I think there should be much more focus on the question of whether this is actually a positive intervention than just one paragraph noting that you haven’t thought about the benefits.
The claim that most smokers don’t seem to want to quit seems really important to me, and could reduce the scale of the problem to the effects of secondhand smoke vs net benefits to smokers, which might be better treated with other policies (like indoor smoking bans for example).
The Gruber paper (linked below in my comment) suggests that reducing smoking actually makes the population of smokers and potential smokers happier.
In any case, it doesn’t appear to me true that most smokers don’t want to quit—see data on the US and even in China where most people don’t want to quit, a strong majority (70%) supports the government doing more to control smoking.
I think there should be much more focus on the question of whether this is actually a positive intervention than just one paragraph noting that you haven’t thought about the benefits.
The claim that most smokers don’t seem to want to quit seems really important to me, and could reduce the scale of the problem to the effects of secondhand smoke vs net benefits to smokers, which might be better treated with other policies (like indoor smoking bans for example).
The Gruber paper (linked below in my comment) suggests that reducing smoking actually makes the population of smokers and potential smokers happier.
In any case, it doesn’t appear to me true that most smokers don’t want to quit—see data on the US and even in China where most people don’t want to quit, a strong majority (70%) supports the government doing more to control smoking.