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Smoking ban for people born after 2008 in the UK agreed

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Smoking ban for people born after 2008 in the UK agreed

#301

Post by burnt-resistor »

insane_dreamer wrote: post #259

Smoking is clearly harmful, but I'm not sure about laws that criminalize adults from deciding what they want to do with their own bodies. Health care costs are a factor, but I don't know about the UK but in the US these days, junk food and sodas probably incur more health care costs through obesity, than smoking. What I do favor of is making cigarettes highly inaccessible -- i.e., restrict the sale to a very limited…

Exactly. This ageist, discriminatory, paternalistic prohibition will create crime and a black market and won't solve much of anything.

Re: Smoking ban for people born after 2008 in the UK agreed

#302

Post by burnt-resistor »

bill_joy_fanboy wrote: post #97
techteach00 wrote: post #92

Hopefully vaping will still be legal? They do distinguish the difference between inhaling burnt matter vs inhaling a heated aerosol, yes? Of course not. The only thing government and private enterprise seems good at these days is taking things away from people. Logic be damned.

UK has public/socialized healthcare. If you are a smoker, you are much more likely to be a burden on this system. Makes sense to ban these types of activities if the costs of them are socialized rather than individualized.

Then charge smokers much more for healthcare rather than collectively punishing and discriminatorily reducing the rights of a group of people arbitrarily. Individual freedom and consequences rather than prior restraint.

Re: Smoking ban for people born after 2008 in the UK agreed

#303

Post by AberrantJ »

butlike wrote: post #294
sebastiennight wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s awesome to decide what your children, once they are adults, can’t do? You do realize that this is what basically every single law in existence does, right? That my kids, and likely yours, once they're adults, can't drive under the influence, rob a bank, impersonate a cop, lie under oath, exercise medecine without a licence, walk downtown naked, jaywalk, evade taxes, criticize the King?

Well to be fair, it's not that they can't, it's that society is telling them there will be repercussions if they're caught. You can still technically do whatever you want.

Laws are threats made by the dominant socioeconomic-ethnic group in a given nation. It’s just the promise of violence that’s enacted and the police are basically an occupying army.

Re: Smoking ban for people born after 2008 in the UK agreed

#304

Post by burnt-resistor »

oompydoompy74 wrote: post #169

People have been smoking tobacco for 12,000 years. How about nanny states fuck off and let people do what they want with their body. I would be happy for regulation of additives that tobacco companies adulterate their products with, but I should be able to smoke any plant I want.

I defend to the death individual choice but I'm also okay if the healthcare system wants a surcharge for voluntary lifestyle choices that cause first-, second-, and third-order health problems. That a universal healthcare system exists should never be used to rationalize universal, Orwellian deprivation of rights and invasive control of what people can do with their bodies or how to live. "No" to discrimination, collective punishment, and removal of liberty, but I'm okay with costs for voluntary choices.

It's hard to say if smoking weed (blunts or the useless nonfiltration of a bong) is worse than smoking cigarettes because of the lack of filter, but I'd probably try filtered atomization (not necessarily vaping) rather than breathing in ash and tiny smoke particles that destroy lung capacity. To each, their own.

Re: Smoking ban for people born after 2008 in the UK agreed

#305

Post by sebastiennight »

apetrov wrote: post #285
sebastiennight wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s awesome to decide what your children, once they are adults, can’t do? You do realize that this is what basically every single law in existence does, right? That my kids, and likely yours, once they're adults, can't drive under the influence, rob a bank, impersonate a cop, lie under oath, exercise medecine without a licence, walk downtown naked, jaywalk, evade taxes, criticize the King?

you can but they can't. just plain hypocrisy.

I don't think this law is getting voted into existence by smokers, though.

Re: Smoking ban for people born after 2008 in the UK agreed

#306

Post by nephihaha »

falcor84 wrote: post #69
mytailorisrich wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the UK tobacco is heavily taxed and those taxes bring in more money than the cost on the healthcare service.

Interesting - do you have a link about the financial accounting around this?

I do not have the specific info/ref to hand, but at one point some years ago, smoking brought in something of the order of nine times as much into the NHS as it spent on smoking related illnesses. I was very surprised by this.

Re: Smoking ban for people born after 2008 in the UK agreed

#307

Post by cucumber3732842 »

MiiMe19 wrote: post #249
voidUpdate wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "it ought to be my right to decide how to live" "Why is the government stopping me from murdering people and stealing from them? it's my right to decide how I live!"

You vill get your state mandated 1 hour of exercise and 5 servings of vegetables. You VILL eat only the state mandated bug based protein that our studies have shown to be 10% less likely of causing heart attacks than red meat. YOU VILL NOT spend more than 1 hour outside to prevent skin cancer.

>our studies have shown to be 10% less likely....

You are not nearly jaded enough.

If the construction industry is any indication the stuff these people mandate is lucky to have 1% at best and that's with "money motivated" numbers cooked up in academic labs funded by the same industries that benefit from the rules.

Re: Smoking ban for people born after 2008 in the UK agreed

#308

Post by cucumber3732842 »

mothballed wrote: post #260
OkayPhysicist wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they wanted to ban cigarettes, they should have banned cigarettes. The whole "let's pass a law that only affects people who can't vote" strategy applied here is tyranical.

The US did the same thing with cockfighting. It was already illegal in all the states, but they passed a federal law binding on all states and territories to stop Puerto Ricans (who had no such law against it), who have no meaningful federal representation.

>The US did the same thing with cockfighting.

Two wrongs don't make a right.

Re: Smoking ban for people born after 2008 in the UK agreed

#309

Post by nephihaha »

subjectsigma wrote: post #50

Natural consequence of socialized medicine. If I’m paying for your healthcare then I (and by extension the state) get a say in basically every aspect of your life. Time to ban alcohol, marijuana, Tylenol, fatty foods, sugar, candles, campfires, fireworks, food coloring, bicycles, playgrounds, cars, cell phones, and anything else that might be harmful

Don't worry they're working on banning most of those. The UK has a sugar tax and will ban fires (God forbid people are energy independent!)

You could throw in skate boards, pornography, slate roofs, criticising government policy and the policy, gluten, and chewing gum.

Re: Smoking ban for people born after 2008 in the UK agreed

#310

Post by lol768 »

slibhb wrote: post #256
nutjob2 wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just whataboutism, but the UK also regulates sugar in fairly draconian ways too, for example. There are good reasons to target smoking given how addictive and deadly it is. Nicotine is fairly unique in this regard.

It's reductio ad absurdum. Obesity is really bad for you and strains public health services. Should the government enforce a cap on caloric intake?

They already prevent advertising the sorts of foods that contribute to obesity to children, and encourage you to drink less sugary drinks by applying tax to them (though unfortunately manufacturers have responded to this by reducing choice and adding artificial sweeteners instead of selling something at a higher price that can be enjoyed once every few weeks.

I don't think any of this is unreasonable in a country that picks up the tab through both subsidised dental care and completely free-at-point-of-use healthcare.

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