Banning Smoking Could Lead to Banning Smoking

Michael Siegel, an anti-smoking activist whose whither-the-movement blog is must reading for people interested in tobacco policy, starts to see the movement's critics have a point when they decry its prohibitionist tendencies:

When I used to hear smokers' rights groups claim that the anti-smoking movement was really about prohibition, I thought it was complete crap. But within the past few months, I'm starting to see that there is an element of truth to those claims. There is a faction within the tobacco control movement that I believe is motivated primarily by a hate for smokers and nothing short of prohibition will ever satisfy this element….This element now seems to be the driving force, or a major driving force, within the movement. I think, therefore, that it is not inaccurate to state that the anti-smoking movement is now on a path towards advocating prohibition.