John E. Calfee

John E. Calfee is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. In the following viewpoint, he criticizes anti-smoking strategies espoused by some activists and government officials that, according to him, seem aimed more at punishing tobacco companies rather than reducing smoking. Past American public health campaigns succeeded in cutting America’s consumption of cigarettes by emphasizing education on tobacco’s health hazards and individual responsibility, he argues, but more recent anti-smoking efforts have been predicated on the assumption that smokers are helpless victims of a predatory tobacco industry. Proposed reforms such as raising cigarette taxes, banning tobacco advertising, placing cigarettes under greater regulation, and suing tobacco companies for damages will most likely fail to reduce tobacco consumption and may well incur significant social costs, Calfee concludes.

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