• Advocacy
• end game
• public opinion polls
• public policy

Where are we going in tobacco control long-term, and how will we get there? This issue of Tobacco Control features three new contributions to the growing ‘endgame’ literature with possible answers to those questions: big-picture radical ideas that seek to propel the tobacco control movement more quickly towards a time when the global tobacco disease pandemic that began in the 20th century will be ended. Could the multitude of social structures and institutions that sustain the tobacco problem be unlinked? Could altered market forces—price controls, supply controls—render tobacco less attractive to those who profit most from continuing to addict new generations? Could there come a time when cigarettes—the most deadly consumer product ever made—will no longer be commercially sold? Can a stake someday be driven through the heart of the tobacco industry?

Endgame thinkers are the visionaries of the tobacco control movement. Early contributions to this literature, many of which were first published in this journal, included Borland's regulated market model1; Callard, Thompson and Collishaw's work on restructuring the industry so that it was incentivised to reduce consumption2; and calls for phasing out smoked tobacco products through various approaches.3–5 Others in this broad genre of work include Chapman's6 call for licensing smokers, work on nicotine and other types of ingredient regulation to …