It's an easy way to evaluate the real priorities of politicians though. If cost of living issues were really their number one priority then these sin taxes would be the first to go.
I guess it depends on the priorities of your wider society. I think ours is pretty right, personally.
Aside from that there's the general problems you always have with prohibition, people will use other substances on the black market, many of which will be worse.
It would be real nice if they would refrain from optimizing the lives of everyone around them for not living longer as well.
When looking up the phrase "my rights end where yours begin", I came across the much more colorful "Your liberty to swing your fist ends just where my nose begins". I don't think the freedom to emit noisome or noxious fumes is quite as unlimited as implied by your comment.
[0]: https://www.laborlawcenter.com/education-center/new-ada-guid...
[1]: http://www.foxnews.com/food-drink/2015/07/27/florida-county-... (includes autoplay video, sorry)
If your exhaust pipe was pointed at my face on the sidewalk again I'd complain.
A lot of offices have gone to perfume/cologne free because it is offensive to a lot of people.
Of course you still have to smell the person who just finished a smoke outside which is far worse than even the most liberal applier of perfume.
That's fine, I'm not a fan of smoke in restaurants or indoors anyway. It's already banned here.
> If your exhaust pipe was pointed at my face on the sidewalk again I'd complain.
This is exactly what cars are doing on the sidewalk. It's not like the emissions travel in a straight line. No one is blowing smoke directly at you either.
> A lot of offices have gone to perfume/cologne free because it is offensive to a lot of people.
Never heard of this.
This is wrong go walk on a sidewalk near a smoker and you'll see them blowing clouds which go in peoples faces as they walk by and leaving clouds in the faces of people walking behind them. This isn't an issue of being in the vicinity of the smoke it is having to walk through the cloud of it.
Go outside an office building around 9, 10:30 or lunch time and you'll often have to walk through a large cloud as all the smokers hang out to get in their smokes.
Smokers are in general super inconsiderate about their additions effect on other people in public.
>Never heard of this.
Google scent free office or fragrancy free office it's not uncommon these days.
The only difference is the visibility, just because you can't see car exhaust doesn't mean it's not there.
> Go outside an office building around 9, 10:30 or lunch time and you'll often have to walk through a large cloud as all the smokers hang out to get in their smokes.
Yes, because it's about the only area left to go for a smoke. It's an effect of banning it everywhere else, not smokers being inconsiderate. If there was a nice out of the way area where smoking was allowed then people would go there.
The only difference is proximity as I already mentioned.
>If there was a nice out of the way area where smoking was allowed then people would go there.
There are lots of out of the way areas in most cities for people to go smoke. But still you'll find them huddled outside the entrances to buildings or as close as they are allowed to be.
As I said. Smokers are selfish and will try to justify every negative impact of their addiction on others. They aren't being inconsiderate about smoke you're forcing their hand. They don't want to litter but it's your fault for not providing ash trays, etc, etc.
I smoked for 20 years and I've heard countless reasons from smokers for being inconsiderate but they all basically boil down to selfishness.
That explains it. Ex smokers always rant about smokers as a way to deal with the cravings they still have. This isn't about the smell of smokers, it's about you wanting a cigarette when you smell them.
No cravings here.
>This isn't about the smell of smokers, it's about you wanting a cigarette when you smell them.
Definitely not. The smell is enough to make me gag when I'm stuck around a bunch of smokers. I look back on my years of smoking embarrassed to know how badly I certainly smelled that whole time. It really is a disgusting addiction.
None of that changes anything I've said though. But given that you've switched to deflection now I think we're done here.
Since they get used to the smell they don't realize how awful it is to be that close to the door, or how bad it is when they come inside. I imagine a lot of them don't know about the environmental effects of throwing it wherever, but to be fair I see the same attitude with plastic bottles being all over the damn place.
I don't care if people smoke, I just don't want to smell it, and I don't want to inhale it. I would not have any problem with people injecting or eating nicotene as much as they want. I just don't want to be forced to inhale it against my will.
And besides the horrible health effects, it smells worse than anything else. Yes, I can smell that you had one before you got on the bus, the stench is overpowering. And yes I can smell you smoking literally 75m away. It's totally gross.
All the strawman arguments about vehicle exhaust gas are irrelevant because at the end of the day smoking has no other utility. Society accepts (a regulated amount of) exhaust gases because we need transport and we can't make a car that does not make emissions currently. If we could make a car that did not cause emissions, it would almost immediately be illegal to make a car that did emit exhaust, and with good reason.
Like sanswork said, at the end of the day smokers are just super selfish and blame others for being "too sensitive" because they are too lazy to change their inconsiderate behaviour.
There are plenty of places you can smoke, those places just aren't conveniently amongst the general population anymore, 90% of whom do not, and don't want to smoke.
Anyone who smokes while walking down the public footpath is selfish and inconsiderate, and anyone who throws their butt on the ground is selfish and inconsiderate.
The "4m from any entrance" and whatever laws are the bare minimum required by law. Nobody likes your addiction. Enjoy the hell out of your cigarettes but please keep your shameful habit to yourself, far away from all the people who don't want to inhale it or smell it.
The argument runs both ways: given smoking is a lifestyle choice with absolutely no positive outcomes for anyone other than tobacco companies, and numerous and virtually guaranteed bad health outcomes for those who smoke and almost certainly for those frequently around the smoker, then I don't see why wider society should be "punished" for the avoidable actions of those who choose not to quit smoking.
It's not like there are not extensive campaigns and programs subsidised by the Australian government for those willing to attempt quitting cigarettes.
There are people - there is a problem, there are no people - no problem
I like the idea.
Yes.
Are you sure about that?
Smoking tobacco is recognised as one of the largest preventable causes of death and disease in Australia. Each year, smoking kills an estimated 15,000 Australians and costs Australia $31.5 billion in social (including health) and economic costs. The Australian Government and state and territory governments, through the Council of Australian Governments, have committed by 2018, to reduce the national adult daily smoking rate to 10% and halve the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander adult daily smoking rate (from 47% in 2008).
Do they hand out or heavily encourage ecigs? Are those cheap in general and permitted to be used everywhere on public property?
Because if so I accept your agreement, because it is clearly not about punishing people for enjoying something, but if not, then I assume the people who run it are just another bunch of statists out to kill as much fun as they can.
Or just listen to smokers complaining how they're a dying breed (works on two levels, that one), or how you can't just ask anyone for a light anymore as fewer people carry lighters, and how bumming a cigarette off a stranger is no longer commonplace now that cigs are over a buck each.
It really kills me that there seems to be a lot of lazy thinking around this subject. It has for a number of years, in fact. I hope this isn't taken as an 'appeal to authority' argument, but I'm an economist who has worked in tax policy for a number of years, during which time I actually advised a couple of Australian Prime Ministers and their Cabinets on excise tax. I'm not trying to be a contrarian here. If people know what is and is not effective, then they are in a better position to pressure their elected representatives to take effective measures to combat smoking.
I would think that smokers (rightfully) feel like a shunned minority when they are told to smoke in alleys far away from the general population.
They have to make a special effort to go somewhere to smoke because they can no longer light up at a restaurant or while they're doing errands.
It's hard to pretend you're "cool" when you're standing by yourself and society doesn't want you anywhere near them.
So there's no coolness and no convenience.
Doing this makes you feel like an outsider to your own friendship group. I know the clubs complained bitterly that it lowered their revenue.
As far as I am concerned, a cigarette tax should stand until proven harmful, not only if proven beneficial.
According to a systematic review of studies of tobacco elasticities the average price elasticity for teenagers was -1.43 and -0.76 for young adults. As such, a 10% increase in tobacco price could be expected to decrease the tobacco consumption of teenagers by around 14%, and that of young adults by around 7.6%.
[1] http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/914041468176678949...
[2] http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/hec.765/abstract
I believe that taxes paid by smokers help to subsidise the healthcare of non-smokers, not the other way around. Or put it this way - if all Australians stopped smoking then either everyone's taxes would have to go up to cover the shortfall or the quality of the healthcare would be lower.
Tobacco excise raises about $2B a year(1), but smoking costs around $30B a year(2). A 10% increase in the excise reduces the smoking rate around 4%, so simplistic analysis indicates that around $200M raised would save nearly $1.5B (lots of simplification and assumptions there obviously).
(1) http://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departm...
Worse, it uses up the free hospital beds and there is a waitlist.
But in terms of raw dollars it's different. If smokers die 10 years earlier, that's 10 years less of unproductive period in life, retirement.
No pensions, no medical costs, no living expenses. They pay and save for retirement, but don't use it.
-Tobacco and alcohol tax: 40 billion PLN 2013 [1]
-Personal income tax 42 billion PLN 2012 [2]
-Healthcare budget: 64.5 billion PLN 2013 [3]
Cigarettes (and to a lesser extent alcohol) account for 2/3 of whole healthcare, for everyone!
And smokers pay retirement insurance for whole life, statistically getting nothing. Especially when being male; females have 5 years lower retirement age and live 7.8 years longer. 5+7.8+10=22.8 years difference. So a male smoker pays every month, but gets nothing.
[1] - http://natemat.pl/77753,alkohol-i-papierosy-sa-dla-polskiego...
[2] - http://www.pit.pl/aktualnosci-podatkowe/2011/archiwum-2011-v...
[1] http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/5506.0
[2] http://www.health.gov.au/internet/ministers/publishing.nsf/C...
Your tax/public expenditure curves cross roughly when you turn 62. By 70 the government spends on you more than twice what you pay in taxes. 75 it's 3 times as much. 80, it's 4.5. The expenditure curve is pretty much asymptotic by that point.
Since we're throwing around random opinions...
Would you say that the kind of person that continues such an expensive habit nowadays despite what everyone knows about smoking is the kind of person who "pays and saves for retirement"?
Poorer, less-educated people are much more likely to smoke. How about we also take this into account when we're speculating about how much they might be saving.
In Poland it's 19,52% of salary. https://www.mpips.gov.pl/ubezpieczenia-spoleczne/ubezpieczen...
In Australia it's 9% http://crr.bc.edu/briefs/australia%E2%80%99s-retirement-syst...
$30B, with just over 3M smokers in Australia is $10,000 per smoker per year. I call bullshit.
Even in NZ the health department were only claiming a cost of $1.9B per year and that was controversial. An anti-smoking group's report in NZ only managed to stretch it as far as $350M per year.
Edit:
Ok, I found the paper where they came up with the $30B figure.
"The average intangible value of the loss of one year’s living in 2004/05 prices was calculated to be $53,267."
That is where the number comes from. Like I said, hyperbole.
Also, some napkin calculations: $2b / 3m smokers = $666 / year. $666 / 52 = $13. The average smoker is paying a lot more than that in tax each week (a single pack is $20 - $30).
The quoted $2B tax revenue is bunkum too. NZ was taking in $1B seven years ago with a population 1/5 of Australia's and with prices 1/2 what they are now.
Here are figures from the latest Commonwealth budget, and the latest inter-generational report: http://imgur.com/a/UWFAa
Tobacco excise takes in $9.4bn in revenue per year, and is expected to hit north of $10.5bn over the next four years, due to the recent excise hike. This will make tobacco the largest 'earner' when it comes to excise and customs duty (even beating diesel and petrol).
The IG report contends (as it has for many years now) that when people hit about age 62, their individual tax / revenue curves cross-over. By 70, they are receiving public expenditure 2.5 times greater than the tax they pay. By 75 it's about 3 times. By 80, it's about 4.5. And before anyone plays the "you're a monster" card, I also think it's good that people are living longer and not dying from smoking related illness.
But I would suggest that public finance is not the strongest grounds to argue anti-smoking on. The fact that it kills so many people, in pretty awful ways, is more than enough justification for us to try and hasten tobacco's demise. Please think carefully about the issue, because you'll be better able to pressure our politicians to take more effective action (and also make it impossible for them to quietly go backwards).
I agree that we shouldn't be arguing in favour of anti-smoking regulations on the grounds of financial cost (esp. with regard to the health budget). There are, as you say, much better grounds to base the argument on. Exaggerated figures such as the $2B / $30B given above just help to discredit the entire argument. I prefer that my government not try to manipulate me with dodgy statistics (even if we largely agree on the goal of reducing smoking).
I do agree that killing people as soon as they retire is the economic thing to do. Unsure that will win many elections, but who knows....
Instead of trying to find ways to make people retire later and work more, let's find ways to make people not need to work as much.
> being able to leave children with their grandparents for care.
Don't recall that being addressed though, but it's almost certainly less than pension.
And your argument is particularly silly - do you think people die of cancer overnight? No, they hang in there for years, and as a compassionate society we treat them for their terrible disease until they die. Of course, there are many other things that smoking can do before someone contracts a fatal condition: gangrenous limbs that must be amputated, rooting teeth and gums that must be operated on, non-fatal strokes that prevent them from working and must be subsidised, cataracts and blindness, hip and bone fractures, diabetes and increased recovery times from surgery all contribute to the cost.
And we have an additional cost that's not obvious to those outside Australia: bushfires. In fact, it's estimated that a quarter of all deaths in fires were due to cigarettes being improperly disposed. I believe the cost is something like $150 million a year. And that's not even putting a cost on the deaths of these people to their families and friends.
Also aged people put money into the economy in various ways so it's not a lost cause.
Aged people are also great baby sitters. You know day cares are insanely expensive. Grandparents are a lot cheaper.
Plus let's not kill people to save money. Many chose to euthanize themselves once they become bed ridden.
I know I would rather die than live a life where my memory is not functional. If I am bed ridden, I would happily say good bye to my family and call it a good life.
"The poor" need to reevaluate their priorities if smoking is their choice for spending their limited resources. How else should activities that are bad for society be discouraged?
It's interesting that the rich are much more likely to choose not to smoke even though they are the ones who can actually afford it. I'm not sure what that means but it's interesting to me.
Smoking rates go down by level of education but is that cause or correlation?
What makes poor people want to smoke more than rich?
> If cost of living issues were really their number one priority then these sin taxes would be the first to go.
Not sure about this. Cost of living IMO is about affordable housing, food and transport. You know, the actual essentials, not non-essential "luxuries" such as poisonous addictions.
[1] It's a theory I don't agree with – I think they're as responsible as us and taxes on cigarettes still deter them from smoking.
However, I think its more about providing a strong deterrent for potential new smokers.