In the 20th century tobacco use killed an estimated 100 million people — more than both world wars combined. Most of those smokers had no idea what they were doing to themselves. Tobacco’s deadliness was exposed more than 50 years ago but still one in five adults smokes. If this continues, tobacco use could kill a billion people this century as the population expands. The war on tobacco has been raging for decades in the most developed countries but has barely begun elsewhere. From 1980 to 2013, smoking rates in the Americas fell by almost two-thirds but by only about half as much in Africa and a third as much in the Middle East. The habit has actually gained popularity in China.

The Situation

The newest battle in the tobacco wars is over plain packaging, which threatens the profits of cigarette makers by impairing their ability to earn a premium on upmarket brands. Tobacco companies are fighting laws like Australia’s, which requires cigarettes to be sold in a brown wrapper largely covered by graphic health warnings. To try to prevent a similar U.K. law from taking effect in 2016, companies have filed lawsuits claiming destruction of their trademarks and violation of trade rules. Ireland also plans to enact plain packaging next year, and France and New Zealand are considering it. Australia’s highest court rejected a challenge to the law in 2012 but companies are still fighting it in tribunals under the auspices of the World Trade Organization. The high cost of defending against such suits is one reason poorer nations, home to 80 percent of the world’s smokers, have enacted few and relatively weak tobacco-control regulations, according to public health groups. Nevertheless, in China, where 44 percent of all cigarettes are smoked, the national legislature banned smoking in public places as of June.

The Background

Tobacco was chewed and smoked by native Americans for centuries before Italian explorer Christopher Columbus brought it to Europe in the 1400s. Smoking became widespread after the invention of a cigarette-rolling machine in 1881. In both world wars, millions of U.S. troops were given free cigarettes, causing smoking and lung cancer cases to soar. In 1964, the first report by a U.S. surgeon general on smoking warned the public of links to cancer and heart disease. Bans on tobacco advertising followed on both sides of the Atlantic. Anti-tobacco sentiment surged in the U.S. after tobacco company executives told Congress in 1994 that they didn’t believe cigarettes were addictive, and that evidence linking them to deadly disease was inconclusive. Just a few years later, the companies agreed to pay a total of about $206 billion over 25 years to compensate governments for Medicaid expenses and to fund programs to reduce youth smoking. In 2003, a Florida appeals court overturned a $145 billion judgment against the companies in a class-action suit filed by smokers, leading to thousands of smaller legal challenges. An increasing awareness of the hazards of second-hand smoke has led to bans on smoking in enclosed spaces in numerous jurisdictions around the world. Tobacco taxes, long a means of raising government revenue, increasingly have been used to discourage smoking.

The Argument

When it comes to arguments about smoking, there are two main camps: those who prioritize personal liberty and those who prioritize health. Libertarians argue that tobacco-control measures violate smokers’ rights. They consider cigarette taxes overly burdensome, especially for the poor. They say jury awards against tobacco companies are irresponsible because smokers know the risks but light up anyway. And they maintain that government has no business trying to stop individuals from harming themselves. Public health advocates see high taxes as one of a number of effective ways to reduce tobacco use, especially among the poor, who are most sensitive to price increases. They say tobacco companies surreptitiously market cigarettes to impressionable teenagers to get them hooked early. They argue that tobacco rarely affects just the smoker, given the dangers of second-hand smoke and the cost to health-care systems of smoking-related disease.