Would California’s Proposed Tobacco Tax Hike Reduce Smoking?

Your post illustrates a perhaps unintended contrast with Prohibition. This tax increase is NOT a ban. It does not criminalize the production or sale of tobacco. Furthermore Prohibition did NOT criminalize the possession or consumption of alcohol.

So if we are to postulate an exact repeat of the Volstead Act for tobacco products, we would have to imagine a complete ban on the production, distribution, and sale, but not the criminalization of possession or consumption of, all tobacco products.

Under this scenario I believe it would be nearly impossible for the modern-day equivalent of bootleggers to thrive. Tobacco is produced in only three states domestically, and with drones and other technologies it would be hard for large fields to be grown “under the radar.” Some greenhouse and hydroponic operations might be able to slip by unnoticed but I don't think it would be worth the effort.

Foreign grown tobacco is another matter. China produces ten times the amount of tobacco that is grown in the United States. So smuggling would become a big effort for criminal gangs. But I doubt it would repeat the same experience as Prohibition. Sixty percent of American say they had a drink in the last thirty days, while just seventeen percent say they smoke. I just don't think there's the same profit to be made, with the same inventive for violence, with cigarettes.

Admittedly there are more smokers than illegal drug users, but unlike drugs I think excessive taxation and an outright ban would force more people to quit smoking tobacco than would force people to quit smoking grass. The attendant desperation and crime that drug addition causes would also not be present in an environment of tobacco prohibition, in my opinion. There would be a lot of cranky smokers for sure.

The bottom line is that I do not support these excessive tax rates on tobacco, nor do I favor a prohibition on the stuff either. The whole anti-smoking hysteria is another example of the American penchant for self-righteous and overzealous extremes, from Prohibition to today's movement to take “civil rights” to absurd places.

Thanks for that reading. I was just trying to equate the two since I bet that tobacco will be banned like alcohol was during Prohibition. I didn't say the tax was a ban, I simply put it that taxes on tobacco can be raised as high and the government wants to but it will not dissuade people from smoking.

There were two parts to the Prohibition act: The Volstead Act and a Constitutional ban, the 18th. Amendment. The Volstead Act passed in 1919 enabled the US government to enforce the 18th. Amendment.

The 18th Amendment was introduced into the Senate in 1917, and it was successfully ratified by 1919, when the need for the Volstead Act to enable its enforcement became clear. Under the 18th Amendment, “intoxicating liquor” was essentially prohibited within the United States. The law was passed in response to the temperance movement, which had gathered large numbers of followers. Adherents to the movement believed that the consumption of alcohol was harmful, and that society in general would benefit if alcohol was banned.

So basically it was for the "good of the nation" and I'll bet that sometime down the road they'll do the same for tobacco; you know, it's for the children.

That's very possible. Your mention of temperance movements reflects my suggestion that moral extremism is a deep rooted American trait. Consider the nutty gender identity movement that tries to claim the moral high ground of the civil rights era. Or the whole affirmative action effort that could be a justifiable recruiting and mentoring program but instead replaces racism with racism and gives us the concept of “white privilege.”

I wonder if anyone has realized that the large numbers of new immigrants the left is importing are from places where the majority are smokers.

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