This will open up a black market  The lesson of prohibition of alcohol in America in the 1920s was that banning a recreational drug used by a large proportion of the population merely leads to crime and contraband.  A case of this is India, where the contraband trade of cigarettes consists of the international brands that are smuggled into India and the duty evaded cigarettes manufactured domestically by small and unscrupulous manufacturers. "With steep duty increases over the last few years this segment has grown exponentially," the Tobacco Institute of India states1.  Not only is there a case to be made for a flourishing black market, countries lose with this control over the products and can harm their citizens even more with not controlling the consumed substances.  1 Ashish Sinha, High tax on cigarettesmaking contraband market flourish, The Financial Express, published 11/05/2010,