title: Controlling, Modeling, Consensus, and Substance Use(r) Policy Intervention: Unfinished Business.
abstract: This article looks at certain aspects of unfinished business in substance use policy from the economist's perspective. It takes the view that in tackling a policy issue such as cigarette smoking, it is likely to be necessary to use a portfolio of policy tools, rather than on just one tool, and that it is likely to be necessary to accept that complete elimination of the activity being considered will almost certainly cost more than it is worth-we will probably always have to live with some nonzero level of such activities.
authors.affiliation: a Department of Economics , University of Guelph , Guelph , Ontario , Canada.|b Canadian Centre for Health Economics , Toronto , Ontario , Canada.
authors.forename: Brian
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Ferguson
mesh_terms: D032921:Consensus; D003365:Costs and Cost Analysis; D006291:Health Policy / Q000191:economics*; D006801:Humans; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D012907:Smoking / Q000191:economics / Q000628:therapy*; D019966:Substance-Related Disorders / Q000191:economics / Q000628:therapy*; D013660:Taxes / Q000191:economics*; D062789:Tobacco Products
keywords: Coase theorem; Pigovian taxes; externalities; prohibition; second-best