New Zealand passes world-first tobacco law to ban smoking for next generation | Hacker News Reader

New Zealand passes world-first tobacco law to ban smoking for next generation

theguardian.com

18 pointsmarban10 comments

New Zealand could prob use a history refresher or two on how well prohibition laws have worked in the past and how they end up actually creating more dangerous drug trade and crime.

It's a _remote_ island nation so they have better ability to control contraband. Moreover, Japan is a decent example of tough on drugs policies with decent success (and also Singapore, but they are quite draconian). So it need not be a forgone failure.

I would note that the entirety of North America banned alcohol at one point, and so theoretically had the same advantage that an island nation would, albeit at a larger scale. Of course, tobacco is not alcohol which can be brewed at home; still.

I'm not entirely sure re: Japan, in that it's hard to get a good picture of the rates of drug use in the country. The case of Japan also reminds me that I'm not really sure about the direction of causation. Is it drug prohibition and legal penalties that causes people to refrain from drug use in countries like Japan? Or does a society that tends to refrain from drug use and which views it extremely negatively internalize those values, such that they're then projected in its laws? Perhaps the general social conscientiousness and social fabric of the Japanese is a bigger factor there than what the law says. If no one wants to use drugs, you won't have much of a drug problem.

Re: North America the repeal of such laws in Canada aligned with with the start of prohibition in the US.

(To some extent )

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

Also, there was no prohibition in Mexico , which some have argued spawned the creation of what would become the largest drug cartel(s)

https://ivn.us/2013/08/27/prohibition-spawned-mexicos-oldest...

And of course transformed Tijuana

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/opinion/commentary/stor...

Also Cuba was a source, or the western Caribbean.

Tobacco has to be grown, whereas alcohol can be synthesized out of sugars or carbohydrates and yeast, two things that are very abundant all over the world.

I don't doubt that there will be some people who sneak around the blockade, but I believe that this wouldn't cause a tobacco based prohibition scenario of speakeasies and black market cigarette running on anything approaching the scale of prohibition.

Canada and the U.S' prohibitions didn't exactly line up.

The reason why the largest Whisky Distillery in North America is in Windsor, and has been since before prohibition.

Is it? Nicotine can come in many forms, including synthetic. I believe what will end up happening is people will turn to black market nicotine for vapes and what not which will be more dangerous. I think regulation and taxation would actually be more effective, and just having mental health support for people struggling with addictions where they don't feel ostracized for seeking help. This has been an effective policy for things like aids prevention where groups will provide clean needles but have counselors available to assist people with addiction.

I’m of the opinion tobacco free nicotine (assuming this is the synthetic nicotine you’re referencing, sometimes referred to as nicotine salts) are quite a happy medium. Hopefully they would not make nicotine gum (or pouch equivalent) illegal. Smoking tobacco is almost two orders of magnitude “more dangerous to health” than than the tobacco-free alternatives mentioned.

If they want to ban nicotine in addition to tobacco.. then that seems more equivalent to US Prohibition. Giving people safe alternatives is probably the most sustainable approach to eradicating tobacco use.

I don’t know, maybe a corollary is sex education. Abstinence only doesn’t work well compared to learning about and having access to contraception.

I do think that cigarettes in particular are a bit different than previously prohibited drugs, both due to their rapidly declining popularity and their lower effort/reward ratio. I can see someone turning to the black market for marijuana or alcohol due to their much more intense and desirable effects as well as their social/cultural significance, but I struggle to see young people doing the same for cigarettes, especially when vapes are still available.

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