Worth a try?

The editorial board of the New York Times said yesterday that New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s latest tobacco control effort, to ban open displays of tobacco products in stores while still allowing their advertising, ‘is worth a try, though ‘[i]t is hard to know whether hiding the products would really work to discourage smoking’, according to a TMA relay of part of the editorial.

The editorial said Mayor Bloomberg’s hope was that keeping tobacco products out of sight would prevent young people from picking up tobacco use.

The ‘worth a try’ editorial stance, though seemingly admirable, seems to leave the paper vulnerable to supporting anybody professing a doctrine based on sufficiently plausible hokum.