Mallory on Tobacco

Mallory has a moving post, actually a series of posts, on the evils of tobacco. My own feeling is that this problem is a huge public health issue and should be addressed more seriously. More people die from tobacco than from methamphetamine. More people die from alcohol as well. What are we going to do about it?

We should have learned from Prohibition, however, that you can't sail straight upwind on these issues. You can make headway, but only if you stop listening to the demogogues and spend your money in the right places. Moral absolutism, longer prison sentences, property confiscation are turning the US gradually toward police state tactics and 3rd world corruption. We need to eliminate the bad money by legalizing the drugs and controlling the drug markets.