ArticleTobacco control2013
Why ban the sale of cigarettes? The case for abolition.
Article in Tobacco control, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 17 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
17 citing papers in PubMed.
- Educational inequalities and residence-based decomposition in smoking behavior.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Support for banning sale of smoked tobacco products among adults who smoke: findings from the International Tobacco Control Four Country Smoking and Vaping Surveys (2018-2022).Tobacco control · 2025Article
- Global policy scan of commercial combustible tobacco product retailing regulations by WHO region.Tobacco control · 2025Article
- Identifying how tobacco industry-targeted communities perceive California's tobacco endgame initiative.Substance abuse treatment, prevention, and policy · 2025Article
- Building love and justice, ending harms: a framework for abolishing the tobacco and nicotine industry.Health promotion international · 2025Article
- A call to ban the sale of tobacco products.Frontiers in public health · 2022Article
- The association between new graphic health warning labels on tobacco products and attitudes toward smoking among south Korean adolescents: a national cross-sectional study.BMC public health · 2020Article
- Normalizing Tobacco? The Politics of Trade, Investment, and Tobacco Control.The Milbank quarterly · 2019Article
- Willingness to Stop Growing Tobacco in Uganda.Journal of global oncology · 2019Article
- Vape Club: Exploring Non-Profit Regulatory Models for the Supply of Vaporised Nicotine Products.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2018Article
- The tobacco endgame: a qualitative review and synthesis.Tobacco control · 2016Review
- Obsolete tobacco control themes can be hazardous to public health: the need for updating views on absolute product risks and harm reduction.BMC public health · 2016Article
- An international smoking ban-how many lives will be saved?Current atherosclerosis reports · 2014Review
- The changing public image of smoking in the United States: 1964-2014.Cancer epidemiology, biomarkers & prevention : a publication of the American Association for Cancer Research, cosponsored by the American Society of Preventive Oncology · 2014Review
- Article
- Endgame: engaging the tobacco industry in its own elimination.European journal of clinical investigation · 2013Article
- An endgame for tobacco?Tobacco control · 2013Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
1 author.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The cigarette is the deadliest artefact in the history of human civilisation. Most of the richer countries of the globe, however, are making progress in reducing both smoking rates and overall consumption. Many different methods have been proposed to steepen this downward slope, including increased taxation, bans on advertising, promotion of cessation, and expansion of smoke-free spaces. One option that deserves more attention is the enactment of local or national bans on the sale of cigarettes. There are precedents: 15 US states enacted bans on the sale of cigarettes from 1890 to 1927, for instance, and such laws are still fully within the power of local communities and state governments. Apart from reducing human suffering, abolishing the sale of cigarettes would result in savings in the realm of healthcare costs, increased labour productivity, lessened harms from fires, reduced consumption of scarce physical resources, and a smaller global carbon footprint. Abolition would also put a halt to one of the principal sources of corruption in modern civilisation, and would effectively eliminate one of the historical forces behind global warming denial and environmental obfuscation. The primary reason for abolition, however, is that smokers themselves dislike the fact they smoke. Smoking is not a recreational drug, and abolishing cigarettes would therefore enlarge rather than restrict human liberties. Abolition would also help cigarette makers fulfil their repeated promises to 'cease production' if cigarettes were ever found to be causing harm.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.