It will never happen because of all the money the government collects in taxes on tobacco.
What you're missing, if you read closely, is that they don't want you to stop buying cigarettes, they only want you to stop smoking.
In the Utopia these guys envision, you'll keep buying cigarettes, one or two packs a day, but you'll just throw them out and buy another pack or two the next day, so they keep up the tax collections.
That's what I was thinking, the state governments especially are hooked on tobacco taxes. The stuff will just come in illegally, and not be taxed at all.
Exactly, for the same reason Abraham Lincoln went to war: to keep southern tariff collections intact!
As less people smoke, which is the trend, less taxes are collected. At some point there will be a tipping point where the tax revenues drop below the threshold where it can be made illegal.