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Comment by Scoundreller | Hacker News Reader

It wasn’t sin taxes that stopped those things.

It is to a great degree. Many acquaintances have stopped smoking because it got too expensive. That many people stopped smoking is what enabled us to ban it in so many places afterwards.

The bans are a huge inconvenience to smokers. That's the point, but it would have been political suicide a few decades prior.

though if that's correct, in that case, wouldn't the 'sin' tax have been political suicide if that was brought in first when there was even more smokers?

You can make a tax far more gradual than a ban. Slow boiling frogs and what not. And that is exactly what happened with cigarettes, at least here in Europe.

If you’re just basing this on experience / memory idk if this is true. My memory says public opinion was swayed by advertising and health risks not cigarette prices. Without some hard data on this i think either story is just as likely true

> My memory says public opinion was swayed by advertising and health risks not cigarette prices.

I'm confident smokers' opinions didn't reach quitting-stage due to ads.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2775761/

> Results: On average, smokers were exposed to more than 200 antismoking ads during the 2-year period, as estimated by televised gross ratings points (GRPs). The odds of having quit at follow-up increased by 11% with each 10 additional potential ad exposures (per 1000 points, odds ratio [OR] = 1.11; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.00, 1.23; P < .05). Greater exposure to ads that contained highly emotional elements or personal stories drove this effect (OR = 1.14; 95% CI 1.02, 1.29; P < .05)

Was this study done in regions without cigarette taxes?

Asking because about everyone ex-smoker I know (a LOT) quit after struggling to afford the things.

Honestly, I can't come up with anyone who could be so powerfully swayed by ads that they could quit an addiction.

I don't know, you'd have to read the study. Point was they found a strong correlation between ads and quitting. Obviously the ads were communicating health information, so it's weird to say that the ads were the reason since it was likely the health information in the ads. It's also quite possible your friends feel more comfortable citing the cost over the health impact, since they would have known about the health impact when they started. "It got too expensive" is an easier out than "I used to not care about my health, but I do now"

They both had effects. I personally know people who quit smoking when it got expensive (for different levels of expensive). I also personally know people who quit smoking when they were convinced that it was unhealthy.

Though all of the above quit before 1990 (US). Anyone who still smokes today, knows it is bad and costs money: they don't care.

Now that I think about it most who quit because it was expensive were probably influenced by the unhealthy part, but it was the cost that finally tipped them over.

That's a claim unsupported by research[1].

> Results

>From 2001 through 2015, increases in state-level excise taxes were associated with declines in prevalence of cigarette smoking. The effect was strongest in young adults (age 18–24) and weakest in low-income individuals (<$25,000).

So yes, taxes actually do at least affect smoking rates in the most vulnerable population. If you don't start smoking in your teens, you're much less likely to become a lifelong smoker.

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6147505/

Your source has no relation to the claim that you are trying to refute. That claim being: "It wasn’t sin taxes that stopped people smoking on planes, in restaurants, etc. "

It has some relation. If people aren't smoking, then they aren't smoking in planes or restaurants.

No, it has none. They aren't smoking in planes and restaurants because it is illegal to do so.

I'm a very big fan of the São Paulo approach, just ban indoor smoking everywhere, period. The only places you are allowed to smoke are inside a dwelling or out in the street (with the caveat that there must be a clear view to the sky). Cigarettes are still cheap, but unwanted smog doesn't bother me anymore.

Isn't this how it already works in the US?

Also exactly how it works in UK - no smoking anywhere indoors.

No, many bars still allow smoking.

>No, many bars still allow smoking.

Where, exactly, is that the case?

I've traveled all over the US and haven't been in a bar that allowed smoking indoors in at least 15 years. And as a smoker, I would definitely notice.

Edit: As kube-system pointed out[0], there are a bunch of places that don't have indoor smoking bans. Although the Wikipedia[1] link they provided does say that ~80% of American live in a place with some restriction on smoking indoors. I stand corrected. Thanks kube-system!

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29003693

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_smoking_bans_in_the_Un...

Mostly pool hall sort of places I'd imagine.

All of the south except for NC has no state bans on smoking in bars, although many major municipalities ban it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_smoking_bans_in_the_Un...

Specifically I've been to bars in Tennessee and Florida in the last 8 years that allow smoking inside, as well as a diner in Kentucky that still had a smoking section until a few years ago.

Really? I did not know anywhere allowed indoor smoking. There are even states that have banned smoking in hotel rooms.

We'll call this the "California in 1998" approach.

There is still less smoking regardless, though. Where I live if I see someone smoking in public more often than not they are a student from a country where cigarettes are much much cheaper. A packet of cigarettes is 4.5x cheaper in Poland than the UK for example.

There's a graphic floating around that show cigarette consumption in the U.S. It goes up and up until about 1950 or so then it starts to go down and down.

I always wonder about that. I mean, I understand that there were laws and taxes and reports about smoking. Looking at that chart though it doesn't look like that. It looks like everyone went - "You know, I don't want to smoke anymore and I don't want to be around smokers" - and then just slowly gave it up over 30 or 40 years.

Was it the laws, taxes and reports? Or were all of those things just an expression of desire?

Reports on lung cancer became all the rage in the 50's:

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=%22lung+cancer...

Increasing the price definitely prevents new people from picking up the degusting habit.

I just checked and a pack of my old smokes are over £12 a pack ($16 in Monopoly money)!

The only problem i see if that it hasn't already broke £20 a pack.

A weekend to Spain starts to pay for itself.

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