Risk, Rationality and the Consumption of Tobacco¹

Abstract

Everyone acknowledges that the consumption of tobacco is a risky activity. Like many other risky activities it is undertaken by a lot of individuals. In this sense it is not surprising that people continue to smoke after being warned about the risks; they also continue to partake in dangerous sports, and to consume other products that are dangerous but society does not make such a serious effort to stop them. Why then, does smoking receive such attention from policy-makers? I would argue that there are three reasons for this. By far the most important is the view that smoking is irrational. Rationality involves the pursuit of a consistent objective or set of objectives, taking full account of all information available at the time the decisions are made. Policy makers are of the view that smokers are too easily persuaded by the advertisers and by peer group norms about the desirability of smoking, and that once they have started, smoking changes their habits or preferences. Hence their decision to continue is no longer ’rational’. Rationality would require that they took account of this habit-forming aspect when they first started, and there is little evidence, they argue, that this is the case².

I would like to thank the participants of the conference on the Social Costs of Smoking, held in Lausanne in August 1998 for helpful comments on an earlier draft. Thanks are also due to my colleagues Pamela Mason and Paul Heap for some guidance on the literature. All errors are, of course, mine.