One "good law" to paper over 9000 other very bad laws.
What are you talking about? 9000?
New Zealand passes legislation banning cigarettes for future generations
81–90 of 227 posts
Re: New Zealand passes legislation banning cigarettes for future generations
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
The point of the law is to prevent anyone born after 2008 from buying cigarettes. Hardcore users that are older than that can continue to purchase tobacco.
Right, those born after 2008 will have to buy their cigarettes illegally.
When I was a kid in the 80-ties parents sent me to buy cigarettes for them. It was not illegal to sell them to minors. I guess there'll be reversal of that practice in New Zealand.
Re: New Zealand passes legislation banning cigarettes for future generations
#83Not to worry, the (black) market always provides. It's almost like the government is abdicating their own responsibility for regulating markets and protecting public health, and instead sanctioning criminal activity to handle the issue.
What would you do differently to solve the problem?
Educate educate educate. Don't even try to solve this within generation, this is something which need to be really through generations. Educate people how bad cigarettes are for them and others and you can use also soft propaganda as painting smokers as bad people in media etc instead straight up banning smoking, you can just make smoking extremely appalling.
Re: New Zealand passes legislation banning cigarettes for future generations
#84I grew up in a household with two smoking parents, and it sucked. So on a personal level, nothing would be better than the world collectively giving up the nasty habit. However, I would never, ever advocate or vote for forcing people to do that. Why? Because you could make the exact same case for every single vice. Alcohol has zero benefits for your health - don't even try to give me the "but wine has antioxidants" B.S., the math between the negatives and positives is still in the red (ha!). How about caffeine and other stimulants? Foods too high in fat? Red meat? Too much sunshine? XYZ thing that is considered "unhealthy" this week by the "experts"? Don't get me wrong, reasonable limits imposed at a societal level can certainly make sense (banning smoking from restaurants and airplanes, having blood-alcohol driving laws, et cetera). But the fundamental question here is do you really want to trust your personal decisions on health, diet, and entertainment to those elected via a popularity contest? And the "experts" they solicit their advice from?
Re: New Zealand passes legislation banning cigarettes for future generations
#85How generous of the grown ups to ban things for other people but not yourself. Like it's objectively a good thing but it seems so silly and immature to me. How good could society be by now if we could get every generation to pass restrictions on the vices of the next generation only, I suppose. Edit: I know talking about down voting is discouraged, but since I'm being downvoted, why not go further? Alcohol is also ob…
> Alcohol is also objectively bad,
Alcohol is a wonderful drug in low doses. It is a social lubricant, relieves stress, lowers inhibitions.
It is possible to use alcohol without it being very bad for you.
Re: New Zealand passes legislation banning cigarettes for future generations
#86> The new legislation does not ban vape products, which have become far more popular among younger generations than cigarettes.
That still seems like a big improvement to me?
Really not clear. Nicotine isn't very good for your vasculature system and the vehicles (like PEG) aren't really a good thing to be breathing.
Re: New Zealand passes legislation banning cigarettes for future generations
#87How generous of the grown ups to ban things for other people but not yourself. Like it's objectively a good thing but it seems so silly and immature to me. How good could society be by now if we could get every generation to pass restrictions on the vices of the next generation only, I suppose. Edit: I know talking about down voting is discouraged, but since I'm being downvoted, why not go further? Alcohol is also ob…
It’s absurdly addictive. And as I understand it smoking as we know it has more to do with marketing and the intentional suppression of research indicating serious harm than anything else. Hell, I might liken it to generational trauma. I’m not sure of the specifics. Does the law prevent you from growing and curing your own tobacco? There might be something important there - I don’t think folks would make their own cig…
No post body was provided.
Re: New Zealand passes legislation banning cigarettes for future generations
#88Wouldn't it be better to increase number of smoke-free zones? For example high fines for smoking on the crosswalk (very annoying, especially that the smokers always walk faster for whatever reason) or at the bus stops. That might influence the number of people questioning if it is worth it to constantly search for a place to smoke.
Not a Kiwi, but in Germany and Poland there's no prosecution for that
Re: New Zealand passes legislation banning cigarettes for future generations
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
That still seems like a big improvement to me?
Really not clear. Nicotine isn't very good for your vasculature system and the vehicles (like PEG) aren't really a good thing to be breathing.
They're still not as bad as ammonia and smoke.
Edit: It hit me that over the next few decades they are probably going to invent some really nasty things to put in vapes, like they did with cigarettes (that were made to be a lot worse than the "mere" nicotine and smoke inhalation of tobacco smoking), so don't read this in 20 years thinking that people in the past thought whatever they're doing in the future is safer that cigarettes, it could eventually become worse for all we know.
Re: New Zealand passes legislation banning cigarettes for future generations
#90As nonsmoker I'm strongly against this, when did alcohol prohibition, war on drugs or their COVID restrictions worked? You will just anger people and it seems completely unnecessary considering there is steady decline in smokers and there are surely more dangerous issues to deal with, in case of NZ it would be pandemic of obesity.
Assisted suicide is legal in New Zealand. What if I want to smoke myself to death? Absolutism from the state is so noxious. Make cigarettes prohibitively expensive and difficult to acquire sure. But complete prohibition is an infringement on our natural right to decide what to consume.