The single most important thing they did to turn the tide against smoking, to create a strong disincentive, was to make it a lot more expensive of a habit. Cigarettes used to be inexpensive when I was growing up in the 1980s. Now you'll nearly spend a car payment on just a pack per day. Chain smoker? There went your rent for the month.
Chinese men are the most voracious smokers in human history, they consume nearly half of all cigarettes smoked on the planet. They don't know cigarettes are bad for them? Of course they do. The imagery would make little difference unto itself. Smoking hasn't been made wildly expensive in China yet, that's the single biggest issue. It's also not enough of a socially excluding behavior yet in China; the party could take care of that if they wanted to (they will eventually, it will be a health & social wellness thing they aggressively focus on in the future; they allow it for now, for obvious reasons, as a placative).
The second most important thing authorities did to curb smoking, was the imagery & information campaign. That has been quite successful, it's distinctly branded as an ugly, nasty, killer, social excluding taboo habit now.
The third most important thing the authorities did, is push regulations such that smokers became quasi socially excluded and couldn't easily smoke anywhere considered a public space and at work. They added friction to the smoking process, making it a far bigger hassle.
The recipe was: much higher cost, persistent information campaign, added friction, social exclusion.
By definition, everyone who does illegal drugs is somewhat flexible with regards to suggestions from authority.
One of the core propositions of cigarettes was always that they were legal. They catered to both the rule breaker and (substantially bigger) rule follower markets.
So it seems apples and oranges with regards to imagery / warning effectiveness due to the only partially overlapping consumers.
But guess who gets incarcerated more because of the “war on drugs” and guess what happens when it starts affecting the suburbs? It’s then treated like “a disease”.
Tell me again why I want to give the government more power?
There's plenty stories online about people who have, multiple times, tried to quit smoking and didn't manage it. But they had no issues switching to e-cigs, and then a few months down the line were able to stop using e-cigs - without any urges to return to any kind of smoking.
Wasn't it general awareness of the dangers, that did not existed before?
And when it started to rise generations were already addicted and simply a new generation needed to rise and slowly overcome it.
So rather .. a mix of it all? Because even though tobacco is expensive today, that doesn't stop the smokers from smoking. And people have lots of other expensive habits, so money is only a small part of it I believe.
In the UK it mostly was increased prices, coupled with free smoking cessation services, and with changes in law to make smoking illegal inside many buildings (workplaces, shops, pubs, cafés etc).
Vaping was useful to move remaining smokers to different nicotine delivery mechanisms.
The single most important thing they did to turn the tide against smoking, to create a strong disincentive, was to make it a lot more expensive of a habit. Cigarettes used to be inexpensive when I was growing up in the 1980s. Now you'll nearly spend a car payment on just a pack per day. Chain smoker? There went your rent for the month.
Chinese men are the most voracious smokers in human history, they consume nearly half of all cigarettes smoked on the planet. They don't know cigarettes are bad for them? Of course they do. The imagery would make little difference unto itself. Smoking hasn't been made wildly expensive in China yet, that's the single biggest issue. It's also not enough of a socially excluding behavior yet in China; the party could take care of that if they wanted to (they will eventually, it will be a health & social wellness thing they aggressively focus on in the future; they allow it for now, for obvious reasons, as a placative).
The second most important thing authorities did to curb smoking, was the imagery & information campaign. That has been quite successful, it's distinctly branded as an ugly, nasty, killer, social excluding taboo habit now.
The third most important thing the authorities did, is push regulations such that smokers became quasi socially excluded and couldn't easily smoke anywhere considered a public space and at work. They added friction to the smoking process, making it a far bigger hassle.
The recipe was: much higher cost, persistent information campaign, added friction, social exclusion.