[Gabz]

SheLion, far be it from me to wish to get into an arguement with you, but as others have pointed out here and on other threads, nicotine, like its relative caffeine, is technically a drug.

I don't buy in to the Bravo sierra that nicotine is more addictive than heroin or cocaine, but that does not change the truth that it is a "drug."

The vast majority of drugs are legal, just walk down the cold/cough or allergy aisle of any drug store or supermarket. Much of the stuff found on those shelves used to be available by prescription only, some as recently as a year ago.

Cocaine and marijuana were legal commodities at one time, just as both alcohol and tobacco have been illegal at times in the past.

Do I think the War On (some) Drugs is a horrendous waste of money and manpower? Yes, but that is not my fight. My fight, because I am only one person, is to keep tobacco from going the way of things like marijuana.

[TKDietz]

Over-taxation and over-regulation are sure fire ways to kill an industry. While I'm no fan of paying taxes or putting up with government regulations, this is one place where I am all for it, at least to a certain degree. Nicotine is an extremely addictive drug and cigarettes are killing millions of Americans. I would never make them illegal, because when we totally prohibit a substance, we as a society lose all control over the market for that substance. And in the case of drugs, I believe governemt regulation is not only okay, it's necessary.

It's my understanding that cigarette smoking has gone down over the years considerably. It's down by close to half if I'm not mistaken since the early 1970's, especially among young people. It's difficult to pin down the exact reasons for this phenomenom, but education, regulation and taxation probably all had some impact.

Now all we need to do is follow the cigarette model with marijuana, legalize it, regulate and tax the crap out of it and see if we can't cut use like we've done with cigarettes. I don't know if I'd go that far with other drugs because some are just too dangerous and addictive, but it seems to me that when it comes to non-medical use of drugs, regulated markets are preferable to unregulated markets because at least society can have some measure of control over a regulated market. We should be quite conservative though when it comes to banning substances entirely. Liberal use of prohibition is a bad idea that doesn't succeed in its intended purpose and that does in fact cause a great degree of additional problems for society.