Liberal neutrality compels governments to respect individual preferences. Yet health-promotion campaigns, such as modern tobacco control policies, often seek to cultivate a preference for a healthy lifestyle. Liberal theorists have attempted to justify these policies by appealing to the concept of ‘means paternalism’, whereby these policies align with existing preferences. In contrast, this article argues that shaping preferences can be not only permissible but also morally required. Governments can preserve neutrality while influencing preferences by promoting generic goods valued in diverse societies and considering the preference-formation of future generations. This argument provides a stronger rationale for tobacco control policies.

Opinions vary in Japan on whether smoking is deviant today, but the behavior, once widely accepted, faces increasing regulation. Recent reforms, moving beyond reliance on nonsmokers' tolerance and smokers' etiquette, impose stricter and more detailed rules on smoking, along with penalties for noncompliance. As the Japanese government's promotional materials note, the reforms move “from manners to rules” (manā kara rūru e). The evolution of Japan's smoking regulations exemplifies a shift toward more legalistic modes of social control. Historically, Japanese governance relied on non-binding “soft law,” administrative guidance, and societal cooperation. Legalistic governance, in contrast, hinges on formal rules and proceduralized enforcement mechanisms. This article, drawing on twenty-eight interviews and qualitative analysis of policy deliberations, advocacy organization documents, court rulings, and Japanese news coverage, traces how societal actors contributed to this legalistic turn. Tobacco control advocates filed lawsuits, pursued voluntary changes through local activities, and provided information subsidies to policymakers while lobbying for local and national reforms. They thereby helped de-normalize smoking and render it regulatable. By uncovering bottom-up drivers of legalistic governance and the strategies through which societal actors influence regulatory style, this paper contributes to scholarship on governance, policy diffusion, and law and social change.

Smokeless tobacco use among Indian women is increasing despite prevention efforts. Evolutionary theories suggest that reproductive-aged women should be more concerned about immediate threats to reproduction than threats to survival occurring late in life. This study therefore compared an anti-tobacco intervention that emphasized near-term reproductive harms to one involving general harms occurring later in life. Scheduled Tribal women (N = 92) from Karnataka, India participated in this study. At baseline, women reported tobacco use and knowledge of harms, provided a saliva sample to assess use, and randomly viewed either a general harms presentation (GHP) or reproductive harms presentation (RHP). At followup, women reported their use, knowledge of harms and intentions to quit, and provided another saliva sample. At baseline, participants were aware of general harms but not reproductive harms. Both interventions increased knowledge of harms. Women in the RHP condition did not list more harms than women in the GHP condition, however, and the RHP was not more effective in reducing tobacco use than the GHP. In the RHP condition fetal health was particularly salient. In the GHP condition, oral health was highly salient, aligning with the local disease ecology and research on tobacco use and attractiveness.

This article explores the internationalisation of tobacco control as a case study in the history of international health regulation. Contrary to the existing literature on the topic, it argues that the history of international anti-smoking efforts is longer and richer than the making of the World Health Organisation’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control in the early twenty-first century. It thereby echoes the point made by other scholars about the importance of history when making sense of contemporary global health. Specifically, the article shows how the internationalisation of tobacco control started in the 1950s through informal contacts between scientists working on cancer research and how these initial interactions were followed by a growing number of more formal initiatives, from the World Conferences on Tobacco or Health to the Bloomberg Initiative to Reduce Tobacco Use. Rather than arranging these efforts in a linear narrative of progress culminating with the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, we take anthropological claims about global health’s uneven terrain seriously and portray a history of international tobacco control marked by ruptures and discontinuities. Specifically, we identify three successive periods, with each of them characterised by specific understandings of international action, tobacco control expertise, advocacy networks and funding strategies.

This article forges a link between support for European integration and adoption of tobacco advertisement restrictions in Swiss cantons. Leaning on the policy diffusion literature, this article argues that the more voters support deeper European integration, the more likely cantonal governments are to restrict tobacco advertising. Policymakers use voters’ support for more European integration as a signal that they support regulatory policies that are strongly associated with the European Union (EU) in the political and media debate, such as tobacco advertisement bans. This effect ought to be especially strong in the absence of adverse economic interests, such as the presence of the tobacco industry. To buttress these claims, the present article uses statistical analysis, specifically event-history analysis. Apart from the insights about Swiss tobacco control policy, this article contributes to our understanding of indirect EU influence on cantonal policymaking and policy diffusion.

Introduction: With evidence to support the use of text messaging for smoking cessation, some quitlines in North America have incorporated text messaging into their service offerings.

Aims: This study sought to evaluate whether integrated phone counselling and text messaging services are acceptable to quitline callers, and to identify strategies for improving text messaging services in the context of a quitline.

Methods: Thirty-five adult callers of the New Mexico state quitline who had enrolled in multi-call phone counselling and Text2Quit, a text messaging programme, were interviewed by phone. Interviews assessed use and acceptability of the phone counselling and text messaging interventions.

Results: Use of phone counselling and text messaging was generally high among participants. While most participants reported that they would highly recommend Text2Quit (75.8%) or phone counselling (78.8%) individually, a relatively higher proportion indicated they would highly recommend the combined services (93.9%). Suggestions for improvement focused on increased customisation and personalisation.

Conclusions: This study provides preliminary evidence for the acceptability of integrated phone counselling and text messaging services. Research is needed that explores the impact of these widely-used integrated services on smoking cessation.

Over a decade ago, an important debate began concerning the proper role of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in an international legal universe characterized by a large and rapidly increasing number of specialized courts and tribunals. What functions can and should the Court perform in response to the fragmentation of international law, and the proliferation of international tribunals? Initial proposals, especially those emerging in the late 1990s, were hierarchical and centralist in their orientation, and have justifiably fallen out of favour. This article uses the current international legal disputes about Australia's plain packaging tobacco legislation as the basis for an exploration of the possibilities for an alternative, non-centralist vision for the ICJ, which is sensitive both to the institutional limits of the international judiciary, and to the benefits of a fundamentally pluralist international legal order.

Introduction: Given the increased rates of nondaily smoking and the lack of validated measures to assess factors related to nondaily smoking, we aimed to develop a measure of reasons for nondaily smoking among young adults. Specifically, we developed a scale assessing reasons or triggers for nondaily smoking and examined its reliability, factor structure, and concurrent validity. Methods: We administered an online survey to 2,000 students at six colleges in the Southeastern US, and 718 (35.9%) returned a completed survey. The current analyses focused on the 95 participants who reported nondaily smoking (i.e., smoking between 1 and 29 days of the past 30 days). In addition to the items created for scale development, measures included socio-demographics, other measures of motivation and confidence/self-efficacy, past smoking/quitting history, readiness to quit, and other psychosocial factors related to smoking. Results: The 19-item Reasons for Nondaily Smoking Scale (RNS) demonstrated an average score of 45.36 (SD = 15.55) and internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha of 0.79). Factor analysis of the items extracted four factors which accounted for 57.4% of score variance: Social influences; Enhancing buzzes and positive affect; Negative affect regulation; and Lack of concern of addiction. Concurrent and discriminant validity were documented. Conclusions: Developing validated measures designed to assess factors associated with nondaily smoking will enhance our ability to address this growing public health concern. The development and validation of the RNS for young adults may be critical in informing our intervention strategies and potentially for effecting or predicting cessation among young adult nondaily smokers.

Introduction: Nondaily smoking is a growing public health concern, particularly among young adults. Given the lack of existing measures for assessing factors associated with this smoking pattern, the present study aims to develop a measure of motivation to quit among young adult nondaily smokers. Specifically, we developed a scale assessing motivation for nondaily smoking cessation, and examined its reliability, factor structure, and concurrent validity.

Methods: We administered an online survey to 2,000 students at six colleges in the Southeastern US, and 718 (35.9%) returned a completed survey. The current analyses focused on the 95 participants who reported nondaily smoking (i.e., smoking between 1 and 29 days of the past 30 days). In addition to the items created for scale development, measures included sociodemographics, other measures of motivation and confidence/self-efficacy, past smoking/quitting history, readiness to quit, and perceived harm.

Results: The 13-item Nondaily Smoking Cessation Motivation Questionnaire (NSCM) had an average score of 56.95 (SD = 24.33) and high internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha of 0.94). Factor analysis using principal components extraction with varimax rotation extracted three factors accounting for 76.8% of the variance: Controlled motivation, Autonomous motivation, and Amotivation. Concurrent and discriminant validity were documented.

Conclusions: This study provided information about the development and validation of the Nondaily Smoking Cessation Motivation Questionnaire for young adult nondaily smokers. Given the lack of validated measures to assess factors associated with nondaily smoking, this assessment may be critical in informing our intervention strategies and potentially for predicting cessation among nondaily smokers in the young adult population.