61–70 of 430 posts
Im curious how the industry allowed this. Seems like a tremendous amount of lobbying money would oppose it. There must be real story there, somewhere.
I assume all the ones who were young enough to have worked tobacco at its peak are now working for Meta, OpenAI or Flutter.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There’s still a difference, surely? Drinking alcohol can lead to drunk driving and it can lead to abuse. Thankfully in the vast majority of instances it doesn’t. Second hand smoke, however, inflicts damage the moment it’s inhaled.
I'm not saying there's no difference. I just don't that difference is as pronounced as some people think, and I don't think it excuses the apparent double standard. Brief Googling also suggests that second-hand smoke affects at least similar levels of people as drunk driving, if not more - to say nothing of e.g. domestic violence. Not to mention, there are already various laws designed to mitigate the effects of seco…
And there are already various laws designed to prevent drunk driving and drunk domestic abuse.
I think the broader picture here is a simple one: drinking alcohol is more societally acceptable than smoking. A government is going to be reflective of its voters, “necessary” or not, a law to ban drinking would be enormously unpopular in a way a law to ban smoking would not.
Im curious how the industry allowed this. Seems like a tremendous amount of lobbying money would oppose it. There must be real story there, somewhere.
Not to say lobbyists don’t have an effect in the UK, they do. But the US has a particularly egregious setup.
There are two separate issues here: 1. will this work (will the UK stop smoking) 2. is this something the UK government should be doing Setting aside 1 and looking at 2, it seems silly to me to point out that other things (alcohol) that cause problems and are not being restricted. You take the wins where you find them, and the government isn't a magical force that can impose its will on the people arbitrarily. This i…
From the government's perspective, this may (or may not) be silly. But putting that aside, if a citizen supports banning cigarettes for people born after a certain date, but not alcohol, that certainly seems hypocritical to me.
You can kind of tell when people think about only themselves or the community when they present arguments for things like smoking and vaccination. "I don't want to be controlled" is a perfectly valid argument, and I prefer humans can make choices for themselves and have reasonable autonomy when it does not have a negative affect on others . Vaccination and smoking affects people around you. Drinking does too - in cer…
> I prefer humans can make choices for themselves and have reasonable autonomy when it does not have a negative affect on others. How far do you want to take this? Your choice of diet may have a negative effect on others by way of having to pay for additional medical care.
(No.)
But are you saying we don't care if things have negative effect on people? If we go to extremes, well then obviously everyone should have 100% autonomy? Oops that doesn't work.
So, this is the hard part - you have to find balance, compromise, a reasonable middle ground. That's always going to be the hard part. Not black or white, but the grey areas.
Alcohol costs the UK 4-5x more than smoking. Coincidentally, it's the upper classes drug of choice. Must be a coincidence though
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not saying there's no difference. I just don't that difference is as pronounced as some people think, and I don't think it excuses the apparent double standard. Brief Googling also suggests that second-hand smoke affects at least similar levels of people as drunk driving, if not more - to say nothing of e.g. domestic violence. Not to mention, there are already various laws designed to mitigate the effects of seco…
> there are already various laws designed to mitigate the effects of second-hand smoke And there are already various laws designed to prevent drunk driving and drunk domestic abuse. I think the broader picture here is a simple one: drinking alcohol is more societally acceptable than smoking. A government is going to be reflective of its voters, “necessary” or not, a law to ban drinking would be enormously unpopular i…
Sure, and this is why I put aside the issue of whether the government is doing the "right" thing in its position and focused on the people who it supposedly reflects - because it doesn't make sense to me that one is more acceptable than the other to an individual, and thinking so doesn't seem to reflect any sort of realistic view on alcohol and its impact on society, while holding cigarettes to a much higher standard.
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
In the UK tobacco is heavily taxed and those taxes bring in more money than the cost on the healthcare service.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Newsflash: Its possible to consume "marijuana" w/o smoking it (just like nicotine!).
They're not banning smoking in general (which would be impossible anyway, what are they going to do, make it illegal to set something on fire and breathe it in?), they're banning nicotine products. I also really doubt that they will legalise weed and then say "but of course you're not allowed to smoke it, edibles only".
"[..]provision prohibiting the sale of tobacco to people born on or after 1 January 2009[..]"
"I also really doubt that they will legalise weed and then say "but of course you're not allowed to smoke it, edibles only"."
I mean, there is still vaporization, so it wouldn't be edibles only?