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New Zealand plans to make it illegal for kids to buy cigarettes – for life

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Re: New Zealand plans to make it illegal for kids to buy cigarettes – for life

#61

Post by NoSorryCannot »

Synaesthesia wrote: post #42
bigyikes wrote: post #26

The amount of support for drug prohibition in this thread really surprises me. Why shouldn’t an adult have the freedom to smoke and put themselves at high risk of lung cancer? If it’s “for their own good”, what makes the government the best entity to decide what’s good for one’s self? I hope lives are saved, but dang, it just hurts me a little bit to see personal liberty curbed. There’s no way this will result in an…

Its a pretty miserable and quite deadly addictive narcotic. No legitimate medical use, and an unusually hugh incidence of cancer. Its certainly a harm on society. I can't really think of much benefit, most smokers are happy to quit. But if you look at the US, they have dramatically decreased smoking with education and gentle discouragement. Maybe also look at the reason why some people get addicted in the first place…

Not a narcotic in any sense of the word.

Re: New Zealand plans to make it illegal for kids to buy cigarettes – for life

#62

Post by cynusx »

Surely kids below the age threshold will love to break the rules and try it out.

There is one upside though, which is that enforcement becomes progressively easier. At some point every young person that smokes is breaking the law.

I think they could just make the product worse (e.g. banning filters; adding supplements to make it more bitter) and then individuals will naturally opt to avoid smoking.

Re: New Zealand plans to make it illegal for kids to buy cigarettes – for life

#63

Post by sleepysysadmin »

Go look for 'lung cancer' statistics post ~2007. It's going to be quite difficult to find this data and when you do... Why are lung cancer rates WAY WAY up?

Tobacco smoking is way down in part due to 'education' and tremendous taxes. The reason they dont really show the post 2007 data is that it's really bad. It destroys the correlation that tobacco is even involved in lung cancer. In fact, it now looks like tobacco's toxicity might have been kind of a chemotherapy poison holding back lung cancer.

Worse yet, all the 'education' means nobody at all is looking into it. Everyone just blames tobacco still. I'm not saying go buy a pack of cigarettes, but creating a black market like NZ is about to do is the wrong choice.

Re: New Zealand plans to make it illegal for kids to buy cigarettes – for life

#64

Post by [deleted] »

MayeulC wrote: post #38
bigyikes wrote: post #26

The amount of support for drug prohibition in this thread really surprises me. Why shouldn’t an adult have the freedom to smoke and put themselves at high risk of lung cancer? If it’s “for their own good”, what makes the government the best entity to decide what’s good for one’s self? I hope lives are saved, but dang, it just hurts me a little bit to see personal liberty curbed. There’s no way this will result in an…

> If it’s “for their own good”, what makes the government the best entity to decide what’s good for one’s self? FWIW, it's easier to justify when the government pays for expensive healthcare bills that ensue. Like making helmets and seatbelts mandatory, etc. I know people who are mad at helmet-less cyclists because they will cost tax money if they have an accident: it isn't only their personal life they put on the li…

[deleted]

Re: New Zealand plans to make it illegal for kids to buy cigarettes – for life

#66

Post by Angostura »

xboxnolifes wrote: post #55
gautamdivgi wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe NZ has socialized healthcare? In which case you need to relinquish "personal liberties" to access medical resources. In general, I don't support these kinds of things. I just think vices are something humans have pursued in general and will continue to pursue regardless of government control. It's just cost of being in a society. Education can help and has helped greatly reduce smoking along with policies restr…

Maybe this was incorrect information, but I was under the impression that smokers were generally less of a cost on healthcare, as they tended to die earlier and use less medical resources.

They die earlier, but I'm no sure if this outweighs the substantial treatments many need before they die.

Re: New Zealand plans to make it illegal for kids to buy cigarettes – for life

#68

Post by derefr »

bigyikes wrote: post #26

The amount of support for drug prohibition in this thread really surprises me. Why shouldn’t an adult have the freedom to smoke and put themselves at high risk of lung cancer? If it’s “for their own good”, what makes the government the best entity to decide what’s good for one’s self? I hope lives are saved, but dang, it just hurts me a little bit to see personal liberty curbed. There’s no way this will result in an…

Unlike most drugs, people don't tend to consume cigarettes medically or "recreationally" (i.e. for their experiential effects.) Instead, cigarette use is caused initially by 1. a viral meme of "coolness" driven by corporations, followed by 2. addiction. There's no upside for an individual in consuming their first cigarette. The only upside is to the corporations making the cigarettes. (And doubly bad, from a government's perspective, these manufacturers are probably international conglomerates, where all the money they make from the inelastic demand of addicted locals, gets funnelled out of the country.)

> What makes the government the best entity to decide what’s good for one’s self?

Why do entities the FDA exist, you mean?

Imagine if instead of cigarettes, a cartel of corporations decided to try to make a chewing gum containing a tiny amount of cyanide "cool."

You'd want someone to stop them, right? Mostly everyone would.

But no individual has the power to stop a cartel of corporations. You'd need the collective use-of-force of an entire country to stop them.

And no individual's whims should dictate the use of that collective force in these cases. You can't trust your neighbour to know what cyanide even is. You'd want some kind of ...objective standard, or maybe a consensus of scientific experts. Perhaps a requirement for scientific studies showing safety and efficacy.

Re: New Zealand plans to make it illegal for kids to buy cigarettes – for life

#69

Post by golemotron »

PretzelPirate wrote: post #51
golemotron wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the least of the reasons it wouldn't work in the USA. It would be a civil rights issue. Age discrimination.

Legally, doesn’t age discrimination only protect people over 40? Would it apply to banning people under the age of 14 from ever doing something? https://www.eeoc.gov/age-discrimination

Civil rights under the Constitution are largely about protecting freedom from government action. The US does not have laws that prohibit liberties disparately among adults. The NZ law would be a non-starter in the US.

Re: New Zealand plans to make it illegal for kids to buy cigarettes – for life

#70

Post by pharmakom »

bigyikes wrote: post #26

The amount of support for drug prohibition in this thread really surprises me. Why shouldn’t an adult have the freedom to smoke and put themselves at high risk of lung cancer? If it’s “for their own good”, what makes the government the best entity to decide what’s good for one’s self? I hope lives are saved, but dang, it just hurts me a little bit to see personal liberty curbed. There’s no way this will result in an…

because it's (arguably) incompatible with socialised healthcare. a counter-question might be: why should non smokers pay for smokers healthcare? no, the tax doesn't usually cover it.
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