New Zealand to ban smoking for next generation in bid to outlaw habit by 2025 | Hacker News Reader

New Zealand to ban smoking for next generation in bid to outlaw habit by 2025

theguardian.com

52 pointssiquick84 comments

Smokers are less likely to be obese and vehicle crashes are still a leading cause of death. Seems like this is more about pushing morals than promoting long and worthwhile lives.

Smoking is also expensive. I smoked for about 20 years before quitting, and the amount of money I could save by not wasting it in cigarettes was quite high.

Just speculating, but might be that the NZ govt could be willing to ban the dependency on something that is imported so that people will have more money to spend in local products, hence fueling their economy.

Import tax would solve that.

Not allowed under WTO rules.

How would an import tax be disallowed? Every country has weird tariffs and whatnot.

> Smoking is also expensive.

Smoking is expensive because of local consumption and sin taxes.

The science says otherwise.

> Smokers are less likely to be obese

Yes, but if you have a choice between being a normal body weight and being a non-smoker, you should choose the latter. In fact, the effect is so strong that it has a distorting effect on the correlation between low body weight and health. If you don't filter smokers out of your analysis, it can look like being overweight is not bad for you, or even slightly positive. See e.g. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27423262/

> Seems like this is more about pushing morals than promoting long and worthwhile lives.

Maybe it's both?

Given that secondhand smoking is very harmful to others, this is less about morals and should be seen as saving everyone's health/lives really. In a nutshell, smoking is a big negative externality.

I've been fantasizing about visiting or even moving to NZ because of certain liberal policies they have implemented, but if they outlaw smoking or pass other nanny state laws, I will 100% avoid them in perpetuity. Smoking or not smoking is one of the simplest expressions of individual liberty, and it is tragic how many countries are jumping on the illiberal bandwagon to take away basic physical freedoms from their citizens.

I also fall under the libertarian bucket "it's your body, do what you want..." unfortunately there is a double standard for liberals where free choice only applies to some very specific carve outs (i.e. abortion) but other things (mandatory covid vaccines or banning smoking) they feel it's their moral duty to dictate to everybody.

Well, it's your body, do what you want... but don't smoke around me. And don't infect me. Your freedom to choose should not extend to imposing consequences on me.

For that matter, it's your body, but a fetus isn't your body.

Well it's your body... But don't do X around me because it affects me in Y way. But I can do Z because I decide the tradeoffs. It's a flawed logic, because most actions extend consequences on others. Although I agree with not smoking in people's face.

>Your freedom to choose should not extend to imposing consequences on me

Conversely, your desire to be free from smoke should not extend to imposing consequences on those that don't. The problem is, at some point, there's a conflict on where to draw the line. Because, as soon as the line is drawn, freedoms have been limited/reduced/compromised in a way.

Absolutely true. Freedom given almost always equals the opposite freedom taken from someone else.

So let me try again, hopefully with a bit more precision: If you want to do something to your own body in a way that doesn't affect me, then I have little basis for fighting over where the line should be drawn. You want to smoke in your house? Knock yourself out. You want to smoke in your car? Go for it.

You want to smoke in my face? Now we have a battle about where that line is going to be drawn - whose freedom will be lost, yours or mine. Now I at least have legitimate grounds for arguing that your freedom should be the one to lose.

And I think that's plenty reasonable. Not trying to argue, was just pointing out the problem that underlies all politics: conflicts in wills (or even from strictly a libertarian viewpoint, conflict in freedoms, since freedom is a core principle held by libertarians).

You can't twist this to make it about both parties.

The burden is on the acting individual to not harm others with their choices. Real world personal responsibility is where the line is drawn. Not some idealistic notion of freedom to do whatever you want.

That's a political philosophy, not a fact. Just as libertarianism is a political philosophy.

Allow me to preface what I'm saying with the fact that I fully support abortion rights for women everywhere. However saying that abortion has no consequences on people around the mother is plainly naive. The father will be affected at the least.

I've never heard anyone vocally supporting abortion rights consider for any moment if or how much of the decision should be made together with the father. That to me is wrong and equally immoral. It's always "my body, my rules", not "my baby, my rules" as I think it should be, at least to an extent.

> I've never heard anyone vocally supporting abortion rights consider for any moment if or how much of the decision should be made together with the father. That to me is wrong and equally immoral. It's always "my body, my rules", not "my baby, my rules" as I think it should be, at least to an extent.

I absolutely 100% think ultimately women should have the right to choose an abortion or not but I've always found the way pro-abortion people suggest that those on the other side are motivated by wanting to take rights away from women. It seems pretty obvious to me that if you believe a fetus counts as a human being you'd be opposed to abortion because you don't like the idea of killing humans, not because you want to keep women down.

I wonder if the rhetoric about choosing an abortion or not rarely even mentioning the father is partly to reinforce the branding of abortion as a women's rights type issue instead of a more general reproductive rights issue?

Because as a man I'm pro-abortion not just for the good of pregnant women who want to choose to have one, but also for their partners who may not want to have a baby either. I certainly don't want a child (neither does my partner) and I certainly would worry about her somehow ending up pregnant if we didn't live somewhere you could get abortions

Both failure to vaccinate as well as smoking causes direct and proximate damage to those around you.

Say what you will about bodily autonomy, but there isn't a double standard. The right to swing your fist, et c.

Abortion doesn't count under this scheme because of the postulate that a fetus is not a human being yet.

Except that if you get vaccinated, why does it matter if hypothetically I am not vaccinated? True story, I got Moderna, three months later I got Covid along with a group of my friends all vaccinated with either Moderna or J&J. Anyway, don't want this to diverge into a covid shitshow argument. The problem is that the US government is trying to mandate if you don't get vaccinated then you lose your job. That's an issue for me.

The simple answer? Vaccinated people, while they can spread covid from a breakthrough infection, spread much less covid than unvaccinated people, and they have a shorter period of time while they are contagious.

You significantly reduce the risk of transmitting covid to others (should you become infected) by being vaccinated.

They're not trying to mandate that you lose your job, they're trying to mandate (as they already do - see OSHA's current body of regulations) that workplaces are safe physical environments for people to be in. It's the same story with workplaces without fire exits being illegal.

Even if you don't agree with it, it is definitely logically coherent.

As much as I don't want unvaccinated people around, I also disagree with violent coercion, so I'm not sure that I am 100% philosophically on board with the state's right to regulate trade between private parties whatsoever - but if they can rightfully require fire exits or building safety codes, they can require vaccinations in a work environment.

Parent is confusing liberalism with socialism. So is the US. Being liberal would mean embracing freedom. But socialist liberal is a mostly self contradicting ideological position, because you always have that "freedom until I decide that freedom affects me too much."

And plenty of us around the world understand the “postulate that a fetus is not a human being yet” to be the height of absurdity and insane, frankly, and therefore abortion is a matter of grave injustice: the murder of innocent and defenseless human persons.

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/amp/english/postulate

Postulates are inherently subjective. They are not put forward as truths, but as a basis of coherent logical reasoning, ie:

IF you accept postulate x as true,

BASED on logical reasoning y,

THEN you must logically accept conclusion z as true as well.

I didn't offer support or denial of the postulate - just that the logic applied thereupon is consistent and coherent.

An individual's decision to terminate their pregnancy does have malignant effects on the general population. The same cannot be said for not getting vaccinated and smoking.

Correction: does not*

If the government can legitimately regulate the sale of alcohol, fentanyl, or methamphetamine, they can legitimately regulate (including ban) the sale of coffee or cigarettes.

Public health system == we get to ban smoking if we want.

You are free to express your individual liberty wherever you currently are, please stay there.

Smoking is taxed very heavily in NZ - to the point that smokers are a net financial benefit to the public health system.

Money is only part of the problem. At least in Australia, the shortages of Doctors in regional areas is a problem that doesn't go away simply by throwing money at it. An unhealthy population strains what is a limited resource.

Obese people are far more likely to strain healthcare systems than smokers.

> the shortages of Doctors in regional areas is a problem that doesn't go away simply by throwing money at it.

Have they tried offering $5M per year to the doctor? $10M?

"There would be an estimated NZ$5 billion ($4.7 billion) in savings on future public health expenditure as a result of the plans." - NZ Associate Health Minister Ayesha Verrall

https://amp.theage.com.au/world/oceania/nz-to-create-smoke-f...

What is the value in measuring expenditure alone? Doesn't the income generated by those activities also factor into the equation?

Governments don't usually do things from the joy in their hearts, or out of the care for their constituents.

I'm more inclined to think that smokers aren't subsidizing everyone as much as they like to think.

Governments, when objectively correct, tend to release data to support their position. The only value in measuring expenditure alone is in how the uneducated interpret it as more favorable.

So what you're saying is that the government is leaving money on the table out of care for the health of the people? That's terrible...

Over what timeframe? It can't be yearly.

The population of NZ is 5,000,000.

The smoking rate is 12%.

A saving of $5B/y would mean $8,333 per smoker, per year.

Don't forget that a typical smoker in NZ might pay about $5000/y in tobacco tax ($100/w for 2.5 packs or 1 pouch per week taxed at 80%+).

Let's call it a saving of $13,333/y then.

But wait! This $5B figure obviously can't be based on eliminating smoking, just a reduction. So the estimate must be based on saving much more than $13,333/y for each smoker this 'stops'.

On top of that, smokers on average die much younger than non-smokers. Healthcare costs are mostly accrued in old age.

What you are saying here makes sense, but I wonder practically speaking how well a prohibition like this will work, given that universally whenever a government pushes back on some vice (alcohol or drugs, for example), it causes a backlash... I have to wonder if smoking is any different in this regard.

The public health argument is really good one. Heard it a lot last couple of months. We can justify it all in name of public health, right ?

Also please, take more decisions out of me - life is hard anyway :)

This is the best argument against a public health system. Once you turn it over, the government controls far more of your life than you bargained for. I suppose some people are OK with that. However, history is cold comfort to those of us who are skeptical.

I'd rather have public healthcare and a government that "controls far more of your life" than some faceless insurance company controlling my access to healthcare.

You can become far healthier by yourself by exercising basic self-control and using a little bit of open-minded health research than by paying lots of money to some profit-minded doctors. No insurance company needed!

I'll remember that the next time I'm in A&E.

What history? I don’t know of any society that adopted socialised health care and there were overwhelmingly negative outcomes.

Freedom to smoke does not work with public health services, as your freedom to harm yourself is also harming your fellow citizens who have to pay for your treatments. You can't even have a system where people get to opt out of public health coverage, or you end up with people dying on the streets who opted out and later find they can't cover their health costs.

Freedom to consume more than 3000 calories/day does not work with public health services, as your freedom to harm yourself is also harming your fellow citizens who have to pay for your treatments. You can't even have a system where people get to opt out of public health coverage, or you end up with people dying on the streets who opted out and later find they can't cover their health costs.

Not a shot at you, just a comment about the dangers of excess paternalism. (slippery slope)

If they took the same heavy-handed approach to diet that they took with smoking I'd find the policy approach a lot more tolerable honestly. Just picking one or the other seems like discrimination because I think generally being fat is comparably unhealthy to smoking.

Smokers pay more into the health care system than they extract because of premature deaths.

Should non-smokers pay a health tax for not smoking?

>Smokers pay more into the health care system than they extract because of premature deaths.

Citation please.

New Zealand has one of the best representative democracies in the world. It's weird that you differentiate the country from its people, like they don't have a say in policy-making.

When you read about a policy like this it's reasonable to assume that it enjoys broad support among the population; and that if it doesn't, it will be overturned in due time.

> I will 100% avoid them in perpetuity.

Good idea.

This sounds incredibly undemocratic to me. To deny a goods to a portion of the population arbitrarily sounds shocking. There will be 2 classes of people from now on: those who can smoke and those who can't. Not that i agree with the american concept of democracy, that every law has to conform exactly to their constitution, but this seems like a worrying sign.

Democracy and liberty are different things.

I think i agree with what you are saying but only to an extent. After enough liberty has been removed your democracy falls apart. I think this law crosses the line of what's acceptable in a democratic state. Also, I meant that the American definition is that democracy and liberty are not different things.

51% democracy vs 100% democracy

They are not banning smoking, just the sale of certain tobacco products.

As a non smoker I agree. So now we just take round trip and go back to banning again? Should we go back to banning weed too? How about banning alcohol? I just don't understand how certain policy makers are thinking. Is this the new war on drug? Aren't restricting and economic incentives enough? Just why?

edit: the downvotes without comments are funny. Could downvoters comment, and let's have a healthy discussion about banning smoking/alcohol/weed?

This same country almost just passed a cannabis legalization referendum.

It brings to mind episode 8 from season 2 of Silicon Valley:

> When Jian Yang nonchalantly reveals Monica’s smoker status to one of her co-workers, Erlich scolds him. “This is Palo Alto,” he begins. “People are lunatics about smoking! We do not have the freedoms you have in China!” Sure enough, Laurie corners Monica at the end of the day to perform an “anti-smoking intervention” complete with stuffed animals and the now-immortal line, “No one ever died from secondhand heroin.”

https://www.vulture.com/2015/06/silicon-valley-recap-season-...

Exactly. If they are so hardcore on smoking, how are they going to deal with other soft drugs? and hard drugs? It's like 'left' and 'right' have the same ban hammer with just different targets. Don't people see how damaging this is?

You smoking infringes on my right to clean air in a restaurant.

As a NZer who values clean air, I fully support your boycott of this country.

Addiction is now freedom?

I used to express my liberty by creeping around carparks late at night and sifting through bins looking for cigarette butts to feed my addiction.

Freedom is harming others with second hand smoke?

https://www.cancercouncil.com.au/cancer-prevention/smoking/s...

Freedom is to cost taxpayers billions of dollars?

https://www1.racgp.org.au/newsgp/professional/smoking-costs-...

1. You can smoke in your home or where people are okay being around you

2. The cost is the fault of policies like universal healthcare that ultimately the taxpayers decided on giving. If they don’t like smokers, give an opt out.

I'm a kiwi, and if that's how you feel you should stay away. We're probably not the place for you.

We have a a target of being a smokefree country by 2025 to encourage a healthier population, especially among our more vulnerable communities.

NZ is not America, so I don't imagine these other policies would go down well either:

* We have a socialised healthcare system where you get treated for free, it's not perfect but nobody has to sell their house to pay for treatment.

* We have a scheme called ACC where if you get injured and can't work they pay 80% of your salary while you recover.

* We have an attitude of "Guns are a privilege, not a right".

* Lockdown's aren't popular here, but on the other hand we have a population of 5 million plus and so far only about 44 covid deaths.

Something to note here is that we have a representative democracy, which isn't perfect, but you can be sure that the policies in place are those supported by the majority of the population.

I won't be commenting on this any further because I don't really care.

Life is good here, it works for me and there's no shortage of people who wish they could move here but can't.

Correction - not encourage but enforce a healthy population.

Classic Kiwi feelgoodism. I am also a Kiwi (living on and off overseas for the last 15 years, Hong Kong, Switzerland, Australia, US, Germany, UK & Singapore) so hopefully can bring some balance to this discussion. I am perpetually in awe of and sick of the amount of dilusion the average New Zealander experiences and broadcasts (case in point). The average kiwi is also under a mighty misconception as to where they think they stand in the world (clue: on the arse end of it).

Facts, New Zealand is comprised of a largely low acheiving population, working menial jobs with poor productivity and extremely insular world views. New Zealands education system is largely underperforming and failing its students, hence the prevelance of weird national coping memes like sport and "worlds best at covid" and Mātauranga Māori, (take a look at the trend of the University of Aucklands rankings over the last decade, dont bother looking for the other Unis they are all 200+ & 500+). NZ's commercial landscape is an utter backwards wasteland with a system of Monopolys and Duopolys that ensure competition and fair market principles are never practiced and that top dollar is paid and extraordinary gross margins are retained. NZX is a joke of an exchange with a smattering of piss poor listings; All of this topped off with a brain dead political class and archaic public beuracracy. Simply put NZ has a fetish with incompetence.

* We have a socialised healthcare system where you get treated for free, it's not perfect but nobody has to sell their house to pay for treatment. > Its still shit enough that most people pay for and get private insurance.

* We have a scheme called ACC where if you get injured and can't work they pay 80% of your salary while you recover. > Cool, but again most people in the world get income protection insurance and pay much less tax, but I guess having something foisted on you gets you going. (Also ACC are out of control, they have assets far in excess of their actuarial obligations. Also fully captured by cronies, see recent exit of international portfolio manager Nicholas Bagnall to setup Te Ahumairangi Asset Management, ACC are now paying him in excess of $10m p.a. fees now, out - jobs for the boys... (PS his track record is shit, yet it was all pushed through without due process).

* We have an attitude of "Guns are a privilege, not a right". > Cool. Hasnt always been that way, infact its more a recent phenomena which is really just the result of arse covering for the polices incompetence running background checks and you know doing what is their job...

* Lockdown's aren't popular here, but on the other hand we have a population of 5 million plus and so far only about 44 covid deaths. >Congrats, Jacinda did a good job for a bit and then she and her ministers utterly dropped the ball, increased national debt by close to 2x, caused asset price inflation to all but surely lock out most of the next generation of New Zealanders from owning property, bankrupted 1000's of business, but hey thats all good you only had 44 deaths... Get some perspective, when are the borders opening again? must be nice to get out of Auckland some time, oh wait. Its a fucking shitshow. Must be good to go and take an antigen test when you arent feeling flash - yeah right...

>I won't be commenting on this any further because I don't really care. Oh great, if someone makes a valid counterpoint, you have already dismissed them, how very forward looking of you.

Sure life might be good for you, but its pretty suboptimal for many others in the nation, which traditionally prided itself on a lack of social heirarcy and fair go. Both of which are flat on their back dead.

I dont blame OP for not wanting to move to NZ, fact is it really doesnt stack up as that an attractive place for most people with a clue. Until New Zealand gets some real strategic focus and long termism, its fucked. I dont see a bright future for a country that thinks producing primary agricultaral commodities as its main source of balancing trade as smart in 2021 and beyond. Synthetic protein will utterly crush farmers.

Also on your very last point: https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/300474664/covid19-... Keep telling yourself sweet nothings, the only people that want to move to NZ live in third world countries and have been rejected by larger democracies.

>Smoking or not smoking is one of the simplest expressions of individual liberty

In a vacuum, maybe, but what about the individual liberty of others who are damaged by your secondhand smoke?

What about the individual liberty of others who have to pay for your health care when you become one of the 2/3 of smokers who die from it?

I'm Australian and way more likely to move there to live with this law.

When I was there last, I was horrified that they still allow this disgusting antisocial behavior at outside eating areas.

It was like stepping back in time, and not in a good way.

I honestly could not care less what anybody puts in their body, as long as they keep it to themselves. Unfortunately smokers rarely keep it to themselves.

The article and the headline is wrong. The government is not banning smoking, it is banning sales of certain tobacco products.

You are absolutely allowed to smoke them.

Not if you are born after an arbitrary date, in which case such products are practically legally inaccessible to you.

People will grow their own, but it from a mate.

Point is it’s not illegal to smoke, it is illegal to sell an addictive, harmful substance commercially.

that's inaccurate. It's legal to sell harmful products to certain people but not others. Which sounds very discriminatory to me.

I dislike seeing smoking described as a "habit". 80% of smokers want to quit but can't.

"Habit" minimizes the reality that smoking is an addiction that kills 2/3 of its victims.

This message is endorsed by Phillip Morris

https://www.pmi.com/markets/new-zealand/en

Smoking is a nasty addiction. I don't really support taking away someone's right to put in their body what they want, but this won't do that in practice, only in legalese. By the time 14 year olds die off in between 2080 and 2110, anyone born in the near future is going to have access to tobacco in near limitless quantity without much of a markup above market rate.

What really strikes me about this story is how tobacco can be something more than what is it known for now.

It is a truly special plant, up there with tea, cannabis, coca, poppies, coffee, chocolate, khat, sugar.

A law like this encourages people to not be addicts, but to enjoy responsibility. I know the government and science say that's not possible, but we are probably entering an age where the sacrifices of generations of prior smokers has made lung cancer and other cancers a top priority.

I would really like to see Tobacco take a place with the other drugs and become something that's savored and enjoyed once in a while.

There are so many kinds of tobacco. I don't really like it. I have met a handful of people who loved tobacco, but didn't smoke much, maybe once a day or week, but real nice stuff. I remember someone introduced me to a cigarette with a tobacco leaf nicotien content of like 6-9%, I believe is was called a Brazilian cigarette as it was introduced to me. I took one or two hits of that and my head was swimming! Stomach too. Just wrecked me. Same as chewing does. Tried chewing half a dozen times. Always felt like I was going to throw up. The juicy torture was unique, but it wasn't for me.

I've never in my life been a regular tobacco smoker, but sometimes I like a few shreds stolen from a cigarette in my bong.

Tobacco is a cool plant, and I would like for everyone to experience it.

>didn't smoke much, maybe once a day

lol

Why are they walking backwards? When people can't buy psychotropics legally, they do it illegally

And contraband also funds criminality.

EDIT: "Smoking has already been widely replaced by vaping among teenage New Zealanders.."

They are just switching providers.

From 11 November 2020, the existing prohibitions on the sale of tobacco products and herbal smoking products to minors are extended to vaping products. https://www.health.govt.nz/our-work/regulation-health-and-di...

Big Vape and organized crime lobbyist donations?

bribery (or "lobbying" as called in the US) is illegal in most countries, including NZ

But getting industry jobs after leaving public positions is common.

Unlikely. The cigarette companies ARE big vape

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