I don’t think it’s quite the same thing. Smoking has almost zero redeeming qualities. Alcohol has a lot of social value, cultural heritage, crap like that. If you’re going to break the law, there are more attractive substances than tobacco.

There are other benefits too: restaurants stop having to dedicate space to smoking tables; people are far less likely to smoke in public places (like bus stops), which is already against the law but people do it anyway, if smoking is banned altogether they’d do it less.

If people are gonna smoke tobacco, I’d rather they do it in secret than out in the open. Also I think even “failed” prohibition likely reduces actual usage by a lot.