Tobacco and the Law

The use of tobacco has never been eliminated from any country or major culture into which it was introduced. This is noteworthy since efforts to control the use of tobacco were equal to those used to control other forms of behaviour such as crime and religious sin. Opposition to tobacco use took a variety of forms. Surprisingly, severe and immediate punishment proved no more effective in halting smoking than current fears of long-term health consequences.

Rulers came and went, but tobacco remained. Later, governments underwent a conversion of sorts, prompted primarily by the realization that tobacco was an excellent source of revenue - derived either from customs dues (such as those introduced by Cardinal Richelieu in France in 1629) or from the sale of monopolies to deal in tobacco goods. Bohemia was fortified in 1668 with money derived from the tobacco trade, and the Emperor Leopold of Austria used tobacco revenue to finance elaborate hunting expeditions. The scale of tobacco revenue is regarded by many as under-lying many governments' half-hearted endorsement of the anti-tobacco cause.

Smoking Prohibiting

As a result, smoking was strictly forbidden, and anyone breaking the law could be arrested and punished by fine, imprisonment, or physical punishment. The reference to the rights of nonsmokers is echoed in the recent campaign to have greater restrictions placed on public areas in which smoking may take place.

Pope Urban VIII issued a formal decree against tobacco in 1642 and Pope Innocent X issued another in 1650, but clergy as well as laymen continued to smoke. Bavaria prohibited tobacco in 1652, Saxony in 1653, Zurich in 1667, and across Europe. In Constantinople in 1633 the Sultan Mural IV decreed the death penalty for smoking tobacco. Wherever the Sultan went on his travels or military expeditions, his stopping places were frequently marked by executions of tobacco smokers. In spite of the horrors and insane cruelties inflicted by the Sultan, whose blood-lust seemed to increase with age, the passion for smoking persisted in-his domain.

The first of the Romanov Czars, Mikhail Feodorovich, also prohibited smoking, under dire penalties, in 1634. "Offenders are usually sentenced to slitting of the nostrils, beatings, or whippings," a visitor to Moscow noted. Yet, in1698 smokers in Moscow would pay far more for tobacco than English smokers, "and if they lack money, they will sell their clothes for it, to the very shirt."By 1603 the use of tobacco was well established in Japan and an edict prohibiting smoking was pronounced. Finally, in 1612 it was decreed that the property of any man detected selling tobacco should be handed over to his accuser, and anyone arresting a man conveying tobacco on a pack-horse might take both horse and tobacco for his own.

Yet in spite of all attempts at repression smoking became so general that in 1615 even the officers in attendance on the Shogun used tobacco. Finally, even the princes who were responsible for the prohibition took to smoking. Tobacco had won again. In 1625 permission was given to cultivate and plant tobacco. By 1639 tobacco had taken its place as an accompaniment to the ceremonial cup of tea offered to a guest.

Legislation and Taxation

Scandinavian countries, which have the highest tobacco taxes, have the lowest per capita use of cigarettes. Since much of the price reflects the tax on tobacco, it can be seen that heavy taxation does reduce the use of tobacco. More recently, "clean air" or "public smoking" legislation has been passed which restricts the use of tobacco in many public places. Most of these laws require certain kinds of places, such as restaurants, to maintain separate smoking and non-smoking areas for their patrons. While such legislation has been passed to protect nonsmokers from involuntary intake of tobacco smoke, it is also seen by some as a restriction on the freedom of smokers to smoke where and when they please. The proponents of clean air ordinances argue that exposure to tobacco smoke endangers health and well-being. They claim that the right to smoke has neither amoral nor constitutional basis.

The controversy is probably a healthy one even if smoking is not. Certainly, freedom should be protected. As was shown earlier, the evidence that smoking is a specific cause of death and disease is strong, much stronger than the data accepted as sufficient to eliminate lead from petrol, asbestos from building materials, and PCB's from water supplies.