produce, but everyone can grow it easily at home.
Alcohol is middle-ground drug in this regard, as every schmuck can make wine or moonshine, but large companies can produce it cheaply it numbers large enough to outbid them.

Hence, citizens concerned with health of their fellow citizens, will want to ban cannabis, but keep tobacco legal, something I am sure has nothing to do with the fact that they receive consultation fees and other grants from generous tobacco companies.
 
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