Precisely! If you check some of my other comments in this thread, you'll see me putting forward the idea that these social incentives (created by these laws) ar

Precisely! If you check some of my other comments in this thread, you'll see me putting forward the idea that these social incentives (created by these laws) are the primary cause of reduced smoking rates over the past decade or so. My concern here is over timing. I'm not sure that smoking has been sufficiently socially marginalised to the point that a black market would not form if we banned cigarettes. We've seen this already in Australia. The ATO (where I used to work) has had compliance teams in the field for at least a decade now dealing with the 'chop-chop' problem (black market tobacco), which grows larger with every excise increase. In a sense, banning it is the equivalent of setting excise at some rate approaching infinity per cent. I don't have any control over what the Tasmanian parliament does, but I really hope they understand that they only get about 1 shot at this per decade at most. If they pass this law and it turns out smoking is not sufficiently marginalised, and a black market subsequently forms, they'll spend the next 3-5 years fighting the black markets, another 3-5 debating and eventually re-legalising cigarettes and then we'll be back to where we are now. Although it requires a bit more patience, it might be safer to wait a couple more years as the 'outdoor smoking laws' strengthen social incentives and norms. They might even be able to come up with additional measures to accelerate this process. I agree that we're close to the point where banning cigarettes is feasible. But whether we've actually past that point...