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Comment by LouisSayers | Hacker News Reader

Pretty much - the new gov campaigned for tax cuts and refused to tell anyone how they'd pay for it... and now we know.

Tax cuts for most will be negligible amounts, and the long term health costs seem to be ignored (even though we have a public health system!).

Very short term thinking to the benefit of tobacco companies and some short term increase in tax revenues (cigarettes are highly taxed in NZ).

Oh, they've also decided to bring back pseudoephedrine tablets too - which prior to being banned had meth cooks paying swarms of people $20 a pack for a quick trip to the pharmacy.

Interesting policies!

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> they've also decided to bring back pseudoephedrine tablets too

I dislike many of their policies but I'm not convinced this one is wrongheaded.

While meth (called 'P' in New Zealand) was often manufactured from pseudoephedrine tablets here, the outright ban on this medication did not seem to have succeeded in lowering the availability of P in the country; after an initial rise in price and reports of lowering of purity, the street price has overall dropped from around 700 NZD / gram in 2009 to around 400 NZD / gram today, as described here[1]

[1] https://newsroom.co.nz/2023/09/26/pseudoregulation-the-failu...

It's just a strange policy for the parties to bring out as soon as they get into government - kind of like a back-door to taxing meth production (not sure how the economics work, but am I wrong?).

Especially given Act and National's "hard stance on gangs and crime" you have to wonder where their incentives lie.

Over here in the States our FDA has finally admitted that the pseudoephedrine replacements are medically ineffective and only work to generate pharma profits.

“For a long time, over-the-counter decongestant products like Sudafed had pseudoephedrine in them. Pseudoephedrine is effective at reducing sinus congestion during colds but is also an ingredient that can be used to make methamphetamine. As a result of abuse of pseudoephedrine-containing products by manufacturers of methamphetamine, federal legislation was passed moving those products behind the pharmacy counter, which made them harder for people to get ahold of for routine use. Since companies would prefer to sell products that people can just easily grab off the shelves, Sudafed and other well-known brands introduced new formulations with another very old over-the-counter active ingredient, phenylephrine. The problem is that phenylephrine doesn’t work, as the FDA finally concluded, unless you directly spritz it onto your nasal passages as with Afrin or products like that.”

https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2023/09/why-are-ineff...

> only work to generate pharma profits

But they would have profited anyway with the pseudoephedrine tablets.

I understand they're an effective treatment, the problem I see is that they end up in the wrong hands and pharmacies end up being broken into.

In NZ we've had a problem in the past couple years of people doing "ram raids" which is basically people stealing cars and smashing them through buildings to steal things as well.

Taking everything into account, to me it seems the downsides outweigh the upsides of selling these tablets.

> Very short term thinking

What actual evidence do you base this on? The South African government banned cigarette sale during the lockdowns. Evidence suggests that black market cigarette sales surged and failed to return to previous levels after the ban was lifted.

The economic concern with banning cigarettes is you will have similar numbers of people smoking, but now you've lost the tax revenue on sales while you still have to carry the healthcare costs. You also have increased costs related to policing and adjudicating the ban.

New Zealand has public healthcare. Around 5000 people die here per year as a result of smoking, which reduces any taxes those people would have paid had they not died, as well as costing tax payers for the time they spend in hospital.

The ban on cigarettes here wasn't to be an outright ban but one staggered over a number of years.

There's been a gradual decline of smokers in NZ over the years, so there is some evidence that such laws could be helpful rather than simply creating a black market.

https://www.health.govt.nz/your-health/healthy-living/addict....

https://www.smokefree.org.nz/smoking-its-effects/facts-figur...

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