New Zealand Bans Cigarette Sales to Everyone Born After 2008
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
It's so hard to imagine ever implementing reforms like these in the US. The political resistance would be insurmountable ("individual freedom," etc). It's a good thing the anti-smoking policies from 1960s proved durable -- they'd be impossible to enact today.
That's one way of looking at it; another would be to say that it's a significant erosion of liberty effectuated against the young.
Should governments ban all activities which surpass a certain risk threshold? Examples might include drinking alcohol, skiing, mountain climbing, ice climbing, motorcycling, and consumption of unhealthy foods (however you might define them).
Also, smoking =/= mountain climbing.
I am aware that smoking isn't the same as mountain climbing, it would have been redundant for me to list the same thing more than once. Each of the activities on the list is distinguishable from the others.
So by starting to smoke you could argue that your liberty is already being taken away from you to an extent and you're instead an unwilling slave to the tobacco industry.
Where is your "liberty" then?
I'll gladly give at least that one thing up to live in a society of healthier people.
Smokers are more likely to contract (and spread) tuberculosis, for example. They are more likely to die early due to one or more expensive diseases that tax the healthcare system. Also, the fact that they smoke influences other people to do so!
So, I would say, yes, cigarettes are degenerate. Society needs to grow out of such vices.
In addition to alcohol, a great many chemical substances fall under government controls. Particularly where the public health risk is deemed of high cost.
In that context, how is this so significant or different?
The purpose of regulating personal activities is to mitigate negative externalities to society, not to eliminate personal risk. Thus, whether and how something should be regulated is a function of both how probable it is to cause said externalities, and the overall absolute impact of them.
The negative externalities of skiing or mountain climbing are that others in society have to pay for healthcare costs associated with injuries sustained from these inherently risky activities. However, on an absolute level, skiing/climbing injuries are rare enough that society has decided to eat this minimal cost.
Smoking, on the other extreme, is much more common and has externalities that extend beyond healthcare costs to the smoker [*], e.g. secondhand smoke and litter from cigarette butts. Thus, on an absolute level, its externalities have been deemed unacceptably large by society. But rather than banning smoking outright, there are other ways to mitigate these externalities (bill smokers directly for smoking-related healthcare costs, restrict smoking to areas that minimize secondhand smoke exposure, have draconian fines for littering, etc.)
This argument can also apply to alcohol (e.g. draconian penalties for drunk driving) or unhealthy food (bill healthcare costs associated with obesity directly to the patient) [*].
[*] Yes, I am aware of studies that claim smoking/obesity causes a net decrease of healthcare costs, since most expensive healthcare occurs in old age, which smokers/obese people are less likely to reach. If indeed these studies are true, that should be factored into the actuarial calculus.
You must understand that not everybody believes that this is the role of society. Are we living in a free country or a glorified HOA?
A progressive might applaud this - seems very smart, actuarial, fair, etc. And might put down a conservative that keeps harping on intangibles like freedom as being crude or simple minded or worse evil or in concert with evil things (as decided by the progressive) like Big Tobacco. Of course cancer sticks are bad.
But don't assume - it could be that some people see the problem not about tobacco, but have thought about three moves ahead about several ways this can go very, very wrong. This kind of relationship with the government, well meaning at the beginning or not, will end up going only one way.
This was my first thought. I hate cigarettes with a passion, but allowing the government to encroach on small freedoms like this is a slippery slope. I think it is better to disincentivize things like cigarettes through taxation.
- who gets to judge what is or is not a social ill? For example cigarettes bad, marijuana good? these are merely the whims of a fickle mob mentality. witch trials and mass paranoia are now canonized
- bureaucratic inertial. governments are big. big and really inefficient. when you put so much of your existence in the hands of a government, you'll then demand so much more from it too. when it gets so big to be ungovernable, even if everyone agrees on what's right to do it becomes impossible. US VA administration and the tar pits of ancient la brea.
- the above two issues presume a vast majority involved are honest brokers. but that historically appears to be not at all the case. with such centralized power, the thirst of the dark personalities is inescapable. so the facade may be painted legitimate, but very quickly the actual power will become very, very dark.
This is only shifting deck chairs on the Titanic, not any meaningful change.
The only upside is that NZ is fine with vaping. So they aren't cutting people off from nicotine, they are just banning more harmful forms of it.
Ever is a long time. Are you familiar with Prohibition?
Prohibition was an unmitigated disaster. I really can't come up with a better illustration of why Americans won't go for a wide spread ban on tobacco. Prohibition perfectly illustrates the exact opposite of your argument.
What do you think my argument is? For me it is not hard to imagine things ever happening when they already happened.
Saying that Americans would take a ban on tobacco because they banned alcohol doesn't hold up because alcohol was never actually banned. The law existed, yes, but alcohol was always available to pretty much everyone.
Repealing a constitutional amendment is massively difficult. That should tell you a lot about how Americans felt about it.
I'm saying prohibition is a perfect example of why Americans won't support a total ban on tobacco because it very explicitly and very definitively shows how much they did not support a total ban on alcohol. They hated the ban so much that they had to change the constitution. You can't get any more definitive than that.
But passing one isn't?
Massively unpopular?
Please tell me how a massively unpopular law ever becomes a constitutional amendment. It does not happen.
"Ratification was achieved on January 16, 1919 when Nebraska became the 36th of the 48 states to ratify the amendment. On January 29, acting secretary of state Frank L. Polk certified the ratification. By 1922, 46 states had ratified the amendment.
The following states ratified the amendment:
Mississippi: January 7, 1918
Virginia: January 11, 1918
Kentucky: January 14, 1918
North Dakota: January 25, 1918
South Carolina: January 29, 1918
Maryland: February 13, 1918
Montana: February 19, 1918
Texas: March 4, 1918
Delaware: March 18, 1918
South Dakota: March 20, 1918
Massachusetts: April 2, 1918
Arizona: May 24, 1918
Georgia: June 26, 1918
Louisiana: August 3, 1918
Florida: November 27, 1918
Michigan: January 2, 1919
Ohio: January 7, 1919
Oklahoma: January 7, 1919
Idaho: January 8, 1919
Maine: January 8, 1919
West Virginia: January 9, 1919
California: January 13, 1919
Tennessee: January 13, 1919
Washington: January 13, 1919
Arkansas: January 14, 1919
Illinois: January 14, 1919
Indiana: January 14, 1919
Kansas: January 14, 1919
Alabama: January 15, 1919
Colorado: January 15, 1919
Iowa: January 15, 1919
New Hampshire: January 15, 1919
Oregon: January 15, 1919
North Carolina: January 16, 1919
Utah: January 16, 1919
Nebraska: January 16, 1919
Missouri: January 16, 1919
Wyoming: January 16, 1919
Minnesota: January 17, 1919
Wisconsin: January 17, 1919
New Mexico: January 20, 1919
Nevada: January 21, 1919
New York: January 29, 1919
Vermont: January 29, 1919
Pennsylvania: February 25, 1919
New Jersey: March 9, 1922"
Massively unpopular.
That's your actual argument. Massively unpopular.
You should read into the history of the law, because the facts disagree with you.