On September 29, 2005 and December 13, 2010, the Buenos Aires city government approved laws 1799 and 3718 prohibiting the practice of smoking in closed spaces accessible to the public, thereby defining an aggressive anti-smoking public health education agenda, and establishing severe penalties for those who violated these new regulations. But it was not always this way. In fact, for most of the twentieth century, cigarette smoking was a well-accepted and celebrated habit, a sort of icon of daily life in Buenos Aires, a malleable tool people used to deal with the stressful and exciting scenarios offered by modernity, and a primary symbol of pleasure and power, sexuality, and individuality.

Only during the last decade have these very appealing associations begun to be replaced by those of suspicion, disease, and death. As a consequence of these changes, the figure of “the smoker” has been redefined: rather than the self-confident and independent man or the liberated woman of the past, what is emerging is the figure of the smoker as a weak, irrational, and addicted individual who rebels against the strictures of public health. Within the broader framework of a history of cigarette smoking that transmuted the practice from a well-accepted, apparently innocuous habit to a medicalized, noxious, and criminalized addiction, this chapter attempts to explore a persistent continuity – one that, starting at the end of nineteenth century, went on for most of the century until it changed in the last decade quite drastically and at a very fast pace.

City Laws 1799 and 3718 are aimed at regulating the consumption, marketing, and advertising of tobacco cigarettes. Both laws frame their purposes within a distinct effort to improve public health and the health of the city's individual inhabitants. Their articles are exhaustive and are worth including below, as they consist of legal instruments that reveal a remarkable sophistication and attention to detail.

These laws prohibit every kind of sponsorship or financing of cultural, athletic, or educational activities that are open to businesses or individuals who create, distribute, or promote tobacco products. With no exceptions, the sale of tobacco products is prohibited to minors under the age of eighteen, whether the products are for their own consumption or for marketing purposes and resale.