Tobacco gangsters

Your Editorial of 28 June was uncharacteristically naive in suggesting
that a total ban on tobacco could be useful.

I have never smoked a cigarette in my life and loathe being
exposed to other people's tobacco smoke, but I am quite sure that
criminalisation is not a viable solution. The only effect of banning
tobacco would be to transfer the vast sums of money earned by a legal
industry into the hands of organised crimimals (who could not control
the quality of the product and would use violence to control financial
matters).

Not only would taxes be lost, but substantial public funds
would have to be spent enforcing an unenforceable ban. The same
effect occurred during prohibition in the US, where onethird of police
expenditure went on controlling alcohol usage, allowing the Mafia to
develop a power base that they would never otherwise have achieved.

A modern example is the ridiculous and widely flouted global
prohibition on cannabis. Ultimately, if members of a free society decide
that they are prepared to pay to indulge in a harmful activity, invoking
the criminal law creates more problems than it solves.

Peter ShawSouthlands College, Wimbledon