this post was submitted on 05 Oct 2023
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I was wondering what is Lemmy's opinion on this?
Personally, I really don't understand the purpose of prohibition laws. It's some sort of virtue signaling? I don't smoke tobacco but this seems just silly. People will get shitty black market cigs that'll be much worse. If they really cared about the people wouldn't addiction programs be funded instead of prohibition? Especially when the science is clearly in favor of the former.
In universal healthcare countries the one's smoking are basically abusing the system as there is a very high chance they end up with some kind or respiratory or hearth issues sooner or later. Such illnesses are very costly to treat hence they are taking away from others. Contrary to let's say alcohol that most people consume but also majority is not alcoholic. Smokers are almost always junkies and they have issues quitting fags. Smoking is extremely addicting.
I'm not very convinced by this argument. First your alcohol example is working against your point as alcohol costs billions in damages. Some sources argue that alcohol is very similar in costs:
For example I'm reading that US CDC estimates 249B usd damage from alcohol and 300B from smoking so they are very much the same.
That being said, my main argument would be that prohibition just doesn't work and it's so hard to determine lines. Should we ban excess calories like fast foods or just butter because obesity is by far the biggest expense and we know that food is extremely addictive. Policing every activity at this level seems impossible.
We already have a solution for this burden - tax. You won't get any taxes if you ban smoking and still have to care for smokers.
Is this prohibition in the same way it is delivered in the past? Existing users continue to have a legal path of purchase whilst new potential addicts don't. I don't think it'll have the same effect as you are concerned about, at least at a much reduced rate.
And just because there are other vices that are detrimental to our health doesn't mean there shouldn't be efforts to counter this one.
I dont think fast food works as a counter-example because it isnt addictive like cigarettes are. We can safely have butter, fast food and drinks like coke occasionally and just stop until the next time.
Millions of people safely have a cigarette once in a while too. I don't think addiction can be measured so simply.
In these cases it is very much "privitise the profits, socialise the costs" scenario. The tobacco companies reap the profits and the taxpayer foots the bill via the healthcare system.
Are you suggesting that alcohol is a-okay?
I imagine some addicts would continue to buy from the black market but most people probably will stop once the convenience of e.g getting it from the grocers no longer exists. Not to mention it would make it harder to become addicted to begin with.
Prohibition has never turned out this way though. If there's a market there will be so many black market sellers that the convenience factor will quickly become irrelevant. It could also make smoking cool again.
This policy suggestion differs from other prohibitions slightly, due to the mechanisms of addiction, and the existance of alternative nicotine delivery.
In the first factor, there is a prime age range during which addiction likelyhood is highest: ages 10 to 20. Beyond this range, succeptibility to addiction falls. By reducing the likelyhood of people in that range to encounter tobacco products, we can meaningfully reduce overall nicotine addiction inthe population.
The second factor is the existance of safer alternative nicotine delivery mechanisms. For those already addicted, more targeted mechanisms such as gum, patches, and even vaping can represent a reduced-harm alternetive to smoking.
Also, black market ciggarettes probably will be just as safe as they are now, since they will most likely be commercially produced for other countries and smuggled in. Its not like RJ Reynolds will start cutting Camels with coca leaves just cause they can't sell to 25 year olds.
I'd say no cause it is on the recommendation of doctors and researchers within the country to him and it's actually something that will affect people in a positive way supposedly. Now I think he made cuts to healthcare so in that regard yeah it is a little bit of virtue signalling but it's virtue signalling in a functional way that actually impacts things. Which I think is okay for him to do.
It commissioned a review, published last June and led by Dr Javed Khan, which made a series of recommendations, including increasing the legal age for buying tobacco.
He recommended that the age of sale should increase from 18, by one year every year, until no-one can buy a tobacco product.
Cancer Research UK's chief executive Michelle Mitchell said: "Raising the age of sale on tobacco products is a critical step on the road to creating the first ever smoke-free generation."
But Simon Clark, director of the smokers' group Forest, said: "Raising the age of sale of tobacco is creeping prohibition, but it won't stop young people smoking because prohibition doesn't work.
I don't get it. I'm not in the UK but having read this article on other communities I was very surprised to see so many people support banning smoking.
Yeah it's not healthy but a lot of things aren't. Drinking, fast food, soda, etc etc. Are you gonna go banning all that too? Believe it or not a lot of people are aware of the health effects and made a choice to continue doing so. I think effort would be better spent helping those quit who want to.