New Zealand to ban young people from ever being able to buy cigarettes | Hacker News Reader

New Zealand to ban young people from ever being able to buy cigarettes

cnbc.com

25 pointskoolba10 comments

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This sounds like a good time to invest in the forthcoming black market for cigarettes. Because that's what prohibition will get you, New Zealand.

Hard to see how a black market for cigarettes will ever be as large as the current legal market, or as large as the prohibition-era market for booze. In most Western societies cigarettes are looked down upon in social situations. How many people, beyond those who are hardcore addicted, would go to the trouble of breaking the law for a smoke?

In the UK cigarettes are so expensive there is a widely accessible black market. My parents buy illegal cigarettes for example because they are cheaper than buying in a shop. It already exists

There are black markets for many mundane things that you would never suspect would be trafficked. Make something illegal (or effectively so, via taxation) and the demand will be met by someone.

NZ had to thread the needle of not making themselves liable to "free trade" courts, which the US routinely uses to force smaller countries to eliminate public health measures that reduce sales of US products.

They have to obey, at risk of losing rights to export their products to the US.

Tobacco does have medicinal properties. For example, many psychiatric patients smoke a lot [0]. I propose they use nicotine to counter-act some of the terrible drugs they're forced to take.

[0] https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/01/11/schizophrenia-no-smoki...

Nicotene is a partial substitute for Niacin (Vitamin B-3). Niacinamide sometimes helps people reduce their tobacco intake.

The first generation anti-depressants were the Mono Amine Oxidase Inhibitors (MAOIs). Tobacco has MAOI-like effects too.

I think tobacco is also an anti-estrogen... Aromatase inhibitor: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2904480/

Compulsions have to be considered in context: people get benefits from tobacco that they do actually need. My friend (a misdiagnosed 'psych patient') took up smoking when she was 12, probably because she was depressed.

Edit: submission of a CS montior link about this same news item: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29500610

I have known several people who smoked tobacco to help suppress schizophrenic symptoms. The drugs prescribed for that are very unsatisfactory.

Arguably, nicotine patches should be available over the counter. Nobody would use them unless they need them.

Heroin has medicinal properties too. That doesn't mean any 16 year old should be allowed to purchase it over the counter for whatever ailment they think it may treat.

Nicotine is one of the most reinforcing substances we know of, and can be as difficult to kick as a cocaine or heroin habit. It easily removes a decade from your lifespan and reduces the quality of the remaining years.

I am not a psychiatrist, but my degree is in neuroscience. It's not 100% clear why some clinical populations are overrepresented amongst nicotine users. You offer an explanation but there are many more and some are at odds with one another.

If it's because of medicinal benefits, isolating those is preferable to getting tar in your lungs. If it's because people with conditions like schizophrenia are less supported, predisposing them to substance abuse, having a legal and extremely addictive substance at any store or gas station would make it worse.

Makes no sense to me given how most governments treat cannabis, psilocybin, LSD, etc. which are much safer and less habit forming (and have much better medicinal applications)

Yeah that will stop them..

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