Smoking is a vice, not a crime: Understanding the Tobacco Bill

ALL crimes are vices, yet not all vices are crimes.

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This concept is most clearly illustrated by the new Tobacco Products and Electronic Delivery Systems Bill. In its effort to curb the vice of smoking, or more precisely, its harmful effects, this bill has effectively criminalised smoking even within the home.

Crimes should be understood as actions that harm others: actions that infringe upon the rights of another. In the absence of harm to others, is there any justification for an action to be considered a crime?

A prevailing perspective is that state violence — manifested through criminalisation and its associated measures — is justified against certain actions that do not cause harm to others.

Actions that attract criminal sanctions without directly harming others are considered vices. Vices are actions, habits, or practices regarded as sinful (subject to sin taxes), harmful, or socially unacceptable. Drug criminalisation is the clearest example of how a vice is criminalised.

Within the context of rights, the consumption of substances that harm the consumer does not violate the rights of others.