In their interesting paper entitled: “Tobacco industry and public health responses to state and local efforts to end tobacco sales from 1969 – 2020” the authors conclude that “Ending the sale of tobacco products is not a new idea. Unsurprisingly, the tobacco industry has repeatedly opposed it, while somewhat surprisingly, public health groups have only recently endorsed it” [1]. Unfortunately the authors have only researched the past fifty years. Legal attempts to ban tobacco, however, already date back to the seventeenth century. During history tobacco sales bans were only temporary measures and mostly this prohibition was not widely supported. However there are earlier examples of tobacco sales bans that were supported by health advocacy groups. For example at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twenteeth centuries several US states enacted cigarette sales bans and many considered prohibition [2]. These bans were the result of activities of advocacy groups such as the ‘Anti Cigarette League’ which were part of the broader ‘temperence movement’ in the US in that period. But also these bans eventually disappeared. During history governments and health advocacy groups came and went, but until today tobacco always stayed.

References:

1. McDaniel PA, Malone RE. Tobacco industry and public health responses to state and local efforts to end tobacco sales from 1969 – 2020. PLoS ONE 2020;15(5): e0233417. https://doi.org/10.1371/j...
2. Alston LJ, Dupré R, Nonnenmacher T. Social reformers and regulation: the prohibition of cigarettes in the United States and Canada. Explor Econ Hist 2002; 39: 425-445. https://doi.org/10.1016/S...(02)00005-0