re: New Orleans City Council Passes Smoking Ban

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So what's the cutoff number? Do we need over 100,000 deaths to ban something? 200,000?

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Neither should be banned.

But, when one substance causes nearly 5x more deaths annually than another substance, I would argue that this first substance likely warrants greater attention than the latter.

Both alcohol and tobacco have their own problems but the fact that smoking not only kills far more people, but also directly impacts the health of others who may choose not to smoke, I think, justifies greater regulation of smoking in certain contexts.