Tobacco, mainly in form of cigarettes, is one of the most-widely used drugs in the world. Over a billion adults legally smoke tobacco every day. The long term health costs are high - for smokers themselves, and for the wider community in terms of health care costs and lost productivity. Do governments have a legitimate role to legislate, to protect citizens from the harmful effects of their own decisions to smoke, or are such decisions up to the individual?

Despite of all the harmful effects of tobacco, it is legal in nearly all the countries. Over a billion people across the world of different age groups smoke cigarettes. Both the active and passive smokers have serious impacts on health, many suffer from cancer, asthma and other lung and heart related problems – but still it is not banned.

Often, people start smoking during their college due to peer pressure. However, soon they are addicted to it. Many smokers have erratic responses about the harmful effects – some say, that they live only once and thus should enjoy life to the fullest; and others it is all written in destiny. Such behaviour force to think that governments must intervene and ban tobacco. On the other hand, it was found that many people in developing and under developed countries were not aware of the adverse effects of smoking – when realised they gave up smoking.

Governments over years have legislated and reduced the consumption of cigarette over the past years by levying more tax on cigarettes and some countries increased the age for smoking to 21 years. All adults are sensible and thus are responsible for the decisions they make. Instead of a forced ban, individuals must act responsibly and understand that being healthy and living long will let them and their families lead a happy life. 

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