Smoking and drinking alcohol are not directly comparable, because there is no _direct_ harm to anyone but the drinker, from alcohol. And in fact, a lot of the medical evidence indicates that if it's held to one or two a day, alcohol consumption at that level does more good than harm.

The problem is, of course, that some people can drink their one or two a day and stop, and others can't. And when you go beyond that, you not only harm your own body, you start driving drunk and killing others, or you beat up your wife/girl friend/husband/boy friend/whatever, and you in general become a slob.

A truly rational alcohol law would neither impose prohibition, nor let everyone have as much as they wanted, but put everyone on a fixed ration - say two drinks a day - maybe only one for women, as the physiology people say they are more sensitive then men. Obviously, this isn't going to happen in the near future - but neither is a new prohibition.

Smoking tobacco starts messing the people around you up, from the first puff. It isn't a personal liberty issue. One of the key points of Libertarianism is that a civilized person, in the context of a civilized society, does not _initiate_ the use of violence (except in a game or training session, or formal duel, entered into by mutual consent and with agreed rules). If punching me in the nose is initiating violence, how can blowing poison in my face not be?

Peter