[Tobacco control from an economic perspective]

This paper reviews the main arguments put forward from Economics in the area of tobacco control, and provides a detailed description of market failures from both the traditional perspective and recent literature advances. It concludes that smoking is a personal choice that can generate net welfare losses for the society, the smokers family and, above, all the smoker him(her)self. On these grounds there exists economic justification for correcting mechanisms. The article includes a discussion of two important preventive policies in the Spanish context: restrictions in bars and restaurants and tobacco tax hikes.