Comment by slibhb
5 hours ago
It's sad that the UK, which invented liberal philosophy, is increasingly accepting of paternalism. It's important that people have an inviolable personal sphere inside which they can live their lives as they see fit. That includes making decisions of which society disaproves.
Moreover, essentially all behavior plausibly has "diffuse negative externalities". We should be very careful about adopting that ("harms others in diffuse ways") as a reasonable standard for banning some behavior.
It's been this way for over 60 years. Big Mommy tells you how to live.
The real answer would be to ban all commercial cultivation and sales, but keep personal consumption legal. It's the multi-billion dollar tobacco industry that systematically hooks people through advertising, not the plant. Something tells me not many folks will be growing tobacco plants in their basement to get a fix.