Eradication without prohibition? International developments in tobacco control policies in the twenty-first century

Abstract

This article offers an analytical synthesis of international trends in public policies to regulate tobacco in the first quarter of the twenty-first century. It begins with a review of the densification of the repertoire of public action and the affirmation of a strategy that consists of encircling tobacco (designated as an enemy) and attacking it through a variety of material and symbolic tactics. Tobacco regulation is a constantly dynamic process, due to the intensity of the exchanges of blows between protagonists: these agonistic interactions are reflected in framing struggles that lead to a diversification of tobacco qualifications. Tobacco is thus framed as a health issue, but also as an environmental problem and a challenge for social justice. Finally, the article shows how, at the end of a quarter-century of diverse mobilizations, the gradual formulation of a paradigm shift is taking shape, in which the objective of public action is no longer simply to control tobacco, but to eliminate it as a commodity.