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Comment by bbarn | Hacker News Reader

As a 20 year smoker who's only been free for about 5 years, ban all of forms of nicotine for sale. For about a week or 2 people will freak out and try to find ways around it and then everyone will realize that it's not that hard. The reason smokers perpetually have problems quitting is other smokers are constantly around and it's ultra available. Sure, there's a few out there who will protest and scream about their right to kill themselves, but we don't need to allow companies to profit from selling addictive poison that has ZERO up side. At least alcohol is fun (for most people) to use. Cigarettes taste like trash, you have to force yourself to get addicted to them, they smell, and they kill. The only reason we won't outright ban them has nothing to do with liberty or freedoms, it's purely because the industry is incredibly profitable, and that's how our laws actually get made.

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Also former smoker here (15 years of smoking, 6 years smoke free).

> ban all of forms of nicotine for sale.

you can't do that as it would create a thriving black market. Look at the edges of the European Union, where EU taxes drove the prices of cigarettes sky high and people are illegally importing cigarettes from Ukraine, Moldova, Russia, etc..

You need to boil the frog. Slowly but surely, make consuming nicotine socially unacceptable (already is almost everywhere in the West wrt to smoking), expensive (but again, slowly, don't shock the market) and shitty (ban tobacco additives, flavors, make the product packaging look like a horror show). 1-3 generations tops and you'll not see anymore smokers.

Logical fallacy

The ban is to reduce consumption Black market is fine Just like prostitution

No it absolutely isn't. Underground brothels are horrific, exploitative and inhumane. Prohibition leads to drug wars, do you really want a new El Chapo of Tobacco?

Smoking is already really expensive, no? At least in the US, it's anywhere between $5 and $12 a pack.

I paid over USD 20/pack for cigarettes while I was working in Sydney. That alone forced me to cut my intake substantially. vs the ~5.75 I spent per pack in NH.

As a man who has lost half his body weight, I don't think it is my place to suggest that the force of law be used to remove sugar from everything and force nutritional standards on other people. I feel like your call for a ban on nicotine is roughly equivalent. I enjoy about half a dozen cigars a year, and I don't see any reason I shouldn't have the right to do that.

You eating sugar doesn't harm others. Second hand smoke does.

I disagree, because more people eating sugar means that type of food becomes cheaper due to economy of scale. At the same time I second hand suffer because most of my preferred, apparently healthier diet eventually becomes exotic and costs more.

"Sugar" (read: high fructose corn syrup) isn't cheaper purely because of economies of scale. It's largely cheaper because the government subsidises corn farmers, whose corn is then used to produce a cheaper form of sweetener that is used to replace traditional cane sugar (which I believe is subject to tariffs in the US) in soft drinks.

It absolutely does. Driving up medical utilization affects everybody.

This is ridiculous.

I like nicotine and smoking on occasion, but I have never been addicted. Maybe it's personality, behavioral, or some physical difference, I couldn't say. There have been about 30 cigarettes a year for more than a decade. I have no desire to "quit" or have the government tell me I have to.

Walking outside yesterday in Santa Clara was worse for my lifespan than anything I've smoked in the last 6 months.

When I think about the purpose of government, banning addictive substances does not fit the bill.

Over 30 million adults smoke in the US, according to CDC. Banning all forms of nicotine will not just “freak out” those people for 2 weeks and then they’ll forget about it.

Do you want a black market? Because that’s how you get a black market.

Tobacco is a public health crisis. Encouraging safer alternatives (eg e-cigarettes) and slowly making nicotine consumption socially unacceptable is how you make progress. You don’t solve it by just banning the substance entirely (see how that worked out with alcohol).

To add a finer point: nicotine, while an extremely addictive substance, seems to be fairly inoffensive. The delivery mechanism (eg smoking) is what gives you cancer etc. A bunch of people addicted to nicotine does not seem to be much of a public health problem if they’re all using inoffensive delivery mechanisms.

I think your analogy does you no favors. Nicotine as a stimulant does provide some benefits, and studies have shown increased smoking rates among those with ADHD and schizophrenia, psbly bc of some therapeutic effect from nicotine. The nicotine path can alleviate depression, and regular people do enjoy smoking. Second hand smoke is bad, but probably nowhere near as bad as the harm drunk drivers cause.

Pretty sure all those "benefits" come from big tobacco-backed research. If nicotine is a stimulant, it's a crappy one.

Would rather not create yet another crimewave linked to an illegal drug, so no thanks.

Illegal to manufacture is not the same as illegal to posess.

Illegal to manufacture just means the people who can legally possess it will have to deal with and buy it from people illegally manufacturing it under poor conditions with zero regulatory accountability.

And some of them will get sick or die because of the prohibition on regulated manufacturing.

We know that because there isn't an epidemic of people going blind and dying after drinking alcohol contaminated with fermentation and distillation byproducts, but there is an epidemic of people dying from using "heroin" tainted by fentanyl analogs.

The only thing that has ever worked is legal regulated sale, which keeps the market sane with respect to quality control and safety, while making it easy for people to access health and addiction services.

You're arguing with the choir. Still, don't see many people going out of their way for this product, it's not 10% as popular as alcohol.

As someone who uses nicotine a couple times a year, largely flavored cigars, as a self prescribed mood stabilizer rather than a daily addiction I would like to say there are drastically life improving upsides.

When I have had an abysmal day, it can make everything seem ok and even stave off a panic attack.

When I am flying off the handle in anger it can calm me right down.

It can do this without dulling my abilities - actually improving them - unlike other legal and less than legal alternatives.

Is it prone to abuse, particularly in certain people? Absolutely. Is nicotine, particularly in conjunction with tobacco a carcinogen? Absolutely.

But to say there is no upside is dishonest.

Is it nicotine the harmful agent in cigarettes or is it the smoke, tar and other byproducts of combustion?

nicotine is harmful, though it is not the primary harmful agent in cigarettes. that said, it is an immunosuppresant and there have been studies linking nicotine with cancer.

Known carcinogens present in cigarettes: https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/t...

The list of carcinogens in link(or in Wikipedia) does not include Nictone. However, nicotine is a stimulant and can be addiction inducing.

research is ongoing.

https://tobacco.ucsf.edu/cellular-evidence-how-nicotine-and-...

Nicotine is a poison. It’s the active agent in deadly nightshade. In horticultural circles it’s used in raw form as a highly effective pesticide. It’s highly concentrated in tomatoes vines and potato plants, and if you eat these, or even the edible parts when they’re green you’ll be sick!

That’s not to say it’s the most toxic aspect of tobacco, but it can’t be good.

These plants are all related by the way. The Simpson’s ”Tomacco” episode isn’t so far fetched!

Caffeine is also a toxic nerve agent. The dose makes the poison, and for humans generally, it's much too large to be of any risk.

Not to mention its working principle is perfectly well understood.

As someone who has never touched a cigarette in their life and cannot stand the stink of cigarettes I couldn't support this more. If someone wants to kill themselves slowly with cigarettes, that's their decision but don't stink up places for others. The strong prohibitions on public smoking at this point is one of the things I appreciate the most about living in the US. The smoke in certain types of establishments is a huge problem for me when visiting parts of Europe or Asia. I'd rather have people snort cocaine or shoot heroin then stink up otherwise amazing bars and render then unusable.

I was in the Prague Airport, and once you got past security, everyone was smoking!! It was horrible!! I couldn't escape it, every restaurant, bar, and rest area had people smoking. I was feeling sick so it was extra nightmarish.

> from selling addictive poison that has ZERO up side.

I can't remember where, but I saw a study that showed banning cigarettes would only make healthcare costs go up as people would me living much longer lives....

I suppose another way to save money on healthcare would be to not have it at all.

Well, yeah. But we’re actually trying to optimize for some combination of quality of life, length of life, spending on death prevention. You can trivially optimize any one of those individually, but that would be ... bad.

But yes, in a sense, smoking bans are making an implicit assumption that the gain in quality of life is far outweighed by the shortening of it.

And? So what? Are we out of bricks to build hospitals with?

More non-dead people also means more workers, more taxes revenue, more consumption, more growth.

As an ex smoker also, 100% agree!

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