Can smoking be prevented by making tobacco illegal?

Smoking is a really old tradition. Smoking has been practiced in one form or another

since ancient times. Tobacco and various hallucinogenic drugs were smoked all over the

Americas as early as 5000 BC in shamanistic rituals and originated in the Peruvian and

Ecuadorian Andes. Cigarette smoking is the most common form of tobacco use in the United

State. Smoking tobacco is a global epidemic, many countries have been working to reduce

smoking because many people die prematurely from tobacco related diseases, and they haven’t

prevented it yet. Making tobacco illegal won’t prevent smoking because prohibition makes it

more popular, tobacco is harmful to people’s health and even so they are still using it and drugs

are illegal and that hasn’t stopped the consumption of drugs.

Firstly, there is a great deal of research which demonstrates that humans are more

attracted to things that are prohibited. The researchers call this the “forbidden fruit hypothesis,”

based upon previous research that has demonstrated that people find things more desirable when

they off-limits or forbidden. So, that means that if the tobacco would be illegal, people will feel

more attracted to it. Tobacco will be more difficult to find and that will create a black market,

who will sell the tobacco illegally.

Moreover, tobacco is harmful to people’s health and even so they are still using it.

Smoking in long-term users causes cancer, heart disease, stroke, lung diseases, diabetes, and

chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), which includes emphysema and chronic

bronchitis. Smoking also increases risk for tuberculosis, certain eye diseases, and problems of the

immune system, including rheumatoid arthritis. In Dominican Republic the General Health Law

Number 42-01 in the article 124 establishes the following: On the labels of the packages and

containers in which it is sold or supply tobacco, the legend must appear clearly and visibly:
"Smoking is harmful to health ", written in easily legible and colored letters contrasting. But

people don’t pay attention to that label. Due to tobacco smoking every year, more than 5100

people are killed by tobacco-caused disease in the Dominican Republic. Why smokes if it is so

bad for your health? That because tobacco creates addiction and people cannot control it.

Finally, drugs are illegal and that hasn’t stopped the consumption of drugs. An estimated

of 208 million people internationally consume illegal drugs. In the United States, results from the

2007 National Survey on Drug Use and Health showed that 19.9 million Americans (or 8% of

the population aged 12 or older) used illegal drugs in the month prior to the survey. Therefore, a

ban on tobacco would not be an effective way to reduce the number of smokers.

To conclude, there is no doubt that the prohibition of tobacco wouldn’t prevent smoking,

that will create a black market. More people will be more attracted to it; it would affect the

economy of the governments of many that receive a lot of profits from the production and sale of

cigarettes. I think that the best way to reduce smoking is create more conscious campaign about

the permanent harm to people’s health that the tobacco can do in long term users, and that will

gradually reduce smoking. But being honestly I think that smoking cannot be prevented, it

eventually at some time can be reduced.

By Cinthia Peralta

Works Cited

General Health Law Number 42-01

Preventing Tobacco Use among youth and young adults: A Report of the Surgeon General.

https://tobaccoatlas.org/country/dominican-republic/