Global War on Tobacco Could Backfire

American writer Charles Hanson Towne wrote that the American prohibition of alcohol of the 1920s was probably one of the strictest prohibition experiences ever in the Western world, “came upon us like a phantom, swiftly..." Well, the ghost is back to haunt us again, if you are to believe a report handed over by French Member of Parliament Yves Bur to the Health Minister. Under the impetus of the World Health Organization and its Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, countries across the globe have committed themselves to “denormalize” tobacco use and to punish the tobacco industry. On top of taxes getting higher and higher, a whole battery of regulations is also being implemented. But since the demand for tobacco “refuses” to disappear, prohibition is increasingly being brought forward as the only solution.