On this date in 1933, Americans ratified the Twenty-First Amendment to the Constitution, officially repealing the Eighteenth Amendment that had ushered in Prohibition of alcohol just 14 years prior. Many of us will toast the occasion the same way Americans did in 1933: with a good drink. If you're so inclined, you may also want to light up a smoke while you still can. Ninety years after the end of one era of Prohibition, we are gradually creeping into a new one forbidding the sale of tobacco and/or nicotine. And just as in that previous era, these laws are encouraging illicit markets, forcing consumers to buy more dangerous products, and leading to the arrest and prosecution of sellers.
Like the temperance movement of the previous century, the movement to eradicate tobacco and nicotine is global in scope. In the United Kingdom, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is pushing to implement the world's first nationwide "smoke-free generation" law, which would make it illegal for Brits currently aged 14 and under to ever purchase combustible tobacco for their entire lives. A similar law was passed and nearly enacted in New Zealand but will be reversed by the election of a new government.
