FDA Moves to Ban All Menthol Cigarettes and Flavored Cigars • Hacker News Board

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

#271

Post by int_19h » Sun, May 02, 2021, 8:53 PM UTC

ajkjk wrote: post #269

int_19h wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is kind of fine if governments do things their citizens don't like. Quite a few people would disagree. There's that whole consent of the governed thing, for example - and 50%+1 is certainly not it.

High-level you would like the government to mostly do things that the citizens mostly like. Then the citizens will mostly consent to have a government that mostly leaves them free. But it's all approximate. It doesn't extrapolate to always doing things that all citizens like. That doesn't work at all, for obvious reasons like the government being licensed to tax or imprison people.

But, again, you can, at least, try to minimize the number of people who do not like what the government is doing. Which is very different from declaring that a simple (or even qualified) majority gets to decide for everybody simply by virtue of being a majority.

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

#272

Post by EpicEng » Mon, May 03, 2021, 7:38 PM UTC

Gatsky wrote: post #192

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…

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.”

So when do we ban highly processed foods that are killing far more people every day? Not sure what the difference is aside from it's acceptible to play Mommy to smokers but not the overweight/obese.

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

#273

Post by EpicEng » Mon, May 03, 2021, 7:40 PM UTC

judge2020 wrote: post #65

jakeva wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it's not. Smoking isn't contagious.

https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/seco... > Since the 1964 Surgeon General’s Report, 2.5 million adults who were nonsmokers died because they breathed secondhand smoke.

Even if I take those numbers at face value, it's disengenuous to mix in those from 1964 and up until we banned public smoking nearly everywhere you can imagine. The last place you can smoke freely is your home, and this doesn't address that.