Tobacco use is declining steadily in the United States. It is banned in public places and many restaurants and bars across the nation. Now a new Zogby International poll finds that 45 per cent of Americans would support a law to make cigarettes illegal in the next five to ten years.

The strongest support for making cigarettes illegal is among 19 to 29 year-olds, with 57 per cent of them in favour of criminalising tobacco use. The Drug Policy Alliance commissioned the report. Executive director Ethan Nadelmann says his group entered the debate because it is concerned that increasingly restrictive tobacco measures could lead to prohibition of cigarettes. He says making smoking illegal would lead to unintended consequences. "If we move to the point of criminal prohibition, we may reduce the number of people smoking and the cancer deaths somewhat, but we will generate vast black markets and all sorts of crime."
Nadelmann says the survey suggests potentially dangerous political trends. "When the numbers of consumers diminish and when the consumers become disproportionately people who are young and poor and people of colour, that is when criminal prohibitions become acceptable." Nadelmann thinks it is only a matter of a few years before this happens. He says even if poll results are interpreted as favouring criminalisation of cigarettes, the survey was released to begin a national dialogue on the topic. "Our thought was that we are at a real slippery slope right now, and if we were to do this poll in two or three or four years from now when you actually begin to hear legislators and others start proposing this stuff, that the numbers would be even higher." (pi)