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This 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

This 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?

s800 5y ago
Health care
awillen 5y ago
Because our tax dollars pay for Medicare/Medicaid, so for those people who don't have private insurance, they're saddling society with the costs of their choices. In general I lean libertarian and agree that banning things isn't great, but if you want to make your own choices, you have to bear the costs of those choices. If you want to waive your right to government funded healthcare, then you ought to be able to make whatever unhealthy choices you want.
- kube-system 5y ago
  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.
  - techrat 5y ago
    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?
    - atlasunshrugged 5y ago
      I mean things probably will go that way as tracking of individual behaviors gets easier right? For example, I believe some healthcare providers will give free fitbits to users (I think the State of Nevada does) to get them to exercise more, so not a direct fee but they are incentivizing a certain behavior. Then you've got all the car insurers now that are looking at more details of your driving above and beyond the standard 1) how old are you 2) have you been in any accidents
      - nicoburns 5y ago
        I seriously hope not. It completely defeats the purpose of insurance, which is to spread risk.
    - jedberg 5y ago
      No, but it would make sense to put a health tax on salt. Make people bear their external costs. Like a carbon tax. Just make sure you have a dividend that goes back to the poor to make up for the regressiveness of such taxes.
      - rcoveson 5y ago
        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?
        awillen 5y ago
        This actually reminds me of https://www.npr.org/2019/01/03/681877909/sailboat-from-u-s-teens-doomed-record-attempt-is-found-drifting-off-australia 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 dollars should be spent to help someone who performs a totally needless and incredibly dangerous activity of their own volition.
        rcoveson 5y ago
        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.
    - kube-system 5y ago
      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.
  - NilsIRL 5y ago
    In France, taxation accounts for 80% of a cigarette pack. [0] Yet tobacco costs 120 billion euros a year for only 16 billion in revenue (to the government). [1] It is almost infeasible to tax cigarette to the equivalent of their burden on the health care system. [0]: https://www.boursorama.com/patrimoine/actualites/les-taxes-sur-le-tabac-vont-rapporter-un-pactole-a-l-etat-dcbd76e15e8dc22a79b8be3156dbdea5 https://www.boursorama.com/patrimoine/actualites/les-taxes-s... [1]: https://www.reseau-hopital-ght.fr/actualites/patients/campagne-d-information-prevention/120-milliards-d-euros-par-an-le-vrai-cout-du-tabac-et-le-prix-fort-pour-la-sante-publique.html https://www.reseau-hopital-ght.fr/actualites/patients/campag...
  - ArkanExplorer 5y ago
    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-actually-save-government-health-care-costs/#:~:text=New%20Study%20Shows%20Smokers%20and%20Obese%20Actually%20Save%20Government%20on%20Health%20Care%20Costs,-February%205%2C%202008&text=By%20contrast%20smokers%20%E2%80%93%20who%20pour,they%20tend%20to%20die%20younger https://taxfoundation.org/new-study-shows-smokers-and-obese-.... By this logic, there should be no tax (or indeed a subsidy) on cigarettes.
    - kube-system 5y ago
      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.
    - spacemanmatt 5y ago
      Sounds like someone just finished reading a bunch of Ayn Rand novels.
- __blockcipher__ 5y ago
  That’s the problem with socialized medicine. Once you institute it now your body belongs to the state. You’re not allowed to put something deemed bad in your body because the “people” have to pay for it. Prohibition is wrong. It’s not just unethical but impractical. And congrats, now cops aren’t just going to claim they smell weed in my car, they’re going to claim they smell menthol too. — Also your “waive your right to gov funded healthcare” argument doesn’t make sense. Because I still have to pay for the other guy’s healthcare too.
  - jolux 5y ago
    >You’re not allowed to put something deemed bad in your body because the “people” have to pay for it. Has any country with socialized medicine actually banned tobacco fully? Genuinely curious. If they haven't then I don't understand why regulation isn't continuous with the current regime, where smokers have to pay a lot more for health insurance. These problems do not go away in a free market system, insurance companies will always try to incentivize you to take on less risk.
    - __blockcipher__ 5y ago
      Being incentivized by paying for your increased risk via decentralized market dynamics is fine. Being banned from consuming a substance because your body no longer belongs to you but rather is property of the state is not fine. Unaware what countries have fully banned tobacco. Without looking it up at all...maybe singapore? They seem like the type.
      - jolux 5y ago
        >Being banned from consuming a substance because your body no longer belongs to you but rather is property of the state is not fine. Sure but that's not really what's being discussed here right now, and there doesn't seem to be evidence that this has happened. From another perspective, governments are trying to do their best to protect their citizens from the malign interests of private entities who sell dangerous products. I agree that banning tobacco entirely would be too coercive, though. Apparently Bhutan is the only country where tobacco is illegal. I understand your concerns with regards to prohibition but I think this is a slippery slope argument without a better example or a more compelling explanation.
- veilrap 5y ago
  I generally feel similarly, but I'd rather go the taxation route than the control route. If people want to use hazardous substances, tax the substances to help fund the government subsidized health care.
- yissp 5y ago
  How far do you take that logic, though? A huge variety of medical issues could be argued to be "your fault" to some extent.
- atlasunshrugged 5y ago
  This is the view I am most sympathetic with. I actually did advocacy work to increase tobacco taxes but got frustrated because almost everyone in the field wanted governments to outright ban products, and as someone who believes in freedom of choice that didn't sit well with me. I advocated for governments to find out how much "cost" a pack of cigarettes actually inflicted (e.g. cost to the healthcare system from the smoker, if they smoke indoors to their family, from lower productivity and therefore lower earnings/taxes, etc.) and increase the tax to cover that price
- oytis 5y ago
  Did anyone make a calculation on that? I mean smokers are obviously less healthy, but their lifespan is also shorter.
- km3r 5y ago
  From what Ive seen, smokers are cheaper on Medi-* because they, on average die, so much younger.
- rcoveson 5y ago
  > Because our tax dollars pay for Medicare/Medicaid, so for those people who don't have private insurance, they're saddling society with the costs of their choices. This may sound pedantic, but I think it's an important distinction: Society has saddled society with the costs of their choices. It's not the self-destructive choice maker's fault. If a child in public school willfully refuses to practice cursive, they may require additional instruction and resources. I wouldn't say that child is "saddling society with the costs of their choices". They're just living the life they were born to, and society is obsessing over them.
dubcanada 5y ago
If you are going to provide any kind free or discounted health care, the best way to make that cheaper is to restrict people from doing damaging things. So ya healthcare.
- willio58 5y ago
  Agreed. It's a balance though, you don't want to create a black market for the things you make illegal. For some reason I don't see menthol cigarettes becoming a black market but I can't say the same for flavored vape cartridges.
- leetcrew 5y ago
  it's entirely possible that smokers have lower lifetime healthcare costs due to living significantly shorter lives on average. they certainly draw less social security. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22449823/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22449823/
- NeutronStar 5y ago
  Except a smoker cost way less over the course of its like than someone living to be 90 years old. It costs way more to keep old people alive.
- rsj_hn 5y ago
  The problem here is everyone dies, and having people die of lung cancer at an early age costs the healthcare system less than having them die of some other form of diabetes/cancer/heart disease 15 years later. The studies that talk about the costs of treating cancers related to smoking are not giving you a picture of what else the same people would be treated for before they die. Really the worst thing for any healthcare system is to have lots of elderly people going through expensive treatments to prolong their life, and after you end all smoking, you'll find you have even more elderly people going through expensive treatment, except the types of cancers will be more evenly distributed.
ketzo 5y ago
Smoking is really, really, really bad for you. It’s much worse, and much harder to stop, the earlier you start. Banning flavors 1) stops some overall consumption 2) especially stops youth consumption. Lifetime healthcare costs for the negative externalities of a pack-a-day smoker can reach into seven figures. And most people, frankly, don’t pay that themselves. It’s a tremendous burden on our healthcare system. We ban lead paint, even though it’s super cheap and makes for vibrant colors. I honestly don’t see how this is any different.
- Enginerrrd 5y ago
  >We ban lead paint, even though it’s super cheap and makes for vibrant colors. I honestly don’t see how this is any different. That's totally different. Lead paint leads to a ton of environmental exposure to unwitting people. Smokers by contrast have made a choice to smoke. Do you want them to ban bacon and soda too? Where's the line? Should we ban motorcycles because they're more dangerous than cars? What about recreational diving, skydiving and recreational pilots? Backyard swimming pools are incredibly dangerous statistically, shall we ban them too? People have an inherent right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The government can ban smokers from smoking in a way that exposes you, but what right do they have to say you aren't allowed to do something dangerous if you so choose to do it?
  - RacfeelBudkind 5y ago
    > Do you want them to ban bacon ... Where's the line? There's a factor 30 of leeway on where to draw the line: > How many cancer cases every year can be attributed to consumption of processed meat and red meat? > about 34 000 cancer deaths per year worldwide are attributable to diets high in processed meat. > ... > about 1 million cancer deaths per year globally due to tobacco smoking https://www.who.int/news-room/q-a-detail/cancer-carcinogenicity-of-the-consumption-of-red-meat-and-processed-meat# https://www.who.int/news-room/q-a-detail/cancer-carcinogenic...
  - hellotomyrars 5y ago
    Not entirely different. Smokers may choose to smoke and that is their choice but the people around them don't. Some of them may have control over their exposure but children (and pets) in smoking households are victims with little to no control over their exposure. I don't think we should ban tobaccos outright, regardless of that fact, but smoking has real consequences for people other than the smoker themselves.
nanidin 5y ago
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_facts/index.htm https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/fast...
- jakeva 5y ago
  But it's not. Smoking isn't contagious.
  - RandallBrown 5y ago
    It sort of is actually. If someone near you is smoking, so are you.
    - jakeva 5y ago
      If someone near you is smoking, when you go home you aren't at risk of an ER visit in the next week. If someone near you has Covid, you are.
  - judge2020 5y ago
    https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/secondhand_smoke/health_effects/index.htm 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.
    - __blockcipher__ 5y ago
      Honestly the secondhand smoke research is very sketchy. Actually anything that becomes a public health issue ends up getting distorted by the public health establishment. Case in point: flu vaccines. They’re so ineffective that no rational person would ever waste time taking them, yet many of us do: https://www.cochrane.org/CD001269/ARI_vaccines-prevent-influenza-healthy-adults https://www.cochrane.org/CD001269/ARI_vaccines-prevent-influ... (note: the “no rational person” is slight hyperbole) The better argument is that the actual social behavior of smoking is contagious, as any social behavior is.
nprz 5y ago
Some how the democratic party is in favor of prohibiting the use of menthol cigarettes, but they're also in favor of legalizing marijuana? Very weird.
- jolux 5y ago
  Tobacco is vastly more harmful than marijuana. I don't necessarily agree with the justification but I don't think these positions are inconsistent.
  - endisneigh 5y ago
    I don’t have a strong opinion either way, but you could just ban both things you know.
    - catillac 5y ago
      We should consider risk versus reward though, not just harmful effects, buttressed by some measure of individual liberty.
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    What is inconsistent is not banning alcohol, since it by far causes more harm than marijuana or menthol.
    - jolux 5y ago
      Agreed. Unfortunately the social perception of alcohol is still at a place where banning it would be impossible, though. People don't even want to talk about making it more expensive. Alcohol still doesn't have nutritional labels in the US!
      - int_19h 5y ago
        We have already banned alcohol in US a long time ago. That didn't last long, for very good reasons.
meepmorp 5y ago
You can still buy tobacco, just not flavored with menthol. The war on drugs equivalent is that you can keep smoking crack, just not menthol crack.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
RacfeelBudkind 5y ago
> 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.[1] > The tobacco industry spends billions of dollars each year on marketing cigarettes.[2] > Each day, about 1,600 youth try their first cigarette.[2] > In 2015, nearly 7 in 10 (68.0%) adult cigarette smokers wanted to stop smoking.[1] > In 2018, more than half (55.1%) adult cigarette smokers had made a quit attempt in the past year.[1] > In 2018, more than [only] 7 out of every 100 (7.5%) people who tried to quit succeeded.[1] Smoking legislation isn't about micromanaging the lives of people who fully understand the risk choose to smoke anyway. It's about preventing cigarette manufacturers from preying on those who don't fully understand the risk or didn't when they started, but are now addicted. [1] https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/fast_facts/index.htm https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/fast... [2] https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/index.htm https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/inde...
heavyset_go 5y ago
There's a huge difference between regulation and criminalization. I think you'd find that most people who support abolishing the war on drugs, and who support drug legalization, are also supportive of regulation the legalized drugs. The lack of regulation and criminalization are two reasons that the US has a fentanyl epidemic. It's too risky to import heroin because it weighs a lot, while 1 gram of fentanyl is 10,000+ doses. Meanwhile, regulated heroin that's used in hospitals is pure and free of adulterants.
elil17 5y ago
Unlike other drugs, it is legal to grow your own tobacco in the US - even if you’re too young to buy it. They’re restricting what big corporations can sell, not what individual people can do. There’s nothing in this change stopping anyone from buying loose tobacco, adding their own flavor, and rolling cigarettes with it.
- samatman 5y ago
  Excellent! So an enterprising Black entrepreneur can buy some loose tobacco, menthol flavor, some tubes, a rolling machine, and go sell "loosies" on the corner. And then the police can choke him to death!
- atlasunshrugged 5y ago
  I do wonder how hard it is to add menthol to existing cigarettes. Will we see Head Shops where you buy a pack of cigarettes and on the counter are menthol drops you can sprinkle on, and it's all technically legal since they're separate products?

s800 5y ago

Health care

awillen 5y ago

Because our tax dollars pay for Medicare/Medicaid, so for those people who don't have private insurance, they're saddling society with the costs of their choices. In general I lean libertarian and agree that banning things isn't great, but if you want to make your own choices, you have to bear the costs of those choices. If you want to waive your right to government funded healthcare, then you ought to be able to make whatever unhealthy choices you want.

kube-system 5y ago
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.
- techrat 5y ago
  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?
  - atlasunshrugged 5y ago
    I mean things probably will go that way as tracking of individual behaviors gets easier right? For example, I believe some healthcare providers will give free fitbits to users (I think the State of Nevada does) to get them to exercise more, so not a direct fee but they are incentivizing a certain behavior. Then you've got all the car insurers now that are looking at more details of your driving above and beyond the standard 1) how old are you 2) have you been in any accidents
    - nicoburns 5y ago
      I seriously hope not. It completely defeats the purpose of insurance, which is to spread risk.
  - jedberg 5y ago
    No, but it would make sense to put a health tax on salt. Make people bear their external costs. Like a carbon tax. Just make sure you have a dividend that goes back to the poor to make up for the regressiveness of such taxes.
    - rcoveson 5y ago
      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?
      - awillen 5y ago
        This actually reminds me of https://www.npr.org/2019/01/03/681877909/sailboat-from-u-s-teens-doomed-record-attempt-is-found-drifting-off-australia 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 dollars should be spent to help someone who performs a totally needless and incredibly dangerous activity of their own volition.
        rcoveson 5y ago
        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.
  - kube-system 5y ago
    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.
- NilsIRL 5y ago
  In France, taxation accounts for 80% of a cigarette pack. [0] Yet tobacco costs 120 billion euros a year for only 16 billion in revenue (to the government). [1] It is almost infeasible to tax cigarette to the equivalent of their burden on the health care system. [0]: https://www.boursorama.com/patrimoine/actualites/les-taxes-sur-le-tabac-vont-rapporter-un-pactole-a-l-etat-dcbd76e15e8dc22a79b8be3156dbdea5 https://www.boursorama.com/patrimoine/actualites/les-taxes-s... [1]: https://www.reseau-hopital-ght.fr/actualites/patients/campagne-d-information-prevention/120-milliards-d-euros-par-an-le-vrai-cout-du-tabac-et-le-prix-fort-pour-la-sante-publique.html https://www.reseau-hopital-ght.fr/actualites/patients/campag...
- ArkanExplorer 5y ago
  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-actually-save-government-health-care-costs/#:~:text=New%20Study%20Shows%20Smokers%20and%20Obese%20Actually%20Save%20Government%20on%20Health%20Care%20Costs,-February%205%2C%202008&text=By%20contrast%20smokers%20%E2%80%93%20who%20pour,they%20tend%20to%20die%20younger https://taxfoundation.org/new-study-shows-smokers-and-obese-.... By this logic, there should be no tax (or indeed a subsidy) on cigarettes.
  - kube-system 5y ago
    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.
  - spacemanmatt 5y ago
    Sounds like someone just finished reading a bunch of Ayn Rand novels.
__blockcipher__ 5y ago
That’s the problem with socialized medicine. Once you institute it now your body belongs to the state. You’re not allowed to put something deemed bad in your body because the “people” have to pay for it. Prohibition is wrong. It’s not just unethical but impractical. And congrats, now cops aren’t just going to claim they smell weed in my car, they’re going to claim they smell menthol too. — Also your “waive your right to gov funded healthcare” argument doesn’t make sense. Because I still have to pay for the other guy’s healthcare too.
- jolux 5y ago
  >You’re not allowed to put something deemed bad in your body because the “people” have to pay for it. Has any country with socialized medicine actually banned tobacco fully? Genuinely curious. If they haven't then I don't understand why regulation isn't continuous with the current regime, where smokers have to pay a lot more for health insurance. These problems do not go away in a free market system, insurance companies will always try to incentivize you to take on less risk.
  - __blockcipher__ 5y ago
    Being incentivized by paying for your increased risk via decentralized market dynamics is fine. Being banned from consuming a substance because your body no longer belongs to you but rather is property of the state is not fine. Unaware what countries have fully banned tobacco. Without looking it up at all...maybe singapore? They seem like the type.
    - jolux 5y ago
      >Being banned from consuming a substance because your body no longer belongs to you but rather is property of the state is not fine. Sure but that's not really what's being discussed here right now, and there doesn't seem to be evidence that this has happened. From another perspective, governments are trying to do their best to protect their citizens from the malign interests of private entities who sell dangerous products. I agree that banning tobacco entirely would be too coercive, though. Apparently Bhutan is the only country where tobacco is illegal. I understand your concerns with regards to prohibition but I think this is a slippery slope argument without a better example or a more compelling explanation.
veilrap 5y ago
I generally feel similarly, but I'd rather go the taxation route than the control route. If people want to use hazardous substances, tax the substances to help fund the government subsidized health care.
yissp 5y ago
How far do you take that logic, though? A huge variety of medical issues could be argued to be "your fault" to some extent.
atlasunshrugged 5y ago
This is the view I am most sympathetic with. I actually did advocacy work to increase tobacco taxes but got frustrated because almost everyone in the field wanted governments to outright ban products, and as someone who believes in freedom of choice that didn't sit well with me. I advocated for governments to find out how much "cost" a pack of cigarettes actually inflicted (e.g. cost to the healthcare system from the smoker, if they smoke indoors to their family, from lower productivity and therefore lower earnings/taxes, etc.) and increase the tax to cover that price
oytis 5y ago
Did anyone make a calculation on that? I mean smokers are obviously less healthy, but their lifespan is also shorter.
km3r 5y ago
From what Ive seen, smokers are cheaper on Medi-* because they, on average die, so much younger.
rcoveson 5y ago
> Because our tax dollars pay for Medicare/Medicaid, so for those people who don't have private insurance, they're saddling society with the costs of their choices. This may sound pedantic, but I think it's an important distinction: Society has saddled society with the costs of their choices. It's not the self-destructive choice maker's fault. If a child in public school willfully refuses to practice cursive, they may require additional instruction and resources. I wouldn't say that child is "saddling society with the costs of their choices". They're just living the life they were born to, and society is obsessing over them.

dubcanada 5y ago

If you are going to provide any kind free or discounted health care, the best way to make that cheaper is to restrict people from doing damaging things. So ya healthcare.

willio58 5y ago
Agreed. It's a balance though, you don't want to create a black market for the things you make illegal. For some reason I don't see menthol cigarettes becoming a black market but I can't say the same for flavored vape cartridges.
leetcrew 5y ago
it's entirely possible that smokers have lower lifetime healthcare costs due to living significantly shorter lives on average. they certainly draw less social security. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22449823/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22449823/
NeutronStar 5y ago
Except a smoker cost way less over the course of its like than someone living to be 90 years old. It costs way more to keep old people alive.
rsj_hn 5y ago
The problem here is everyone dies, and having people die of lung cancer at an early age costs the healthcare system less than having them die of some other form of diabetes/cancer/heart disease 15 years later. The studies that talk about the costs of treating cancers related to smoking are not giving you a picture of what else the same people would be treated for before they die. Really the worst thing for any healthcare system is to have lots of elderly people going through expensive treatments to prolong their life, and after you end all smoking, you'll find you have even more elderly people going through expensive treatment, except the types of cancers will be more evenly distributed.

ketzo 5y ago

Smoking is really, really, really bad for you. It’s much worse, and much harder to stop, the earlier you start. Banning flavors 1) stops some overall consumption 2) especially stops youth consumption. Lifetime healthcare costs for the negative externalities of a pack-a-day smoker can reach into seven figures. And most people, frankly, don’t pay that themselves. It’s a tremendous burden on our healthcare system. We ban lead paint, even though it’s super cheap and makes for vibrant colors. I honestly don’t see how this is any different.

Enginerrrd 5y ago
>We ban lead paint, even though it’s super cheap and makes for vibrant colors. I honestly don’t see how this is any different. That's totally different. Lead paint leads to a ton of environmental exposure to unwitting people. Smokers by contrast have made a choice to smoke. Do you want them to ban bacon and soda too? Where's the line? Should we ban motorcycles because they're more dangerous than cars? What about recreational diving, skydiving and recreational pilots? Backyard swimming pools are incredibly dangerous statistically, shall we ban them too? People have an inherent right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The government can ban smokers from smoking in a way that exposes you, but what right do they have to say you aren't allowed to do something dangerous if you so choose to do it?
- RacfeelBudkind 5y ago
  > Do you want them to ban bacon ... Where's the line? There's a factor 30 of leeway on where to draw the line: > How many cancer cases every year can be attributed to consumption of processed meat and red meat? > about 34 000 cancer deaths per year worldwide are attributable to diets high in processed meat. > ... > about 1 million cancer deaths per year globally due to tobacco smoking https://www.who.int/news-room/q-a-detail/cancer-carcinogenicity-of-the-consumption-of-red-meat-and-processed-meat# https://www.who.int/news-room/q-a-detail/cancer-carcinogenic...
- hellotomyrars 5y ago
  Not entirely different. Smokers may choose to smoke and that is their choice but the people around them don't. Some of them may have control over their exposure but children (and pets) in smoking households are victims with little to no control over their exposure. I don't think we should ban tobaccos outright, regardless of that fact, but smoking has real consequences for people other than the smoker themselves.

nanidin 5y ago

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_facts/index.htm https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/fast...

jakeva 5y ago
But it's not. Smoking isn't contagious.
- RandallBrown 5y ago
  It sort of is actually. If someone near you is smoking, so are you.
  - jakeva 5y ago
    If someone near you is smoking, when you go home you aren't at risk of an ER visit in the next week. If someone near you has Covid, you are.
- judge2020 5y ago
  https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/secondhand_smoke/health_effects/index.htm 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.
  - __blockcipher__ 5y ago
    Honestly the secondhand smoke research is very sketchy. Actually anything that becomes a public health issue ends up getting distorted by the public health establishment. Case in point: flu vaccines. They’re so ineffective that no rational person would ever waste time taking them, yet many of us do: https://www.cochrane.org/CD001269/ARI_vaccines-prevent-influenza-healthy-adults https://www.cochrane.org/CD001269/ARI_vaccines-prevent-influ... (note: the “no rational person” is slight hyperbole) The better argument is that the actual social behavior of smoking is contagious, as any social behavior is.

nprz 5y ago

Some how the democratic party is in favor of prohibiting the use of menthol cigarettes, but they're also in favor of legalizing marijuana? Very weird.

jolux 5y ago
Tobacco is vastly more harmful than marijuana. I don't necessarily agree with the justification but I don't think these positions are inconsistent.
- endisneigh 5y ago
  I don’t have a strong opinion either way, but you could just ban both things you know.
  - catillac 5y ago
    We should consider risk versus reward though, not just harmful effects, buttressed by some measure of individual liberty.
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  What is inconsistent is not banning alcohol, since it by far causes more harm than marijuana or menthol.
  - jolux 5y ago
    Agreed. Unfortunately the social perception of alcohol is still at a place where banning it would be impossible, though. People don't even want to talk about making it more expensive. Alcohol still doesn't have nutritional labels in the US!
    - int_19h 5y ago
      We have already banned alcohol in US a long time ago. That didn't last long, for very good reasons.

meepmorp 5y ago

You can still buy tobacco, just not flavored with menthol. The war on drugs equivalent is that you can keep smoking crack, just not menthol crack.

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RacfeelBudkind 5y ago

> 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.[1] > The tobacco industry spends billions of dollars each year on marketing cigarettes.[2] > Each day, about 1,600 youth try their first cigarette.[2] > In 2015, nearly 7 in 10 (68.0%) adult cigarette smokers wanted to stop smoking.[1] > In 2018, more than half (55.1%) adult cigarette smokers had made a quit attempt in the past year.[1] > In 2018, more than [only] 7 out of every 100 (7.5%) people who tried to quit succeeded.[1] Smoking legislation isn't about micromanaging the lives of people who fully understand the risk choose to smoke anyway. It's about preventing cigarette manufacturers from preying on those who don't fully understand the risk or didn't when they started, but are now addicted. [1] https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/fast_facts/index.htm https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/fast... [2] https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/index.htm https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/inde...

heavyset_go 5y ago

There's a huge difference between regulation and criminalization. I think you'd find that most people who support abolishing the war on drugs, and who support drug legalization, are also supportive of regulation the legalized drugs. The lack of regulation and criminalization are two reasons that the US has a fentanyl epidemic. It's too risky to import heroin because it weighs a lot, while 1 gram of fentanyl is 10,000+ doses. Meanwhile, regulated heroin that's used in hospitals is pure and free of adulterants.

elil17 5y ago

Unlike other drugs, it is legal to grow your own tobacco in the US - even if you’re too young to buy it. They’re restricting what big corporations can sell, not what individual people can do. There’s nothing in this change stopping anyone from buying loose tobacco, adding their own flavor, and rolling cigarettes with it.

samatman 5y ago
Excellent! So an enterprising Black entrepreneur can buy some loose tobacco, menthol flavor, some tubes, a rolling machine, and go sell "loosies" on the corner. And then the police can choke him to death!
atlasunshrugged 5y ago
I do wonder how hard it is to add menthol to existing cigarettes. Will we see Head Shops where you buy a pack of cigarettes and on the counter are menthol drops you can sprinkle on, and it's all technically legal since they're separate products?