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Your plan falls apart when it comes to the "vices" and "Sin Taxes", in my opinion. You won't prevent people from indulging in their choice of "vice" or "sin",
by Alupis 6y ago
Your plan falls apart when it comes to the "vices" and "Sin Taxes", in my opinion.
You won't prevent people from indulging in their choice of "vice" or "sin", you'll just make those people more poor than before. People who smoke and are addicted won't suddenly substitute smoking with chewing bubble gum or eating salads simply because those are cheaper options...
- endisneigh 6y agoIt’s not about those specific people, it’s about the aggregate. They probably won’t chew gum, but you can probably help other poor people in the same community. Compared to what- banning it which creates some level of a black market and more waste by policing what was previously a legal activity. Not to mention fining or otherwise enforcing the new law also makes those poor people even poorer and removes choice.
- Alupis 6y agoOr you could just not try to Social Engineer society... It rarely works anyway, and often leads to unintended consequences. Educate people about the choices and why it might be bad for them to choose one way over the other - then hands off, let the now-educated adults make their own decisions. We can look at smoking as a good example of this. Decades of hard-core educational efforts about the negative effects have inarguably led to a massive reduction in smoking. Has it eliminated it entirely? No... but it certainly has reduced it to benign levels when compared to historical smoking. When someone considers trying cigarettes for the first time, do they consider the costs of an addiction/habit - or do they consider the effects on their own health? The massive taxes on a pack of cigarettes has little-to-zero impact on the choice to smoke the first one...