Denying me the ability to make harmful or foolish choices dehumanizes me.
FDA Moves to Ban All Menthol Cigarettes and Flavored Cigars
211–220 of 273 posts
Re: FDA Moves to Ban All Menthol Cigarettes and Flavored Cigars
#212Earlier quoted context omitted.
Harm reduction? Why not ban alcohol? Why not cap cars at 55mph? People have lost money in the stock market, so I assume you'd like that banned as well. What is your limiting principle?
All of these things are okay in moderation and have some driving principle that weighs cost versus benefit. Same with cigarettes. Hugely harmful with a long tail of harmfulness and external effects on society with little or no gain. Seems like a good risk analysis to me in this case.
This ban also includes flavored cigars, which most users only smoke occasionally. But even so, why is society bothered with someone's individual choice to smoke a menthol cigarette away from others? I don't see the "external effects" you're alluding to, so it feels like the "long tail" is small in magnitude.
If I have to take a guess, you might be thinking of healthcare costs and having to subsidize smokers. But if that's a concern, I feel we should avoid universal healthcare proposals (like Medicare for All) and instead let people choose what insurance coverage they want from private companies, from a menu of choices, so that they pay for what the coverage they want based on who they are and the habits they have. I suggest this path because everyone has a different idea about what they want covered. Some may not want to subsidize smokers, some may not want to subsidize abortions, some may not want to subsidize healthcare for the obese, some may not want to subsidize puberty blockers for children, and so on.
Ultimately, all of this is leading us back to what I feel the US got right in the past - favoring choice, control, and responsibility at the individual level instead of increased government size, regulation, and paternalism.
Re: FDA Moves to Ban All Menthol Cigarettes and Flavored Cigars
#213I wonder if anyone who supports this also supports banning any alchohol with flavor.
Re: FDA Moves to Ban All Menthol Cigarettes and Flavored Cigars
#214Just don't touch my Cuban cigars!
Re: FDA Moves to Ban All Menthol Cigarettes and Flavored Cigars
#215Earlier quoted context omitted.
They are banning sale, not use. It seems totally reasonable to say we don’t want anyone to profit from selling highly addictive health damaging products. This is ok. Your argument boils down to “I want the right to poison myself and the convenience to do it at easily accessible retail outlets.” The suggestion that we should restrict healthcare based on the degree to which a person is culpable for their disease is a t…
>Your argument boils down to “I want the right to poison myself and the convenience to do it at easily accessible retail outlets.” That is the argument, and I find that it holds up just fine. It's not like cigarettes appeared on the market yesterday, their dangers are well known. Adults should have the ability to make their own decisions, even if those decisions are harmful to themselves.
> Adults should have the ability to make their own decisions
How many people actually really make their own decisions, and have all of the information available to do so? Does the right of those people to take that decision and have their chosen product available cheaply and conveniently outweigh the incremental harm that accrues to everyone else merely tempted by the cheapness and convinence?
Re: FDA Moves to Ban All Menthol Cigarettes and Flavored Cigars
#216I’m extremely in favor of harm-reduction legislation in general, and I think this ban is a good idea overall. Flavors are effective at hooking young people in particular — lots of vaping research has shown that — and so get it outta here. Great. But man, “ban menthols because Black people like them” sure feels a little weird. Like, I get that’s not exactly what’s going on. But.. it’s a little bit what’s going on? I g…
What's weird is the way the government decides to deliver these messages.
Why do government responses have to be framed as "arm over your shoulder" do-gooder decisions rather than evidence-based decisions when there's already lots of data?
IDK, maybe the "think of the children!" line and knee-deep assumptions of helping disadvantaged groups is all that's needed to stir government policy vs analyzing perspectives from a scientific approach.
I mean, it's still good overall, and it's a net benefit to reduce long-term smoking.
Re: FDA Moves to Ban All Menthol Cigarettes and Flavored Cigars
#217This just feels like a continuation of the failed war on drugs... I don't smoke, but I have no problem with allowing people to do so in private spaces. Why do we insist on micromanaging peoples lives?
It’s a public health issue on the same order of magnitude as COVID-19, but happening every year: “Cigarette smoking is responsible for more than 480,000 deaths per year in the United States, including more than 41,000 deaths resulting from secondhand smoke exposure. This is about one in five deaths annually, or 1,300 deaths every day.” [0] [0] https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/fast...
Now do obesity.
Re: FDA Moves to Ban All Menthol Cigarettes and Flavored Cigars
#218I must have missed the memo that Prohibition worked after we banned alcohol and weed. This is a ridiculous overreach. The end game is for people to stop smoking altogether, and while that would be good for American health, this is so unnecessary. It is not the prerogative of our peers to maintain our health. It is our free right to poison ourselves in the ways we desire. In ten years from now when cigarettes are full…
They are banning sale, not use. It seems totally reasonable to say we don’t want anyone to profit from selling highly addictive health damaging products. This is ok. Your argument boils down to “I want the right to poison myself and the convenience to do it at easily accessible retail outlets.” The suggestion that we should restrict healthcare based on the degree to which a person is culpable for their disease is a t…
Eric Garner was killed because of the policies that created the a huge black market for cigarettes in NYC. the absurdity is they are banning flavor which isn't the harmful element. at the same time they are legalizing marijuana including edibles across this country. in a free country you have to allow people the liberty to make poor choices. putting out health information and reasonable restrictions is as far as the govt should go.
Re: FDA Moves to Ban All Menthol Cigarettes and Flavored Cigars
#219Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, I'm sympathetic to the government wanting to protect the health of folks (or if you're a cynic like me, making sure that citizens are productive for longer and don't use as many healthcare resources) but this feels super paternalistic. Why not just dramatically increase the taxes so people can still choose to pay a high price if they want to?
1. Smoking citizens are - on average - productive until retirement, but use up much less pension money. So the cynical policy would be the opposite. 2. When you increase taxes you get smuggling and illegal dealing with all the violence it brings.
Doesn't banning something also give you smuggling and illegal dealing? Like currently all drugs and back when alcohol was illegal?
Re: FDA Moves to Ban All Menthol Cigarettes and Flavored Cigars
#220Earlier quoted context omitted.
Flavors aren't effective at hooking young people, nicotine is. Nobody smokes because it tastes good, menthol or not. This is just another ban that makes some people feel good about themselves while pissing off the rest. I lean pretty far left, but this is the kind of meaningless ban that makes people hate Democrats.
>Nobody smokes because it tastes good, menthol or not. I was just talking with some online friends yesterday who smoke and say they would never have started if it weren't for menthols, so I think you're wrong about this.
Yes but most cigarettes are not menthols. And a good portion of the people I know who smoke hate menthols... so there's that anecdote. I only know one person who smokes menthols, and the rest just smoke regular cigarettes and did not start by smoking menthols.