New Zealand plans to make it illegal for kids to buy cigarettes – for life | Hacker News Reader

New Zealand plans to make it illegal for kids to buy cigarettes – for life

cbc.ca

67 pointscolinprince157 comments

The price increases (10% per year since 2011) have created a market for stolen and counterfeit cigarettes already. Creating a slow-roll prohibition will not stop people wanting to smoke tobacco products - in fact, previous evidence (e.g. alcohol and cannabis as things most people know about) shows that people are motivated to partake by the very idea of it being illicit.

The product of US prohibition was the creation of extremely wealthy alcohol running families who are nowadays big (legitimate) businesses in North America, built up through the wealth of the illegal operations during prohibition.

While the intention (zero smoking) would save many from suffering horrible deaths, observation of basic human motivation suggests the NZ experiment is more likely to make a few people extremely wealthy and not actually stop tobacco smoking at all, no matter how much better off people would be by not smoking.

> the NZ experiment is more likely to make a few people extremely wealthy and not actually stop tobacco smoking

The trend is pretty good, and numbers are steadily falling. E-cigarettes have been vowing though. The below stats obviously pre-date the change announced.

https://www.health.govt.nz/publication/annual-update-key-res...

This is the thing, as drugs go cigarettes aren't a particularly good one.

Good points. Like you said, kids drink underage and kids smoke underage. People buy heroin, etc. even though it is illegal. We'd be better off making these things legal for those 18+, tax them and use that to fund addiction recovery (we already have addicts but no one is paying for recovery).

The Portuguese model has been wildly successful.

While both alcohol and weed can give you altered reality experience, tobacco can not. Tobacco smokers are a major annoyance and a nuisance to the public, on top of killing themselves slowly, so if the tobacco cigarrets would've been strictly illegal and you coldn't smoke in public I can't imagine people willing to organize into small secret clubs to smoke a few cigs a day in a place you have to go to.

> I can't imagine people willing to organize into small secret clubs to smoke a few cigs

You mean like what underage kids already do?

smokin' in the boys' room

> Tobacco smokers are a major annoyance and a nuisance to the public, on top of killing themselves slowly

isn't it kinda the same with weed anyway?

Plus they generally just toss their used butts onto the ground everywhere. Toxic, radioactive and a biohazard all in one.

That's not true. A lot of people start smoking because it feels good.

Nicotine is psychoactive, and the physical act of smoking can be pleasant.

>While both alcohol and weed can give you altered reality experience, tobacco can not.

What does that really mean? Cigarettes are psychoactive. Passed that, it's just a matter of degrees. To be honest I remember being 18 and smoking cigarettes with my friends and spacing out. In retrospect it was very lame, but kids will try to alter their consciousness however they can

Availability matters. Buying drugs/products from dealers is not something most people are comfortable doing.

A ban on smoking products dramatically reduces availability.

There are already black markets for cigarettes anyway. I think they are unavoidable.

The amount of support for drug prohibition in this thread really surprises me. Why shouldn’t an adult have the freedom to smoke and put themselves at high risk of lung cancer?

If it’s “for their own good”, what makes the government the best entity to decide what’s good for one’s self?

I hope lives are saved, but dang, it just hurts me a little bit to see personal liberty curbed.

There’s no way this will result in an illegal drug market for cigarettes, right?

It’s weird right? Some times I look at interesting places like Qatar and Abu Dhabi and think, ‘I wouldn’t mind going there for a bit, see what it’s like’. Then I realize they banned alcohol, and the women are constricted, and so on.

Nice mountains New Zealand, wish I could have a smoke on one of them, you know, like Gandalf.

> If it’s “for their own good”, what makes the government the best entity to decide what’s good for one’s self?

FWIW, it's easier to justify when the government pays for expensive healthcare bills that ensue. Like making helmets and seatbelts mandatory, etc.

I know people who are mad at helmet-less cyclists because they will cost tax money if they have an accident: it isn't only their personal life they put on the line, they're risking other people's money. However small the final amount is on an individual level, it adds up. In the US, there are talks of making voluntarily unvaccinated patients fit their entire Covid-19 hospitalization bill.

Its a pretty miserable and quite deadly addictive narcotic. No legitimate medical use, and an unusually hugh incidence of cancer. Its certainly a harm on society. I can't really think of much benefit, most smokers are happy to quit.

But if you look at the US, they have dramatically decreased smoking with education and gentle discouragement.

Maybe also look at the reason why some people get addicted in the first place, it's often due to trauma.

Not a narcotic in any sense of the word.

In many languages the word narcotic is commonly used to mean any substances causing addiction.

Definition 1 b: " A controlled substance."

https://www.thefreedictionary.com/narcotic

That definition is overly simplified and derives directly from the controlled substances act and similar programs, which refer to many drugs but especially opiates as "narcotics".

Nicotine is not a "controlled substance".

But also to add, drug law enforcement's tendency to refer to something as a narcotic whenever it's politically expedient is obvious FUD.

I allege that FUD was the intended effect when the word was used by OP.

Regarding the first: Contrary to your earlier assertion, however, it is an extant definition in a sense of the word.

You don't like the definition. The definition, however, exists.

Regarding the second: We're discussing its regulation here and now.

(Updated to clarify which aspects of comment I'm responding to, and how.)

I would argue that nicotine is not a controlled substance, so it doesn't fall under this definition anyway.

But, that said, it is totally valid to argue that a definition is wrong, misleading, or incomplete. Has nothing to do with whether I like it or not, but thanks for saying that.

You'd be arguing that on a discussion concerning its regulation.

Does this dissonance not register at all with you?

It would be a tautological argument for its addition to the list of controlled substances. Like so, "It's a narcotic because it's a controlled substance and it's a controlled substance because it's a narcotic." Calling it a narcotic is not helpful.

I do wish you would stop taking jabs at me personally.

Nobody made that argument. The cause it for being on the list is "deadly addictive". See above.

See above indeed.

I gave you a direct quote. What are you referring to?

I'm not being taken for a ride where we pretend that nothing was intended nor implied by calling it a narcotic.

You are being taken for a ride for this statement:

> Not a narcotic in any sense of the word.

I've thought about this carefully, it is.

> Its a pretty miserable and quite deadly addictive narcotic.

Nicotine is a stimulant. The exact opposite of a narcotic.

Did you ever have an overdose of Nicotine? It can be pretty stupefying.

But it was Tobacco that I referred to as a narcotic, ie psychoactive drug. And it's a very harmful one.

One consideration here that many folks (US in particular) may not consider is that smokers put a very substantial burden on the NZ healthcare system which is taxpayer funded.

Of course, there are plenty of counter examples to this such as obesity (NZ is #2 in obesity only to US at #1) where the costs don’t result in any substantial regulation or prohibition. Alcohol is a ginormous topic too, NZ has an extremely unhealthy relationship with it.

I think I agree that the stripping of liberties is uncomfortable, even if I’m totally opposed to smoking.

I remember looking at the figures ages ago for a different country and if you netted everything out smoking saved the government money.

For example here is something from the UK from the IEA:

https://www.publicfinance.co.uk/news/2017/08/smoking-and-dri...

    The Smoking and the Public Purse report argues that the government spends £3.6bn treating smoking-related diseases on the NHS and up to £1bn collecting cigarette butts and extinguishing smoking-related house fires.

    The government saves £9.8bn annually in pension, healthcare and other benefit payments due to premature mortality, the IEA said.

    Meanwhile, the government brings in £9.5bn a year in duty paid on tobacco, the IEA said. Suggesting this means smoking produces a net saving to public finances of £14.7bn a year, at current rates of consumption.

I think people just assume automatically smokers are a drain on the healthcare system but I wouldn't assume this without having a deep look at the figures.

Wow, fascinating. I’m not entirely surprised that the taxes cover the healthcare costs (probably similar in NZ where taxes on smoking are very high), but I was startled by the idea of early mortality being a saving.

I would point out that healthcare isn’t an entirely financial game; struggles to get nurses and doctors still mean that smokers will pull resources away from other areas

Metrics are useless, by this line of logic we should encourage older people to kill themselves because they consume more resources than the younger who produce them.

Maybe NZ has socialized healthcare? In which case you need to relinquish "personal liberties" to access medical resources.

In general, I don't support these kinds of things. I just think vices are something humans have pursued in general and will continue to pursue regardless of government control. It's just cost of being in a society. Education can help and has helped greatly reduce smoking along with policies restricting where one can smoke.

Any sort of prohibition creates a very wealthy "criminal class" who are adept at covering the gaps. And now the government will spend way more money trying to bring that "criminal class" down.

Maybe this was incorrect information, but I was under the impression that smokers were generally less of a cost on healthcare, as they tended to die earlier and use less medical resources.

They die earlier, but I'm no sure if this outweighs the substantial treatments many need before they die.

A smoker's heart attack at 57 is cheap, it's the non-smoker's 15 years of Alzheimer's that costs.

Or is that the smoker's emphysema, copd, lung cancer - I've heard it both ways but in my mind it's at least an open question as to who costs more.

True enough, it could go either way, you pays your money and you takes your choice. Unless you're a Kiwi, there the state makes that choice for you; Mummy knows best.

See comment elsewhere in this thread for how smoking is a massive net gain for the UK government thanks to high taxes and early mortality.

There's certainly an argument for it but I disagree that loss of liberties is prerequisite to socialized healthcare.

This 100%. There's plenty of activities that put you at risk but people seemingly only care about like 5 things. Including smoking.

Mutual Healthcare does put more pressure to actually deal with macro damage creators. Like chemical companies dumping their shit in streams.

> Maybe NZ has socialized healthcare? In which case you need to relinquish "personal liberties" to access medical resources.

That argument does not hold water.

Socialised healthcare, as we have in the UK (I'm not sure about NZ), doesn't mean you don't pay for it. We all pay for it in income tax and national insurance through every single pay packet. We also pay for it through other taxes such as VAT and fuel duty.

This means that if, for example, you partake in a risky activity such as driving, and get into an accident, regardless of whether it was your fault or not, if you're still alive but in need of medical attention, the NHS will treat you. If you go out running, trip, fall and break your ankle, the NHS will treat you - even though you could have avoided that injury by staying at home. If you're cycling and you fall off your bike on a patch of ice, the NHS will treat you, even though cycling when it's icy isn't a particularly good idea.

I need to sister some joists in my loft to reinforce them prior to boarding out for storage. If, through my own stupidity, I manage to fire a nail through my hand with my own nailgun (it happens), the NHS will treat me even though such an injury would 100% be my own fault.

Nobody needs to relinquish "personal liberties" just because healthcare is socialised. When we're treated by the NHS, we're getting what we've paid for and therefore (rightly) feel entitled to expect. I am hugely grateful for the NHS, but it is not free, and it shouldn't be making moral judgements about who to treat and who not to treat.

Do I like smoking? No, not at all - it's a disgusting habit that makes you and everything you own stink, and terrible for your health, not to mention a woefully pitiful way to get any kind of buzz or high. The buzz from tobacco is parsimoniously anticlimactic, and it's unbelievably expensive for the minimal payoff in that department. I mean, seriously, at least have some ambition in your vices.

At the same time, do I want to see it banned? Also no, and for all the reasons otherwise discussed in this thread: I don't want to foster an environment in which organised crime can further thrive, and I don't want to criminalise (ultimately) millions of smokers.

This legislation is both a massive government overreach, and a terrible idea.

Unlike most drugs, people don't tend to consume cigarettes medically or "recreationally" (i.e. for their experiential effects.) Instead, cigarette use is caused initially by 1. a viral meme of "coolness" driven by corporations, followed by 2. addiction. There's no upside for an individual in consuming their first cigarette. The only upside is to the corporations making the cigarettes. (And doubly bad, from a government's perspective, these manufacturers are probably international conglomerates, where all the money they make from the inelastic demand of addicted locals, gets funnelled out of the country.)

> What makes the government the best entity to decide what’s good for one’s self?

Why do entities the FDA exist, you mean?

Imagine if instead of cigarettes, a cartel of corporations decided to try to make a chewing gum containing a tiny amount of cyanide "cool."

You'd want someone to stop them, right? Mostly everyone would.

But no individual has the power to stop a cartel of corporations. You'd need the collective use-of-force of an entire country to stop them.

And no individual's whims should dictate the use of that collective force in these cases. You can't trust your neighbour to know what cyanide even is. You'd want some kind of ...objective standard, or maybe a consensus of scientific experts. Perhaps a requirement for scientific studies showing safety and efficacy.

> There's no upside for an individual in consuming their first cigarette.

Nicotine is a potent cognitive enhancer.

>There's no upside for an individual in consuming their first cigarette

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6018192/

>Preclinical models and human studies have demonstrated that nicotine has cognitive-enhancing effects. Attention, working memory, fine motor skills and episodic memory functions are particularly sensitive to nicotine’s effects. Recent studies have demonstrated that the α4, β2, and α7 subunits of the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (nAChR) participate in the cognitive-enhancing effects of nicotine. Imaging studies have been instrumental in identifying brain regions where nicotine is active, and research on the dynamics of large-scale networks after activation by, or withdrawal from, nicotine hold promise for improved understanding of the complex actions of nicotine on human cognition.

Not that I advocate for smoking, or that I think it needs to be justified with some kind of 'benefit' to not be outlawed, but one could argue it does have demonstrable cognitive effects that some find desirable. Even if it didn't, some people just find it enjoyable and don't give a shit about the health effects. Given these facts we could replace the word 'cigarettes' in your post with 'coffee' and it'd make just as much sense, but that's a drug you (probably) find enjoyable personally so we won't be seeing any calls for criminalizing that any time soon.

People smoked before corporations were a thing.

because it's (arguably) incompatible with socialised healthcare. a counter-question might be: why should non smokers pay for smokers healthcare? no, the tax doesn't usually cover it.

> because it's (arguably) incompatible with socialised healthcare.

Being obese is even more so. When do we start banning fatties? /s

Well some people argue for that too in the form of sugar taxes and mandatory exercise in state run schools

Well, I'd be okay with people smoking cigarettes if non-smokers literally never had to breathe in their second-hand smoke. So, if someone without any children lived in a single-family home (as opposed to an apartment building or complex) and never left for long enough to need a smoke break while out in public—I'd say sure, go ahead and smoke, that's none of my business.

How many people does that describe? How many people can truly predict they will never want kids? How many people never need to go out during the day, now and forever in the future?

There’s a ton of people who dip or use chewing tobacco… no second hand smoke there.

14% of US adults smoke: https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/adul...

Only 2.4% of US adults use smokeless tobacco: https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/smok...

This second link also says that 3.5% of adult smokers also use smokeless tobacco. 3.5% of 14% is 0.49%. So about 0.49% of US adults are dual users of both smoked and smokeless tobacco, leaving about 1.91% of US adults as exclusive smokeless tobacco users.

Those freedoms impact on others. It's well known that passive smoking is a major problem[1].

If they want to smoke away from everyone else (and that means everyone), fine. If they want to hang out in a group of consensual smokers, then fine. But they don't, they sit around in bars and blow smoke in your face or smoke walking down a street so that you either have to pass them or walk through the smoke.

This is leaving alone the impacts on the environment every time one of them flicks a cigarette into a drain, and impacts on healthcare and taxation every time I have to pay for their healthcare (universal healthcare).

To be clear, I'm pro universal healthcare.

Australia and New Zealand have done a superb job of reducing the amount of tobacco smoke. The difference between going to a bar/cafe in Australia and one in Croatia/Serbia is substantial (not singling them out, I've just visited).

I don't know whether this plan will work, and I understand the concerns around personal freedom, I'm just not sure whether protecting the 'rights of smokers' is the right hill to die on.

[1]: https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/seco...

because they are not only putting themselves at risk but they affect everyone around them.

The problem here is how tobacco smokers are affecting people around them. Passive smoke consumption is very dangerous, and the smokers tend to ingore any regulations for smoking. Take public bus stops for example, if someone starts smoking while waiting for the bus you usually don't want to start a scene by asking them to stop, and you wouldn't call the police on them, because it's really stupid to bother the cops for such a tiny thing they wouldn't even catch in time. The workplace can be really affected too. Offices may be free of smoke now, but have you ever been a construciton worker? And hell, even living next to a smoker is really uncomfortable, if you live in an apartment building it's always a nuisance when they smoke and it gets sucked into your place if you have a window open. I just really don't want smokers anywhere near me, but the reality is - they are all over the place, and when you try to limit the places they can partake in their habit or complain they always act like they're the victim and their rights are getting violated.

> The amount of support for drug prohibition in this thread really surprises me. Why shouldn’t an adult have the freedom to smoke and put themselves at high risk of lung cancer?

I'm not for drug prohibition either but there should be very specific legislation around use of tobacco for minors.

No informed adult in their right mind would start smoking tobacco. It's incredibly deadly and addictive, and not even enjoyable before you're an addict. The problem is that people start smoking when they are kids or teenagers and are unable to stop when they become conscious of the problem.

In my country, selling tobacco to minors would lead to an insignificant fine. This is insane. I can't make any sense of it.

I think it's important to remember that tobacco is highly addictive. This makes it harder for individuals to make an informed decision which I think should be a factor in deciding whether to control a particular substance.

I was going to write up a devil's advocate post, but I think I'm mostly fine with people having the freedom to keep smoking as long as externalities are priced in. If smokers cost the country ~NZ$2.5 billion for their personal freedom, then the revenue produced by the tax should be ~NZ$2.5 billion. I think it boils down to if a regressive tax like that is palatable or not.

However, as the smoking population dwindles (due to costs, but also increasing public awareness) and you get less people paying in, but more people pulling out of the pot, you're going to have to bump the tax that much more, causing tobacco related crime. At some point, you have to pull the plug if the smoking cohort can't pay for themselves without causing widespread crime. I don't think it should be illegal to smoke or grow your own, but a ban on selling substances does make some amount of sense.

>Why shouldn’t an adult have the freedom to smoke and put themselves at high risk of lung cancer?

More than 2/3 of smokers say they want to quit [1]. What kind of freedom is it to be addicted to a deadly product, to want to stop using it but to be unable to do so?

At a certain point, legally preventing people from becoming addicted in the first place protects freedom more than allowing people to become addicted to something deadly.

  [1] https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/cessation/smoking-cessation-fast-facts/index.html

> More than 2/3 of smokers say they want to quit.

I would assume a larger portion of obese people say they want to lose weight. Should we ban sugar too?

Sugar is natural, so many animals live on sugar, it is just a quick cheap energy storage medium so you find it in most plants and milk produced by animals. The only unnatural and bad part about modern sugar consumption is how much of it we are able to distil and consume.

Also people could live on sugar 50 years ago as well, but people weren't fat then. However smoking still killed a ton of people even 50 years ago when they lived a healthier lifestyle, smoking is just plain bad, sugar isn't.

Tobacco is plant. The processing of tobacco doesn't make it any less natural than sugar.

We have known that type 2 diabetes is triggered by obesity for more than 1500 years. It's no surprise that the earliest records are from India, where sugar processing was invented.

Tobacco smoking is bad. But only a small fraction of smokers actually die from smoking.

It doesn't hurt that they are killing themselves, the problem is they put higher healthcare costs on everyone else and then the second hand smoke is deadly. Plus the last place I worked, all the higher level guys smoked off 2 to 5 hours a day, then they complained about staying late to finish their work, and I'd walk out after 8 hours because I was done. The bosses didn't care, because they also smoked.

>The amount of support for drug prohibition in this thread really surprises me.

Most people I know smoke not because they are a drug addict or real smokers. They smoke because there are million things in life and work they cant get it out. And smoking is a pressure relieve system. That is why the trend is cigarettes with little Nicotine and fancy taste profile. Or E-cigarettes. I am willing to bet one could even create "cigarettes" with no nicotine and it will still sell.

May be cigarettes should be taxed by their content, where high Nicotine would be taxed higher or even ban. These sort of policy and system should be progressive.

As an ex-smoker I would love if nobody ever smoked again and this scourge was eliminated from the face of earth.

But not at this price. A few years of life more will never justify another war on drugs and this level of government control.

I lost a good number of men on my mom's side to tobacco and generally hate it.

Prohibition doesn't work and anyone who supports "quick fix" criminalization of substances is a fool.

Sidestepping questions of personal freedom, I think the method here is interesting. No one will have their access to buy cigarettes taken away. Some people will never receive the access in the first place. It’s easier to not grant access than to grant it, then take it away. I wonder if this could have other legal applications.

I fully support the spirit of this legislation, because I'm a recovered nicotine addict and I wish I had never been granted access to nicotine when I first experimented with it.

> Some people will never receive the access in the first place

This simply isn't true. People will purchase nicotine from older people, while that's still possible, and then there will be a blossoming bootleg nicotine market.

We've seen prohibition fail enough times to know that it simply doesn't work.

I agree that tobacco access will drip down over to the younger generations, however, should a decent percentage of stores or users comply with this:

1. Market will shrink, making tobacco more difficult to obtain for current users and suppliers

2. Population will age, and it will become harder and harder for new generations to obtain access.

3. At some point, the policy might be considered excessive and abolished. However, there is no time frame for that. 5 years? 50 years? Will it have accomplished anything?

4. (same as your last point) As legalization of other drugs seems to gain traction, this seems like a weird position to take. Would illegal trafficking of tobacco increase, with the usual downsides?

Instead of a blanket ban, would a huge tax increase work better? Keeping the same age restrictions. I can imagine most people preferring a legal, though more expensive, procurement source. Of course, that discriminates against a growing part of the population, but so does a ban. And in both cases, it helps you not to take up the habit in the fist place.

Your first two points have been proven comprehensively false by actual failed attempts at drug prohibition throughout modern history.

Nope. Criminal gangs will keep smokers in cigarettes.

Voting, freedom of movement, free speech . . . the possibilities are endless. New Zealand is certainly on the vanguard of this sort of political innovation.

I think it's a step in the direction of personal freedom, because addictive substances are kinda the opposite of free will.

This gets really messy when you start talking about physical addiction versus mental addictions. Not to mention substances that are only physically addictive to some people.

Yeah, till the day the concept of being addicted to read the wrong books arise.

That's an inapt slippery slope analogy. The supposed bastion of freedom, the US, still has states where books are banned. And abortion is functionally banned.

Not all freedoms are the same. Losing one doesn't equate with losing all of them. Equating the freedom to become addicted (or indebted perpetually) is not the same as the freedom to read or travel, etc.

Who gives the right to define something as addictive and therefore, bad, and other stuff as not and therefore virtuos. Why do we got the right to moralize some stuff as being "an slave of a substance". Aren't we all slaves of water, nutrition, companionship, shelter? Why do I get to feel superior to the cocaine user?

> Who gives the right to define something as addictive and therefore, bad

Data. Decades of data and the societal costs of ignoring addictive substances. The rest of your comment is a set of false equivalencies.

Heard the same from other moralists for quite some time about marijuana. They had tons of "data" about the societal costs of it.

>I wonder if this could have other legal applications.

Not in any country that believes in equality before the law; the concept is that you're not allowed to create 2 classes of citizens, which is what this law effectively does.

Not that the US is at all perfect in this regard, and nearly every state establishes some form of this, but effectively making a group of citizens permanent children should be troubling to anyone who values the concept of equality before the law.

Until we get suffrage for minors, banning cigarettes is peanuts.

I have a higher social security retirement age than my parents, even though life expectancy is dropping. We absolutely have different rules for different cohorts today in the US. Maybe there are times when cohort based law is a good tool, and times when it is not or should be unconstitutional.

>We absolutely have different rules for different cohorts today in the US.

Crucially, however, none of those rules involve criminal or civil penalties (outside of the distinction between who is and is not considered a full member of society; there are no tiers between full members outside of "does qualify as an adult" and "does not qualify").

It's worth noting that the part of the Constitution that deals with this was laid down after the US fought an incredibly destructive 4-year war against itself *to deny itself its own ability to pass cohort-based law*, though it took a good 100 years after that war for the results to be fully incorporated.

Of course, the US certainly isn't perfect in this regard, and this can be abused in the other direction ("In its majestic equality the law forbids both rich and poor to sleep beneath bridges...") but "honor what the 14th says" remains the cultural law of the land for very good reason.

>Maybe there are times when cohort based law is a good tool

Apartheid schemes and Jim Crow laws have always enjoyed wide popular support- they all have valid anecdotal backing (and scientific backing, if you consider P-hacking valid science), direct society in ways those not targeted by the law find preferable, and have enjoyed wildly popular support amongst the groups not targeted by the law.

That's fundamentally what cohort-based law is; society hasn't managed to solve the obvious abuse problems that come with "but I'm too lazy to solve this problem the right way" or "the solution to the problem compatible with human rights is taking too long", because without fail that's what it always becomes.

Well if I was a New Zealand smoker I would sleep at peace knowing that I will have a profitable side-career with a government granted monopoly in my retirement. “Hey kid, do you want your cigarettes? Pass the money and get out of my lawn!”

Everyone under the limit is having their access to buy cigarettes taken away.

I think the view that the government grants rights rather than takes away natural freedoms is a dangerous view.

It is completely backwards. Letting government think that it's an institution that grants rights and tells how to live instead of helping people sort out conflicts while letting everyone decide how to live their lives is a sure way to destroy society. Because power-hungry sociopaths would be the first to play such game.

Good parents don't parent via restrictions, but by offering kids something better to do with their time. Restrictions are powerful if they are super-clear and super-limited ("do not kill", "do not steal"). Just making a pile of good-to-have "don'ts" diminishes the effect and risks brewing revolt.

If you manage society and worry that people smoke too much or drink too much, or don't do enough sports, or eat junk food, figure out a way to make a better alternative more available and more satisfying. Be a good parent who guides to a better way, not an annoying parent who simply barks "no" left and right.

> "If nothing changes, it would be decades till Māori smoking rates fall below 5 per cent, and this government is not prepared to leave people behind."

I'm not from New Zealand, so it's officially none of my business. But, this quote in particular seems so patronizing.

I fully support this, but sadly there will be kids to whom possession and the smoking of cigarettes will be even more a sign of the utmost coolness. And, as I understand it there will be a time when a 35 year old can buy cigarettes but a 34 year old can't. That's going to be interesting.

Do you support cannabis being illegal? This is a pretty similar stance. Personally, I don’t think tobacco should be illegal. Do I partake? No. But I certainly don’t want to jail people for partaking.

I can't support any legislation that so blatantly discriminates against a whole class of people. People should be treated equally in the eyes of the law.

And yet they aren’t in a large number of ways. Driving, drinking, voting, gun ownership, the ability to consent to various things, the ability to own some things.

This is different. 'You can't vote because you are currently 17' is VERY different than 'You can't vote now or ever because you are 17 right now.' Or 'You can't drive because you are currently 14' is VERY different than 'You can't drive now or ever because you are 14 right now.'

A drug preference ins't a "class of people". It's just a preference (or an addiction).

How many upper-middle class people do you know who smoke cigarettes?

A lot of them surely snoke hookah or vape, and laws rarely make difference between that and smoking.

People born after a certain year is a class of people. Born on one side can smoke, born on the other side can never smoke.

But it's good for them! Sure. They also speak about smoking being a problem for the Maori. Maybe they should start by banning them from smoking.

They aren't banning a drug preference. They are banning it from a specific group of people.

This is fundamentally broken. There has to be a better way of accomplishing it than setting terrible precedent of yanking privileges for life from a group which can't even vote yet.

It's certainly unfair that the older generation end up with worse health because they aren't protected by this law, it's true.

Whether the law is well intentioned or not, it discriminates against those born after a certain year.

If it is truly necessary to ban people born after 2007 from smoking for their entire lives, this law should not create two groups, it should ban all people smoking at any age.

I think lots of countries have changed their pension rules in a way that treats people born after a certain date differently from people born before a certain date, whether or not they express it in those terms. Is that fundamentally any different from the proposed smoking rule?

Theoretically that is based on actuarial data which says people are living longer and can work longer.

If you can find one where people born before a certain year get a pension and people after it will never get one, then it's a like to like comparison.

Here’s the problem with tobacco. It becomes a public expense when the community has to pay the health bill. The same arguments that people who refuse COVID vaccines should be cut off from the community (jobs, commerce, etc) applies to tobacco. Tobacco costs lives and can inflict damage on those not personally using.

"Here’s the problem with tobacco."

Funny how that is the exact same problem as with exercise, diet, driving, and just generally existing in a society.

Smoking is addictive. This makes it more difficult for a person to change their behavior compared to exercising more, eating healthy, and driving better (I'm assuming you meant people who drive poorly?)

So does heroin. Decriminalizing its use with treatment works while prohibition never does. You're barking up the wrong tree if you believe outlawing tobacco is a valid solution.

>The same arguments that people who refuse COVID vaccines should be cut off from the community (jobs, commerce, etc) applies to tobacco.

When was the last time an ER or ICU was closed to new patients because of lung cancer? The problem with COVID denialism isn't that they impose the usual sort of healthcare costs but that they produce correlated emergencies which strain the hospital beyond its usual operating capacity.

Once the ERs slow down can people who didn’t get the shot have jobs or leave their homes? Many on the Left say no.

I expect that vaccine mandates for employment (a la Biden) will go away eventually, yes. But that won't happen "once the ERs slow down"; rather, it happens when we are confident they won't "speed up" again. One operationalization: I would figure that when we are at 95% vaccinated or so, and when it is no longer a major news item, the mandate will be repealed.

>or leave their homes?

I do support continuing the vaccine mandate for as long as people continue to say ridiculous things like this. Government policy has rarely been so funny.

Well, everybody is going to die, and therefore have some kind of end-of-life healthcare cost. If it isn't lung cancer from smoking, then it will be heart disease or Alzheimer's or some other form of cancer.

> Here’s the problem with tobacco. It becomes a public expense when the community has to pay the health bill.

Depending on how you measure it, New Zealand may well be taking in more tax than the use of tobacco is costing.

It all gets quite murky quite fast (eg how much tax would the dead person have paid if they had lived longer?).

Don’t get me wrong though, I’m somehow supportive of more restrictions on tobacco and alcohol while keen on more liberal drug policies. It would seem that I need to think this all through.

https://www.health.govt.nz/about-ministry/information-releas...

Slippery slope. Soon it's those who eat hamburgers and french fries are a public expense, therefore ...

Social welfare should be a means to promote personal liberty, not an excuse to take it away.

I don't know man, "refusing a vaccine" is not nearly as addictive as tobacco, and isn't advertised anywhere near as much.

It's not a strong argument by the way. I don't own a car yet I still have to "pay" if someone has an accident, I don't do any risky sports but have to "pay" for someone else's skateboarding injuries, I don't eat fast food often but must "pay" for people who went full diabetic on McDonalds or whatever.

You fully support criminal penalties for people who voluntarily consume tobacco? The repeated catastrophic failures of prohibition laws makes it impossible for me to support a move like this.

It will only get cooler. And you put age discrimination in the law book.

Sure there is some age discrimination in the lawbooks for kids/elderly have some different laws applicable to them. But this is discriminating against a generation not an age group.

I prefer the "tax the shit out of it" approach. Possibly with a tax that is calculated based on your wealth/income (as all discouragements taxes should be, or they only apply to poorer peeps)

You think that the harm is positively correlated with income out of all things? And you want to present your income to a cig store out of all places?

Maybe have some tax-thing so they show up on your tax statement.

Same for other discouragement tax and also fines. Making them flat for all is basically saying poorer can we financially ravaged some something the rich would not even worry a tiny bit.

If you know how alcohol is sold in Sweden you may get the drift of what I'd like to see: totally available but very controlled.

Because prohibition worked out so well in the past. And the war on drugs is a supreme success.

Roll the tanks because Jimmy sells loosies.

I get all the hesitancy in the comments here about the freedom of an adult to have a cigarette. However, smoking is a case where; if you're having a smoke at the same bus stop as me, I am inhaling that crap too.

The solution to this lies in the statement.

Almost all evidence suggests that decriminalization or even full legalization is the path for substance legislation. Anyone believing criminalization to be an efficacious way to reducing drug addiction or related damages has either buried their head in the sand to almost every study and real world example, or has ulterior motives.

Kind of missing the point, though. Why do so many Maori adults smoke? Attack the cause, not the effect.

The war on drugs expands.

I kind of torn between two opinions here.

On the one hand - an adult should be able to make their own choices regarding something like this. I mean, we're all slowly decaying day-by-day and I can understand that one might want to live while their alive and suffer the consequences of a shorter lifespan. Also sometimes one could argue it's actually encouraged not to become obsessed with _never_ doing anything that is bad for your health, we all accept that there's value in stress reduction to sometimes just go out and have an intense night with friends, order in some junk food or just do something really risky for the adrenaline rush.

On the other hand - the intense addiction factor of cigarettes is really quite terrifying and is really unprecedented when compared to other unhealthy habits. A lifelong smoker who quit once told me that the Cigarette, is more like a companion. There in the good times, (celebrate, have a cig), there in the bad, there when you wake up, take a break, or call it a day. They are optimized to be a lifelong companion and the amount of suffering caused by them (directly - to the smoker and indirectly - to loved ones impacted by their addiction) is significant enough (IMHO) to warrant questioning of its impact to human life. Alone 80-90% of lung cancer deaths are attributed to smoking [1], that isn't some minor thing at all. And although for some people cigarettes may start or may always be just a source of relaxation or indulgence occasionally on a night out, once the addiction and habits set in, it becomes a point of stress and suffering when they are not available - which IMO negates any benefits they might provide at the start. You also don't see this sort of wide spread addiction with things like cigars - which to me is a dead giveaway that they are not just some form of indulgence.

I personally would love to see them disappear and never return. I think they provide far more suffering to the individual and individuals surrounding smokers than any of the benefits could ever hope to offset.

If that's not possible, then I'd be satisfied if the addictive substances in them were highly regulated and reduced or removed entirely.

[1] https://www.cdc.gov/cancer/lung/basic_info/risk_factors.htm

Surely kids below the age threshold will love to break the rules and try it out.

There is one upside though, which is that enforcement becomes progressively easier. At some point every young person that smokes is breaking the law.

I think they could just make the product worse (e.g. banning filters; adding supplements to make it more bitter) and then individuals will naturally opt to avoid smoking.

I don't think that people will ever break the law by smoking. It's selling which is usually made illegal, not buying.

Going after a person is much harder than going after business making money.

Preventing people from buying something that affects their own body should be illegal. It's their own body. (Anti smoker here)

I agree. But if you are smoking next to me, now I am too.

It should be illegal to affect anyone by the smoke.

My dream system would be: If you are at a public place but there is no one else around (clearly defined by distance), that would be okay. If there's a single person they would have right to sue you and it's your responsibility to ensure you aren't affecting anyone as the smoker. If in doubt, you can smoke home.

My point is, anyone should be able to anything to their own body as long as their actions aren't affecting other people. Anything from smoking/secondhand smoke to harder drugs/driving under influence etc would be judged by the same logic.

I don't smoke and actually hate smoke, but I don't feel that I have any right to prevent anyone from smoking, as long as their smoke doesn't get in contact with me.

What if my taxes are paying for their healthcare? (I don't support completely banning smoking, but just playing devil's advocate here)

The system is wrong. Everybody should be paying for their own healthcare OR if there will be public healthcare, people who are at higher risk due to their own actions (like smoking) should not be covered by healthcare/pay an extra to be covered etc.

I definitely agree with you on someone shouldn't be paying for someone else's healthcare.

What if a billionaire smoker pays for your healthcare the most? I think it's completely fair for that billionaire to also mandate that you must smoke.

Then he can lobby it (and probably fail).

The article mentions Bhutan’s ban but fails to note the unintended consequences: a huge increase in smoking and black markets [0]

[0] https://www.vapingpost.com/2017/07/18/bhutans-tobacco-ban-di...

soon we'll own our lives to some 'benign' all knowledgeable government...I guess it's where everything is heading, all needs to be measured, assessed, risks calculated, resources optimized.. and nobody seems to be too worried, maybe it's just evolution in action... quite terrifying if you ask me.

This is just silly. If you're an adult (i.e. 18+) then you should be able to smoke if you want. You can't have agist rules that segment the population like this because it simply doesn't work and isn't a government's right to dictate who can/cannot smoke. No, I don't smoke.

They will just buy grey/black-market ‘chop-chop’ tobacco from one of the numerous Chinese smoke shops instead. These shops are commonplace in Australia, so I assume it’s the same in NZ.

They could have just banned it in public or put it under offensive behaviour. This will only drive tobacco underground. People already buy contraband tobacco products and drugs.

amazing out of the box idea and wish them all the best. Crazy to think smoking anywhere is ok especially during an airborne pandemic and the notion that spewing out that crap from your mouth/nose is okay anywhere at all where there are or aren't other people is nuts. Not inside. Not outside. Not down the street. It not ok to invade other people's personal space. Same as anything pandemic. The entitlement is as much a plague as the virus itself.

Any NZers on that know if this is likely to pass?

We have bills like this in the US a few times a year but they never have real chances of being signed into law.

I'm not against smoking but I believe that it should not be illegal, but controlled.

Go look for 'lung cancer' statistics post ~2007. It's going to be quite difficult to find this data and when you do... Why are lung cancer rates WAY WAY up?

Tobacco smoking is way down in part due to 'education' and tremendous taxes. The reason they dont really show the post 2007 data is that it's really bad. It destroys the correlation that tobacco is even involved in lung cancer. In fact, it now looks like tobacco's toxicity might have been kind of a chemotherapy poison holding back lung cancer.

Worse yet, all the 'education' means nobody at all is looking into it. Everyone just blames tobacco still. I'm not saying go buy a pack of cigarettes, but creating a black market like NZ is about to do is the wrong choice.

What happens when they grow up and make something illegal for you in return?

"something" that can cause lung cancer? I guess it's just going to save lives.

Do the same with murder simulating video games next pls

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