I&#x27;d argue that alcohol is a completely different beast.<p>Most people start smoking to be &quot;cool&quot; or because their friends smoke (or both). It&#x27;s a fact that very few people start to smoke after their eighteenth birthday. If we remove the access to cigarettes and make it uncool to smoke, I firmly believe very few people would start. (I&#x27;d be ok with a period of cigarette prescriptions, so all those who smoke now and want to keep doing it could in non-public spaces.)<p>With alcohol it&#x27;s different, most people start to drink to get wasted, of course some level of &quot;coolness&quot; is involved and to a large degree friends, but the lure of getting high is there. Alcohol seems to fill an almost universal need for intoxication (and if it&#x27;s not alcohol it&#x27;s some other drug).<p>&gt; The latency times for tobacco effects in general make it a doozy of a thing to study<p>Sure, but given that the damaging effects of smoking has been proven, I for one would rather play it safe. I want to have my freedom to choose when to expose myself to something that may be damaging to my body and my body alone. I don&#x27;t want that choice to be done for me by someone else just because they feel like lighting up while we wait for the bus or whatever.