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Comment by changing1999 | Hacker News Reader

changing1999

How would an additional tax address this? Paying more would hardly reduce usage, and definitely won't incentivize users to dispose of vape pens more responsibly.

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I can imagine a tax so high that it's effectively a ban, and a tax half that size that might be a compromise between black and white ban/no ban

The UK taxed tobacco to high heaven and I don't think it did much to actually curb use. It's subject to the usual 20% VAT, plus an extra 16.5%, plus a flat £6.33 on 20 packs, so well over half of the sale price of tobacco is just tax.

https://www.gov.uk/tax-on-shopping/alcohol-tobacco

The people I know that would be affected by this just get duty free from corner shops under the table now. Last I heard it's around 8 quid for 50g of rolling tobacco instead of £38 buying legit.

Wouldn't be surprised to find out they smoke more than they used to with it being less scarce.

Tobacco smoking has been on a downward trend since at least the 70s, from 50 to 13%, and taxes have steadily gone up since then in real terms, but I'm surprised to see that the period when the government raised taxes the most is about the only flat part of the curve.

https://ash.org.uk/uploads/Smoking-Statistics-Fact-Sheet.pdf... https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/tobacco-bulletin/hi...

I would rather the government outright bans things rather than pseudo-banning them via the back door via taxes. At least then they have to expend an appropriate amount of political capital, and there is a proper amount of debate over it.

We had in the UK the sugar tax which was an effective ban on added sugar in soft drinks - you can hardly buy any drink without artificial sweeteners now, all of the old formulations were taken off the market because they were uneconomical. However, it never prior received attention as a ban, it was always described as just a "tax".

It would encourage usage of reusable vapes, but still give people the option of a disposable vape of they for example forgot their reusable vape when traveling.

Simply, we should charge for negative externalities (not only for vapes) and let people decide what's valuable to them.

Do bottle deposits (a few cents that you get back for returning empty soda or whatever bottles to the right place) actually work? If they do, maybe the same model would work for this.

Denmark's bottle return system receives 92% of bottles and cans.

It could pay for additional people to clean up the streets, or you have a deposit on them, so that they be returned rather than littered.

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