Over 30 million adults smoke in the US, according to CDC. Banning all forms of nicotine will not just “freak out” those people for 2 weeks and then they’ll forg

Over 30 million adults smoke in the US, according to CDC. Banning all forms of nicotine will not just “freak out” those people for 2 weeks and then they’ll forget about it. Do you want a black market? Because that’s how you get a black market. Tobacco is a public health crisis. Encouraging safer alternatives (eg e-cigarettes) and slowly making nicotine consumption socially unacceptable is how you make progress. You don’t solve it by just banning the substance entirely (see how that worked out with alcohol). To add a finer point: nicotine, while an extremely addictive substance, seems to be fairly inoffensive. The delivery mechanism (eg smoking) is what gives you cancer etc. A bunch of people addicted to nicotine does not seem to be much of a public health problem if they’re all using inoffensive delivery mechanisms.