This just feels like a continuation of the failed war on drugs...
I don't smoke, but I have no problem with allowing people to do so in private spaces. Why do we insist on micromanaging peoples lives?
I don't smoke, but I have no problem with allowing people to do so in private spaces. Why do we insist on micromanaging peoples lives?
[0] https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/fast...
If someone near you is smoking, so are you.
> Since the 1964 Surgeon General’s Report, 2.5 million adults who were nonsmokers died because they breathed secondhand smoke.
The better argument is that the actual social behavior of smoking is contagious, as any social behavior is.
I don't say this to say we should ban tobacco because "think of the children" but I genuinely think people seriously overlook this aspect. Someone smoking near you as an adult might be obnoxious but children in smoking households suffer and develop lifelong health problems for a vice that is entirely out of their control that many people don't even really see as a problem or think about.
Note: it’s not relevant but to be clear I oppose all drug bans (incl tobacco) and all the COVID restrictions. So don’t interpret my pointing out that social behaviors are contagious to be justifying the menthol ban.
Not least of which is it's incredibly addictive. Meaning that tobacco smokers often smoke a lot.
By contrast cannabis is a natural anti-oxidant. Smoking cannabis might be correlated with more bronchitis but none of the cancer, heart disease, [insert every other tobacco harm]. BTW I seem to recall particle size is different between tobacco and cannabis smoke but I think the oxidative damage is the main reason
Some information here:
https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/research-reports/mari...
As far as I can tell, vaping is far, far safer than inhaling smoke, for both tobacco and cannabis. The healthiest strategy is to avoid all of these things of course.
COVID-19 is scary because you can't reasonably eliminate your risk of contracting it without significant mental, social, and economic sacrifice. But I'm not worried about getting lung cancer because I just don't smoke. You can't just accidentally give lung cancer or a nicotine addiction to someone at a social gathering.
It's impossible to smoke in the United States without knowing the addictive and carcinogenic nature of it. The warnings are plastered all over the ads, the counter, and the product itself. If you know all that and still choose to smoke, that's on you. People take risks with their lives for things that make them happy all the time. As long as you know the risks up front and you aren't bothering me with it, why should I care?
It was, and still would be extremely unpopular. The public health reason is as strong as it's ever been.
It became extremely unpopular when it became law, and people found out what this actually means - a large black market for organized crime to cultivate, and heavy-handed enforcement with plenty of "collateral damage".
There's no evidence it ever had majority support, though: https://www.vox.com/2015/10/19/9566935/prohibition-myths-mis...
The campaign was effective at getting an unpopular law passed. I think that's how we should read prohibition.
Besides which, we don't have to go all the way to prohibition to make a dent here. A pigouvian tax would be good enough to start with, and maybe better education on the effects of alcohol.
Cigarettes are sold at every convenience store in flashy packaging. They are made by deep-pocketed multinationals with generations of lobbying experience.
Legal marijuana, on the other hand, is sold with minimal advertising in licensed, purpose-built stores. If you gave tobacco companies a choice between banning menthol and forcing the sale of cigarettes in tobacco stores only, I think I know which one they'd pick.
In every state that it's been legalized in, weed is heavily regulated. Weed must be tested for adulterants, heavy metals and mold contamination before it is sold. Some states even regulate the amount of active compounds that are present in the marijuana.
In the states I'm familiar with, it's also illegal to package, market or sell marijuana in manners that might entice children to use it. Sometimes that means banning THC laden candies or vapes that children can recognize, and banning the use of colorful advertising or cartoons, as well.
> The tobacco industry spends billions of dollars each year on marketing cigarettes.[2]
> Each day, about 1,600 youth try their first cigarette.[2]
> In 2015, nearly 7 in 10 (68.0%) adult cigarette smokers wanted to stop smoking.[1]
> In 2018, more than half (55.1%) adult cigarette smokers had made a quit attempt in the past year.[1]
> In 2018, more than [only] 7 out of every 100 (7.5%) people who tried to quit succeeded.[1]
Smoking legislation isn't about micromanaging the lives of people who fully understand the risk choose to smoke anyway. It's about preventing cigarette manufacturers from preying on those who don't fully understand the risk or didn't when they started, but are now addicted.
[1] https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/fast...
[2] https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/inde...
I think you'd find that most people who support abolishing the war on drugs, and who support drug legalization, are also supportive of regulation the legalized drugs.
The lack of regulation and criminalization are two reasons that the US has a fentanyl epidemic. It's too risky to import heroin because it weighs a lot, while 1 gram of fentanyl is 10,000+ doses.
Meanwhile, regulated heroin that's used in hospitals is pure and free of adulterants.
So ya healthcare.
In general I lean libertarian and agree that banning things isn't great, but if you want to make your own choices, you have to bear the costs of those choices. If you want to waive your right to government funded healthcare, then you ought to be able to make whatever unhealthy choices you want.
Externalized costs are the root of many seemingly insurmountable societal problems, and most can be fixed by simply accounting for the costs appropriately.
Now what? Your healthcare costs should go up because you like your eggs fried and with salt instead of hard boiled?
Just make sure you have a dividend that goes back to the poor to make up for the regressiveness of such taxes.
I think that in situations like that, you ought to cover the cost of a potential rescue up front, either by paying for an insurance policy or putting down a deposit. People search until your deposit/insurance runs out, then they stop. If you don't survive, that's on you. There's just absolutely no reason that anyone's tax dollars should be spent to help someone who performs a totally needless and incredibly dangerous activity of their own volition.
Same goes for surfing, or having consensual, unprotected sex. Both dangerous, or at least much more dangerous than the average human activity, but both too basic and natural to consider regulating. In my opinion.
Yet tobacco costs 120 billion euros a year for only 16 billion in revenue (to the government). [1]
It is almost infeasible to tax cigarette to the equivalent of their burden on the health care system.
[0]: https://www.boursorama.com/patrimoine/actualites/les-taxes-s...
[1]: https://www.reseau-hopital-ght.fr/actualites/patients/campag...
"According to the research, a person of normal weight costs on average £210,000 over their lifetime, a smoker just £165,000 and an obese person £187,000."
https://taxfoundation.org/new-study-shows-smokers-and-obese-....
By this logic, there should be no tax (or indeed a subsidy) on cigarettes.
Prohibition is wrong. It’s not just unethical but impractical.
And congrats, now cops aren’t just going to claim they smell weed in my car, they’re going to claim they smell menthol too.
—
Also your “waive your right to gov funded healthcare” argument doesn’t make sense. Because I still have to pay for the other guy’s healthcare too.
Has any country with socialized medicine actually banned tobacco fully? Genuinely curious.
If they haven't then I don't understand why regulation isn't continuous with the current regime, where smokers have to pay a lot more for health insurance. These problems do not go away in a free market system, insurance companies will always try to incentivize you to take on less risk.
Unaware what countries have fully banned tobacco. Without looking it up at all...maybe singapore? They seem like the type.
Sure but that's not really what's being discussed here right now, and there doesn't seem to be evidence that this has happened. From another perspective, governments are trying to do their best to protect their citizens from the malign interests of private entities who sell dangerous products. I agree that banning tobacco entirely would be too coercive, though.
Apparently Bhutan is the only country where tobacco is illegal. I understand your concerns with regards to prohibition but I think this is a slippery slope argument without a better example or a more compelling explanation.
1. Run public health awareness campaigns to make sure that people (especially children / young people) are aware of the health risks. You can do similar things around healthy eating.
2. Treat drug usage and addiction as medical rather than criminal issue (so the police might confiscate your weed if they catch you with it, but they won't charge you with anything).
Both of these minimise healthcare costs without actually banning anything.
It’s also worth mentioning that public health awareness campaigns frequently stretch the science in the quest to moralize more effectively. Case in point: saturated fats, pretending everyone is equally vulnerable to AIDS, etc
Then why are healthcare costs in the UK (socialised) and Europe (typically private, but highly regulated with a social option) dramatically lower than US (private) healthcare costs despite similar levels of care? Unless you have evidence that it increases costs, I would suggest that you viewpoint is just ideology, and you may wish to consider revising it.
> It’s also worth mentioning that public health awareness campaigns frequently stretch the science in the quest to moralize more effectively
They also often do a lot of good despite this. There is a very successful public health campaign promoting the eating of 5 fruits and vegetables a day. It's not quite accurate. The science suggested we should be eating 9. But it's lead to people eating a lot more fruit and veg than they would otherwise have done, which is a good thing all round.
They don’t have similar levels of care, that’s why. Wait times are longer and the care is overall of lower quality.
It’s also hard to compare countries directly. In the USA we have a big “underclass” of very unhealthy people (that falls along both socioeconomic and racial lines), which the countries you’re pointing out largely don’t.
This may sound pedantic, but I think it's an important distinction: Society has saddled society with the costs of their choices. It's not the self-destructive choice maker's fault.
If a child in public school willfully refuses to practice cursive, they may require additional instruction and resources. I wouldn't say that child is "saddling society with the costs of their choices". They're just living the life they were born to, and society is obsessing over them.
Lifetime healthcare costs for the negative externalities of a pack-a-day smoker can reach into seven figures. And most people, frankly, don’t pay that themselves. It’s a tremendous burden on our healthcare system.
We ban lead paint, even though it’s super cheap and makes for vibrant colors. I honestly don’t see how this is any different.
That's totally different. Lead paint leads to a ton of environmental exposure to unwitting people. Smokers by contrast have made a choice to smoke.
Do you want them to ban bacon and soda too? Where's the line? Should we ban motorcycles because they're more dangerous than cars? What about recreational diving, skydiving and recreational pilots? Backyard swimming pools are incredibly dangerous statistically, shall we ban them too?
People have an inherent right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The government can ban smokers from smoking in a way that exposes you, but what right do they have to say you aren't allowed to do something dangerous if you so choose to do it?
There's a factor 30 of leeway on where to draw the line:
> How many cancer cases every year can be attributed to consumption of processed meat and red meat?
> about 34 000 cancer deaths per year worldwide are attributable to diets high in processed meat.
> ...
> about 1 million cancer deaths per year globally due to tobacco smoking
https://www.who.int/news-room/q-a-detail/cancer-carcinogenic...
I don't think we should ban tobaccos outright, regardless of that fact, but smoking has real consequences for people other than the smoker themselves.