I don't smoke and am completely against smoking. But this sounds like wishful thinking that has the potential to backfire spectacularly. There is a reason why many jurisdictions are deregulating banned substances. It helps to prevent the black market for concentrated and adulterated versions of the banned substance. It also helps people with addiction to seek treatment without worry of prosecution. Perhaps they should invest in better education than go for bans.
this post was submitted on 16 Apr 2024
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I’m all about personal choice and laws like this conflict me.
Same. Normally I'd say "keep it legal" but smoking has significant second-hand effects, unlike something like motorcycle helmets for example (which I do not think should be legally mandated). I'm very torn on this one.
I find the second hand effects argument a difficult one to swallow when we deal with car pollution, industrial waste, microplastics, and so much more on a minute to minute basis. Anyone who lives in a city has essentially no reasonable expectation of overly clean air.
Public spaces are just that—public—and there should not be an expectation of being insulated from every harmful output by your fellow citizens, within reason. I’d take the errant cigarette waft over a bus station fart any day.
when we deal with car pollution, industrial waste, microplastics, and so much more
I'd support banning or heavily penalizing those things too, FWIW.
Don’t get me wrong, I want a clean world too, but what replaces the things we ban? Do we go back to horses (and all the animal cruelty that includes), or does someone foot the bill for everyone to get electric vehicles with charging stations that are 100% renewable?
Same with cigarettes—I’m ok with banning them in a world with free mental healthcare, humane working conditions, and stress relief spaces on every public block. Since that isn’t the world we live in though…I’m going to continue to defend people’s ability to reduce their stress with 5 minutes of nicotine, even if it is at the detriment of their own health. Some lives are so hard that extending them isn’t desirable—so the goal becomes to make the best of the time you have.
Seems silly to restrict or punish people for that reality, especially when nothing is being done to address the root causes of why people want to smoke in the first place.
I find the second hand effects argument a difficult one to swallow when we deal with car pollution, industrial waste, microplastics, and so much more on a minute to minute basis.
'Everyone else is hurting you, so it should be okay for me to hurt you, too!'
It's 2024, and there are people who unironically think that two wrongs make a right.
The damage done by secondhand smoking is not an argument, it's a proven fact. It has been for decades.
overly clean air
You think that air can be too clean?
This reminds me of how smokers will try to exercise, start coughing because their lungs are clogged and trying to process the increase in oxygen, then using that to claim that exercise is bad for you.
As a motorcycle rider: not wearing your helmet has significant second-hand effects on those who see your brains smeared across the highway.
You're also far more likely to take a rock to the face and become a danger to those around you before you crash without a helmet.
In other words: it's not just a personal choice and absolutely should be legally mandated
I don’t see any benefits to smoking but we can say that about many things. I’d like to live in a smoke free world but once we go down the path, we run into the issue where to start banning everything on health concerns.
I like being able to go out to eat and it be smoke free but I wish the market had decided that.
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I smoke a lot. It's basically the only vice I can do anymore, so I enjoy it.
I wouldn't want anyone else to take it up though.
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Even motorcycle helmets have a significant secondary psychological impact for bystanders... The difference between seeing someone slide and seeing a human crayon go splat is huge.
I don't like these laws.
If you're going to ban it, ban it from being sold on the grounds that it poses a danger to the buyer.
If someone wants to grow their own, they should be allowed to do whatever they want with it, except sell it.
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Get fucked prohibitionists.
There will come a time when humanity wins the war on drugs, and everyone has the bodily autonomy to put what drugs they want in their own body.
And when that day happens... will you see drug users persecuting people for not being high?
Will you see prisons built for those who dare stay sober?
Will people be given felonies for being straight edge?
Will drug users militarize the police and erode our constitutional rights in a vain quest to enforce thier way of life on others?
NO
because we are not them.
You should feel fortunate we seek justice, not retribution.
Governments banning drugs just creates dangerous black markets and criminals instead of doing their job of establishing and regulating markets with medical support for addicts. Arresting drug users for using drugs is similar to arresting people for eating Doritos because some people overeat them. You can do it, but it's not going to stop people from eating Doritos it just means more people will suffer making and distributing the Doritos. Nobody is going to force you to eat the Doritos, and if you're eating too many you'll benefit by talking to a doctor not a judge.
I love it when people who don't do drugs act like they're somehow superior beings because of it. "I don't need drugs, and neither should anyone else! 😤" Stfu Karen, doing drugs is about the most human thing we humans do, and you drink coffee you insufferable human paraquat.
Meanwhile they can't function without their morning coffee otherwise it's Tylenol time to manage the headaches, meds for all the disorders we get living in a society, and a dozen dopaminergic compulsions required to compenate for this and that.
How about just remove cigarettes from grocery stores, gas stations, and all other stores where people go to buy things other than cigarettes.
Regulate tobacco like some states regulate alcohol. Have a state store and that's the only place you can buy tobacco and make it heavily taxed.
Prohibition does not work.
If they are serious about combatting smoking, they should medicalize it and treat it like an addiction.
Cigarettes don't get you drunk or high, I'm not sure it won't, especially since current adults won't be affected (in theory)
They probably just don't really care if it does or not tbh. They just want to try out the age-specific ban and the public response.
Smoking does cost society money. Where medical care is subsidised by the public; we sure should prevent people from making money of selling self destructive stuff.
IIRC in the US, it's revenue-positive for the government. Smokers tend to die earlier, and on average don't collect various old-age benefits, and that outweighs the costs.
googles
This was from 1989, so inflation will have changed the dollar values, but I doubt that it's changed qualitatively:
https://www.nber.org/system/files/chapters/c11584/c11584.pdf
Our simulations suggest that each median-wage male smoker in the 1920 birth cohort roughly "saves" the Social Security system $20,000, and each median-wage female smoker saves $10,000.
People shouldn't have to be treated like children just because there's public healthcare. People should be allowed to smoke, do drugs, and eat cheeseburgers if they want to.
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Now do driving after 65. Voting? 😇
Remember: it's always good to prohibit the drugs that you personally don't do.
Yes, this seems like something Britain would do.
Look, FFS, start doing synthetic nictotine products already. Tobacco is inherently cancerous, cigarettes are localized pollution... get rid of those by all means but let people have their recreational nicotine. Put it in beer for all I care.
Conservatives would never agree to this. Even if it'd objectively the right thing to do.
That's a very liberal use of the word "objectively".
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