The addicts can use patches, gum, e-cigs, dip.. basically anything that does not inflict misery on everyone who comes in contact with them. I honestly don't know how it is still legal to smoke on the beach or in public parks. Having a nice day on this beautiful beach? Great, allow me to sit 10 feet from you and light up a disgusting cancer stick and ruin it. **** those people.

it actually is illegal on some beaches here on Long Island, but nobody enforces it, and the smokers ignore the rules

Your title is very different from your post. Are you saying to make cigarettes illegal or make public smoking illegal?

I hate the filthy things but prohibition never works.

soda should be taxed like cigarettes

Throw in processed food along with that.

Fatties are going to get fat regardless.

For cigarettes it works pretty easily imho since they are just after the nicotine.

I don't think a ban would be practical or effective. And though it may not help you in the moment when you're around a smoker, its important to realize that American society has made huge strides toward eliminating smoking in the last thirty years or so. Back in the day, you could smoke virtually anywhere...stadiums, at work, restaurants, poker tables. It was a very short list of places where you couldn't smoke.

Its hard to quit and the motivation to quit has to come from within the smoker. People are still making the choice to quit and its saving and extending lives. Its a process.

Why can't they just start vaping? Cigarettes are just a nicotine delivery system.

No, they aren't. I quit smoking years ago and have been vaping since. If you could remove the health risks of smoking I'd go buy a pack right now and throw all my vape gear in the trash.

Smoking is just about the stupidest thing you can do.

FWIW, e-cigs are treated exactly like smoking by non-smokers. They are basically banned everywhere that cigarettes are, and people will still cry foul on your choices. It seems like e-cigs are under a brighter microscope than cigarettes at times, but then again William Morris has a lot of shut up money.

I'm all in favor of forever-increasing taxes on tobacco-anything, and don't really have a upper limit. Zero concern about smokers' rights, Big Tobacco, or the poor farmers. On this one particular thing I don't feel any need to be reasonable or fair, hearing belabored Constitutional arguments about Murica freedom or whatever. I'm just in favor of doing whatever discourages it short of criminalization (which would be another stupid and expensive disaster).

I don't necessarily have a consistent view on this, admittedly, or extend it to junk food or soda or marijuana. Or at least not to the same extent. Tobacco just seems to suck in so many ways to me that I have it in its own category.

I agree with this.
As for the OP, no of course cigarettes shouldn't be illegal. Do you hate freedom??

I cant imagine what it must have been like when that **** was the norm everywhere. Flying on a smoke filled airplane for hours? God, that would be legitimate torture.

Making it illegal is dumb tho, for lots of reasons. Just tax the **** out of them to whatever amount generates as much money as they are a net burden to society. It's been shown that raising the price on them is about the only thing that actually lowers smoking rates anyway.

That's why they had a non-smoking section.

There are a lot of things way stupider. Prohibition is definitely not a viable option...anyone who has actually experienced addiction firsthand or known someone who has will understand this very well. It's not something that can be "fixed" with a simple law change. Continuing to put funding into educating young people, while simultaneously increasing taxes is the best course of action right now imo.

I like what France is doing with putting ****ed-up disease pictures on the packages

I am not saying to make nicotine illegal, just cigarettes. I want to be unburdened by the delivery system of their nicotine.

Easy to argue that there are many more things that you should be worried about in this world than secondhand smoke. And overall I think the USA has done a great job on limiting smoking in public places.

OMGG - I think what you missed earlier in zikzak's response bears more explaining. Smoking itself is part of the experience for a lot of people who smoke, for most it's not just an interchangeable means of getting nicotine in their system. Some might go vape or whatever, but most won't. It's important to recognize that part of it when weighing solutions.

Quick glance, but you can get a 2-week nicotine supply of patches for like $25 if you paid retail, which gets you three packs of cigarettes where I live, and there are means to get nicotine treatment patches and other stuff free if you want. Comparable nicotine dosage, with no mess, no smell, no having to go outside (etc). Yet with all the obvious price, health and social advantages, people still smoke.

how about public outdoor places?

Where I live, and from my experience in other sates as well, smoking isn't allowed, and is punishable by a fine and citation in municipal parks, and is only permissible in small designated areas in state/national parks. I think that's a pretty fair compromise. Do you think smoking should be banned from anyone just walking or driving down their own street? In their own backyard? Even in commercial areas, utilizing resources on stopping smokers seems practically unenforceable and a huge waste of time and money.

You'd almost literally have to be ******ed to actually believe this. The average eight-year-old could probably come up with a few hundred things more stupid.