"I have never heard of anyone being driven to acts of violence by smoking."

I have seen some threaten violence when deprived of it...

But it is not terribly useful to try to equate tobacco & alcohol when deciding about taxes & bans..etc.

The major difference is: alcohol is not automatically harmful. Tobacco is. NO good can come of cigarettes...some folks live longer than others, but ALL smokers' health is affected. Moderate use of alcohol can be benefical.

We all know that IF someone just discovered this year that you could dry tobacco plants, chop it up and wrap paper around it and set fire to it and inhale the results.....and then applied to the FDA for permission to market it, they woud be turned down flat!
Tobacco is still legal because they got billions of people addicted before they proved how damaging it is.

Yes...I realize that IF it were banned, some folks would figger out how to grow their own, but tobacco addiction is a bit different than pot. You can survive a day at work without pot, but if you had to find a way to have an illegal ciggy every 20 minutes, it might make many more serious about quitting....(and tobacco is, I think, a bit harder to grow & process.)

Like all disputes, it ain't totally clear what the best path is....but simply giving up on limiting tobacco dangers is one BAD idea.