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FDA Moves to Ban All Menthol Cigarettes and Flavored Cigars

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Re: FDA Moves to Ban All Menthol Cigarettes and Flavored Cigars

#251

Post by bustin »

Gatsky wrote: post #249
bustin wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Your argument boils down to “I want the right to poison myself and the convenience to do it at easily accessible retail outlets.” Yes this is my argument. >The suggestion that we should restrict healthcare based on the degree to which a person is culpable for their disease is a terrible idea, and impossible to implement. We talked past each other here. I did not mean that we should remove an individual's access to h…

> Yes this is my argument I don't find this very convincing, considering the large downsides for the individual and community. I work in healthcare, so perhaps I have a different perspective to you.

I may not work in healthcare, but I work in health-tech, most of my family worked at a health insurance company for most of their lives, and previous generations were tobacco farmers in KY.

We can build a city on a hill, but what's the point if we can't let loose in the way we want?

Re: FDA Moves to Ban All Menthol Cigarettes and Flavored Cigars

#252

Post by kube-system »

techrat wrote: post #64
kube-system wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just tax cigarettes to the equivalent or greater than the amount of dollars of burden they place on the healthcare system. Make smokers pay for their own choices. Externalized costs are the root of many seemingly insurmountable societal problems, and most can be fixed by simply accounting for the costs appropriately.

You're getting dangerously close to the whole "social credit" style of cost burden. Slippery slope, bud. Now what? Your healthcare costs should go up because you like your eggs fried and with salt instead of hard boiled?

Sin taxes have existed for hundreds if not thousands of years. These concepts aren’t slippery slopes, they’re just taxes like any other taxes.

Re: FDA Moves to Ban All Menthol Cigarettes and Flavored Cigars

#253

Post by kube-system »

ArkanExplorer wrote: post #225
kube-system wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just tax cigarettes to the equivalent or greater than the amount of dollars of burden they place on the healthcare system. Make smokers pay for their own choices. Externalized costs are the root of many seemingly insurmountable societal problems, and most can be fixed by simply accounting for the costs appropriately.

Smokers save Governments money on healthcare, because they die earlier. "According to the research, a person of normal weight costs on average £210,000 over their lifetime, a smoker just £165,000 and an obese person £187,000." https://taxfoundation.org/new-study-shows-smokers-and-obese-... . By this logic, there should be no tax (or indeed a subsidy) on cigarettes.

Fair point, but healthcare costs are only one of the external costs that a smoker might cause. There are other costs to society as well.

Re: FDA Moves to Ban All Menthol Cigarettes and Flavored Cigars

#254

Post by rcoveson »

awillen wrote: post #244
rcoveson wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that my own health is an external cost is crazy. How do you tax a free solo rock climber like Alex Honnold? A 1000% tax on chalk dust?

This actually reminds me of https://www.npr.org/2019/01/03/681877909/sailboat-from-u-s-t... I think that in situations like that, you ought to cover the cost of a potential rescue up front, either by paying for an insurance policy or putting down a deposit. People search until your deposit/insurance runs out, then they stop. If you don't survive, that's on you. There's just absolutely no reason that anyone's tax doll…

The issue is that, when you get down to it, it’s just going out into the wilderness and climbing a rock. If you regulate that, you’ve made a wrong turn.

Same goes for surfing, or having consensual, unprotected sex. Both dangerous, or at least much more dangerous than the average human activity, but both too basic and natural to consider regulating. In my opinion.

Re: FDA Moves to Ban All Menthol Cigarettes and Flavored Cigars

#255

Post by MiddleEndian »

seriousquestion wrote: post #222
throwawayboise wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is Krispy Kreme targeting fat people by offering free donuts for people that get COVID-19 vaccines? LOL are they really doing that? That's funny considering that obesity and diabetes are both risk factors for poor COVID-19 outcomes.

Yes, and blue checks on Twitter thought it was great. Meanwhile, 78% of the people hospitalized for Covid-19 are overweight or obese; https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/08/covid-cdc-study-finds-roughl...

>78% of the people hospitalized for Covid-19 are overweight or obese

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/obesity-overweight.htm

>Percent of adults aged 20 and over with overweight, including obesity: 73.6% (2017-2018)

Since COVID targets older people more often, this may match the adult population within these groups, as the population becomes more overweight each year and people get heavier and slightly shorter as they age.

Re: FDA Moves to Ban All Menthol Cigarettes and Flavored Cigars

#256

Post by austincheney »

dragonwriter wrote: post #193
austincheney wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the press release does specifically target black people: > One studyExternal Link Disclaimer suggests that banning menthol cigarettes in the U.S. would lead an additional 923,000 smokers to quit, including 230,000 African Americans in the first 13 to 17 months after a ban goes into effect. An earlier studyExternal Link Disclaimer projected that about 633,000 deaths would be averted, including about 237,000 deaths…

Yes, the press release highlights the racial disparities resulting from the previous, and blatantly racist, exclusion of menthols fron the general ban on characterizing flavors.

That’s a non sequitur.

The data suggests, as mentioned in the press release, African Americans disproportionately favor menthol flavored cigarettes. Failing to ban such previously is unfortunate but not racist and certainly not blatantly racist unless there was intent to disproportionately harm African Americans. Prior intent was not mentioned in the press release.

Re: FDA Moves to Ban All Menthol Cigarettes and Flavored Cigars

#257

Post by jdhn »

kristjansson wrote: post #215
jdhn wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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?

Yes.

Re: FDA Moves to Ban All Menthol Cigarettes and Flavored Cigars

#258

Post by BurningFrog »

atlasunshrugged wrote: post #113
BurningFrog wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

1. I'm skeptical as the age of retirement keeps going up. Have a source? 2. Agreed that's an issue in contexts with low rule of law but I think that's less of an issue here than say Ukraine/Russia/DRC where there is serious smuggling

My argument is too simple to need sources:

Assume that, on average, smokers die at 75, non smokers die at 80, and everyone gets social security pensions at 65.

Then smokers pensions only cost 67% of non smokers pension, even though they pay in 100% as much.

My numbers are surely wrong, but all that matters is that smokers die earlier than non smokers.

This is also the hard to realize way Social Security redistributes from the poor and unhealthy to the well off and healthy.

Re: FDA Moves to Ban All Menthol Cigarettes and Flavored Cigars

#259

Post by dragonwriter »

austincheney wrote: post #256
dragonwriter wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the press release highlights the racial disparities resulting from the previous, and blatantly racist, exclusion of menthols fron the general ban on characterizing flavors.

That’s a non sequitur. The data suggests, as mentioned in the press release, African Americans disproportionately favor menthol flavored cigarettes. Failing to ban such previously is unfortunate but not racist and certainly not blatantly racist unless there was intent to disproportionately harm African Americans. Prior intent was not mentioned in the press release.

> Failing to ban such previously is unfortunate but not racist

No, it was very much racist.

> and certainly not blatantly racist unless there was intent to disproportionately harm African Americans.

Both that the exception would have disproportionate impact on African-Americans and that the overt logic of the flavor ban applied equally to menthol was well known when the flavor ban was adopted. Intent is the only reasonable conclusion.

Re: FDA Moves to Ban All Menthol Cigarettes and Flavored Cigars

#260

Post by hnrodey »

bustin wrote: post #151

I 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…

This is a super coherent argument. Well done.
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