They will just buy grey/black-market ‘chop-chop’ tobacco from one of the numerous Chinese smoke shops instead. These shops are commonplace in Australia, so I assume it’s the same in NZ.
New Zealand plans to make it illegal for kids to buy cigarettes – for life
151–160 of 162 posts
Re: New Zealand plans to make it illegal for kids to buy cigarettes – for life
#152Earlier quoted context omitted.
I gave you a direct quote. What are you referring to?
I'm not being taken for a ride where we pretend that nothing was intended nor implied by calling it a narcotic.
You are being taken for a ride for this statement:
> Not a narcotic in any sense of the word.
Re: New Zealand plans to make it illegal for kids to buy cigarettes – for life
#153The 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.
> because it's (arguably) incompatible with socialised healthcare.
Being obese is even more so. When do we start banning fatties? /s
Re: New Zealand plans to make it illegal for kids to buy cigarettes – for life
#154The 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…
>Why shouldn’t an adult have the freedom to smoke and put themselves at high risk of lung cancer? More than 2/3 of smokers say they want to quit [1]. What kind of freedom is it to be addicted to a deadly product, to want to stop using it but to be unable to do so? At a certain point, legally preventing people from becoming addicted in the first place protects freedom more than allowing people to become addicted to so…
> More than 2/3 of smokers say they want to quit.
I would assume a larger portion of obese people say they want to lose weight. Should we ban sugar too?
Re: New Zealand plans to make it illegal for kids to buy cigarettes – for life
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Why shouldn’t an adult have the freedom to smoke and put themselves at high risk of lung cancer? More than 2/3 of smokers say they want to quit [1]. What kind of freedom is it to be addicted to a deadly product, to want to stop using it but to be unable to do so? At a certain point, legally preventing people from becoming addicted in the first place protects freedom more than allowing people to become addicted to so…
> More than 2/3 of smokers say they want to quit. I would assume a larger portion of obese people say they want to lose weight. Should we ban sugar too?
Sugar is natural, so many animals live on sugar, it is just a quick cheap energy storage medium so you find it in most plants and milk produced by animals. The only unnatural and bad part about modern sugar consumption is how much of it we are able to distil and consume.
Also people could live on sugar 50 years ago as well, but people weren't fat then. However smoking still killed a ton of people even 50 years ago when they lived a healthier lifestyle, smoking is just plain bad, sugar isn't.
Re: New Zealand plans to make it illegal for kids to buy cigarettes – for life
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
> More than 2/3 of smokers say they want to quit. I would assume a larger portion of obese people say they want to lose weight. Should we ban sugar too?
Sugar is natural, so many animals live on sugar, it is just a quick cheap energy storage medium so you find it in most plants and milk produced by animals. The only unnatural and bad part about modern sugar consumption is how much of it we are able to distil and consume. Also people could live on sugar 50 years ago as well, but people weren't fat then. However smoking still killed a ton of people even 50 years ago wh…
Tobacco is plant. The processing of tobacco doesn't make it any less natural than sugar.
We have known that type 2 diabetes is triggered by obesity for more than 1500 years. It's no surprise that the earliest records are from India, where sugar processing was invented.
Tobacco smoking is bad. But only a small fraction of smokers actually die from smoking.
Re: New Zealand plans to make it illegal for kids to buy cigarettes – for life
#157Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
I've thought about this carefully, it is.
Re: New Zealand plans to make it illegal for kids to buy cigarettes – for life
#158Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
> Its a pretty miserable and quite deadly addictive narcotic. Nicotine is a stimulant. The exact opposite of a narcotic.
Did you ever have an overdose of Nicotine? It can be pretty stupefying.
But it was Tobacco that I referred to as a narcotic, ie psychoactive drug. And it's a very harmful one.
Re: New Zealand plans to make it illegal for kids to buy cigarettes – for life
#159Earlier quoted context omitted.
They die earlier, but I'm no sure if this outweighs the substantial treatments many need before they die.
A smoker's heart attack at 57 is cheap, it's the non-smoker's 15 years of Alzheimer's that costs.
Or is that the smoker's emphysema, copd, lung cancer - I've heard it both ways but in my mind it's at least an open question as to who costs more.
Re: New Zealand plans to make it illegal for kids to buy cigarettes – for life
#160The price increases (10% per year since 2011) have created a market for stolen and counterfeit cigarettes already. Creating a slow-roll prohibition will not stop people wanting to smoke tobacco products - in fact, previous evidence (e.g. alcohol and cannabis as things most people know about) shows that people are motivated to partake by the very idea of it being illicit. The product of US prohibition was the creation…
While both alcohol and weed can give you altered reality experience, tobacco can not. Tobacco smokers are a major annoyance and a nuisance to the public, on top of killing themselves slowly, so if the tobacco cigarrets would've been strictly illegal and you coldn't smoke in public I can't imagine people willing to organize into small secret clubs to smoke a few cigs a day in a place you have to go to.
>While both alcohol and weed can give you altered reality experience, tobacco can not.
What does that really mean? Cigarettes are psychoactive. Passed that, it's just a matter of degrees. To be honest I remember being 18 and smoking cigarettes with my friends and spacing out. In retrospect it was very lame, but kids will try to alter their consciousness however they can