8 ms·

I grew up in a household with two smoking parents, and it sucked. So on a personal level, nothing would be better than the world collectively giving up the nast

I grew up in a household with two smoking parents, and it sucked. So on a personal level, nothing would be better than the world collectively giving up the nasty habit. However, I would never, ever advocate or vote for forcing people to do that. Why? Because you could make the exact same case for every single vice. Alcohol has zero benefits for your health - don't even try to give me the "but wine has antioxidants" B.S., the math between the negatives and positives is still in the red (ha!). How about caffeine and other stimulants? Foods too high in fat? Red meat? Too much sunshine? XYZ thing that is considered "unhealthy" this week by the "experts"? Don't get me wrong, reasonable limits imposed at a societal level can certainly make sense (banning smoking from restaurants and airplanes, having blood-alcohol driving laws, et cetera). But the fundamental question here is do you really want to trust your personal decisions on health, diet, and entertainment to those elected via a popularity contest? And the "experts" they solicit their advice from?

urthor 4y ago
> do you really want to trust your personal decisions on health, diet, and entertainment to those elected via a popularity contest? Yes. Read the history of Teddy Roosevelt & the Food and Drug Administration. https://www.fda.gov/about-fda/fda-history https://www.fda.gov/about-fda/fda-history If you're familiar with the political culture of Australasia, you'll realise it's an overwhelming "nanny state" culture. Also, you'll realise that Australia/New Zealand have the highest HDI indicators of any nation globally with mean winter temperatures above 10 degree Celsius. Why? Because Australia and New Zealand have a particular cultural value others don't. They trust technocratic experts to know what's best for people. And implement.
- polemic 4y ago
  > They trust technocratic experts to know what's best for people. And implement. It helps to be small & pragmatic. People (mostly) follow the rules and politicians (mostly) only implement rules with broad support. Police have wide discretion to apply laws and (mostly) do this to benefit public good. That's not to say we don't have problems, of course, but this particular law is seen as a compromise approach to public health that more-or-less works for everyone.
  - urthor 4y ago
    I find the root cause is not so much size... and more so younger sibling syndrome. Australia/New Zealand have a... very, very, very deep-seated feeling of inadequacy, comparing themselves to large Anglophile nations. There's a genetic urge to "impress Mother England." For Australia, also a deep seated desire to prove they're not an island of criminals. For New Zealand... a deep seated desire not to be left off maps. It's not so much size... there's just a culture of needing to be a better place to live than America. To stop people moving away. Edit: root cause. Not benefit.
    - elliotto 4y ago
      Your other statements about AU/NZ culture have been extremely questionable, but this one is just complete nonsense. The idea that there is a genetic urge to impress England is bizarre, typically about 50% of people support becoming a republic. Some recent data in [0] Australia's original status as a penal colony seems to be held onto as trivia externally but is entirely irrelevant in modern discussion (as it should be as it stopped 150 years ago). Thinking that this is something Australians think about suggests that you have a very outside perspective. I don't know what a culture of needing to be a better place to live than America means. I don't think being a good place to live is a culture, I think it's an objective of a society. [0] https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/support-for-republic-is-strong-enough-to-win-approval-in-bigger-states-poll-20220123-p59qiv.html https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/support-for-republic...
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - polemic 4y ago
      As we'd say here: "Yeah, Nah". This is a caricature of parochial English thinking of the colonies from the 50s, and is entirely divorced of what Australia and New Zealand are like today.
      - spoils19 4y ago
        As someone from a southern US state who faces similar "caricatures", there's no need to pretend and hide your feelings. Instead, I think we should join together against those who would oppress us and keep us down and uninformed in modern society.
- b3nji 4y ago
  Or put another way, they don't take personal responsibility, and hand their decisions over to other people running the state.
  - Bjartr 4y ago
    Put another, another way, they recognize the limits of their own discipline and choose to remove the temptation by social agreement.
  - urthor 4y ago
    Individual responsibility is tied to economic rationalism. With 100% devolved individual responsibility, you create market failure. Nicotine based addition is a pure example of market failure. To advocate for 100% unhindered individual responsibility, is to advocate against economics. No rule-free economic market, free of arbitrary constraints, is ever truly rational. That's because market failure is the default state of nature. The rich take from the poor, the incentive to economically specialize is lost due to theft. "Personal responsibility" is a gross simplification of the complexities of political and economic science. I would never simplify the enormous complexities of human computer interaction and UX, fields I know nothing about. Don't over-simply how difficult a decision regulating nicotine was, and how many decades of academic careers have been sacrificed to come to this consensus. Cable news slogans can never summarize the efforts of thousands of doctorate wielding technocrats arguing endlessly over the solution to nicotine.
- beambot 4y ago
  > They trust technocratic experts to know what's best for people. And implement. I think reasonable people could object to Australia's internet censorship laws, COVID response, climate activities, etc. There's a big difference between being an expert & representing the will of the people (aka policy).
  - urthor 4y ago
    There's a margin of error in decision making. By no means do they always get it right. Remember, much of the fourth estate innately will be crassly negative, for commercial reasons. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pamphlet_wars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pamphlet_wars. New Zealand for example has some remarkably shrill national news stories about remarkably petty crime. > There's a big difference between being an expert & representing the will of the people (aka policy). Yes, and the technocrats don't always get it right, at all. Democracy works because nobody actually trusts the technocrats. Just like nobody trusts the investment bankers, politicians, real estate developers, police, lawyers. However, Australasia has had a remarkable run of success via eventually doing what the technocrats tell them to do. The will of the people supports the technocrats.
  - slj 4y ago
    I’m a resident of Melbourne, in the state of Victoria, which had the longest pandemic lockdown in the world AFAIK. It certainly was at the time the lockdown ended, at least. Victoria recently had an election wherein the government which was responsible for implementing the lockdown was re-elected. Notably, the state government’s pandemic response was dictated by facts, indeed the chief health officer responsible for informing politicians and implementing policy was a medical practitioner and undeniably an expert in public health matters. During lockdown and even still, there continue to be protests against the government for their pandemic response, despite the re-election being a clear sign that the will of the people is that they want a government led by (or at least informed by) experts who know what they’re doing. It’s important to note that there are examples within the Victorian government which show the opposite, though. They have aided logging of old-growth forests, despite saying they won’t allow it to continue. They’ve repeatedly and demonstrably used tax dollars to fund infrastructure projects in electorates where the ruling party has a slim majority (so-called marginal seats). My point is the Victorian government is far from perfect. It’s been a year since the last lockdown ended, yet the lockdown is still the thing people discuss when it comes to policy. It’s the most invasive action a state government has taken, affecting so many people. It’s what people remember. And it mattered at the polling booth last month, when people voted the government back in. They even saw an increase in the seats they hold, from last election.
- haihaibye 4y ago
  > Also, you'll realise that Australia/New Zealand have the highest HDI indicators of any nation globally with mean winter temperatures above 10 degree Celsius. Why? .... culture If you want to look into temperature vs productivity you should note these populations overwhelmingly have ancestry from colder weather climates
gleenn 4y ago
Can I play devil's advocate and say it's not black and white, and currently a lot of people make really bad decisions and the worst ones are the ones that affect surrounding people. Vaccines are another hot-button issue where making the wrong choice causes you harm and those around you as does smoking. I lived in Japan for a year and never smoked in my life but probably "smoked" a hundred packs after being in some environments. You can argue to avoid such environments but the logical extreme of that is people being forced to stay inside for fear of unvaccinated people. There is clearly some gray area here IMHO.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
CharlesW 4y ago
> I grew up in a household with two smoking parents, and it sucked. It sounds like you're saying that their freedom to inflict harm on you was more important than your freedom from the harmful health effects of secondhand smoke. Can that be true?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- mmsimanga 4y ago
  I presume the two smokers did more than just smoke. If they were parents They probably also provided food, education, love and whole lot of other things than just secondary smoke. Life tends to be a complex mix of good and bad.
  - CharlesW 4y ago
    For sure, and I'm assuming the parents were great in every other respect. Assuming the best — that they didn't understand the harm of secondhand smoke — wouldn't a ban have been helpful to them in the same way that a ban on lead paint is helpful?
    - mmsimanga 4y ago
      Sounds like Prohibition but for cigarettes. We know how that went. We also know what banning marijuana hasn't worked out too well. At the start of Covid pandemic South Africa banned the sales of cigarettes for about three months. Result was lots of unscrupulous people became rich [0][1]. [0]https://businesstech.co.za/news/trending/468724/governments-spectacular-cigarette-ban-fail-billions-of-rands-lost-and-hardly-anyone-quit-smoking/ https://businesstech.co.za/news/trending/468724/governments-... [1]https://www.africanews.com/2022/06/17/cigarette-smuggling-thrived-after-south-africa-banned-its-sale// https://www.africanews.com/2022/06/17/cigarette-smuggling-th...
      - mharig 4y ago
        I didn't know that. It is double ridiculous, because smoking reduces the probability to get COVID19.
lost_tourist 4y ago
I think there are levels to it though. Smoking is across the board "fucking awful". Whereas a glass of wine a day isn't going to really stress your liver (presupposing no existing issues), whereas a pack of smokes a day absolutely will do damage to your healthy lungs. Also second hand smoke is a big deal.
- bdamm 4y ago
  Is there such a thing as "a glass of wine"? Usually it is "two" unless you happen to always dine in groups of four.
  - leetcrew 4y ago
    yes, you can buy a single glass of wine at many bars and restaurants. while somewhat triggering to the oenophiles, you can also buy wine packaged in 12 oz cans, which is close to a standard pour if split between two people. I get that this was probably a tongue-in-cheek question, but like many other things, drinking follows a power law distribution. there are many more moderate drinkers than heavy ones.
  - lost_tourist 4y ago
    I usually have a glass of wine with dinner :) . I have an actual chalk mark on a measured standard "glass" lol. I do not have more than that. Sometimes I'll have a beer instead if it's fish and chips. I don't drink more than that, except maybe on the weekend during a social "thing". Those aren't very often though, mostly once a month.
- jayski 4y ago
  I don't think this is a fair comparison, on one side it's a whole pack of cigarettes per day and on the other one glass of wine. How about we compare two bottles of wine every day with a whole pack of cigarettes. I think that's comparable and both would be terrible for you. I hate smoking, I had a really hard time quitting 8 years ago and in general I dislike being in a room where people are smoking. However my grandmother smoked 1 cigarette every day with her morning coffee after breakfast her whole life and it did her no harm whatsoever. I think with most substances moderation is always an important factor.
Gatsky 4y ago
Ah well sure but when the smoking rates drop low enough, smoking related healthcare costs greatly exceed the cigarette tax receipts. NZ is a small country and needs to contain the costs of its socialised healthcare. Is there a fundamental ‘right to give money to Tobacco companies’? Buying cigarettes is banned, smoking isn’t.
- arghnoname 4y ago
  I'm not a utilitarian because I think there are many things that we should do that can't be justified with a straight-forward look at the bottom line. Judging things this way can end with things that are pretty ethically dubious, e.g., forced abortion for fetuses with condition X, where X may be various levels of impairment whereby the resulting human is not profitable.
  - Gatsky 4y ago
    Agreed, but the OP is obviously unconvinced by the moral observation that Big Tobacco hack people’s brains for profit while externalising the costs to society.
- petre 4y ago
  Is one allowed to plant their own tobacco if they're inclined to do so? What about other tobacco products like rolling tobacco? Is that banned from sale as well?
  - Gatsky 4y ago
    The bill says that sale of smoked tobacco products will be prohibited if the recipient was born after 2009-01-01. Just giving them a smoked tobacco product is also illegal if it occurs in a public place.
toss1 4y ago
>>o you really want to trust your personal decisions on health, diet, and entertainment to those elected via a popularity contest? And the "experts" they solicit their advice from? Maybe not every personal decision, but certainly decisions that scale should be handled by actual experts. And yes, actual experts exist who actually know more than you and I, and can make better decisions based on the actual data they have gathered and knowledge they have gained, vs our 5minute Internet search. And much of what you see as a "personal decision" is actually decided by corporate money. When smoking was completely unregulated, corporations advertised and distributed at will. Smoking rates declined dramatically when advertising and distribution was constrained. Yes, we can make a decision collectively to not make certain kinds of harmful activities readily available and pushed on the people by sophisticated influence campaigns. From the article: >>"Thousands of people will live longer, healthier lives and the health system will be NZ$5 billion (US$3.2 billion) better off from not needing to treat the illnesses caused by smoking," Personally, I'm not thrilled to be paying into the insurance system to support the massive healthcare costs of smokers. If they can be made to pay in their FULL cost, then that is fine. Otherwise, go make your personal decision - grow and cure some tobacco, and roll your own. Nobody is stopping you. The only thing they are stopping is every corner store selling it.
- Eisenstein 4y ago
  > Smoking rates declined dramatically when advertising and distribution was constrained. The tobacco companies agreed to have TV cigarette ads banned because there is no real reason for cigarette preference other than what you started smoking (this is why you see ads that were targeted at youth), and they couldn't not advertise when competing with so many others. They figured that if they were all forced to the same level they would save a lot of money while gaining the benefit of a PR win as well as removal of the mandated 1:1 anti-smoking ads.[1] You can see the same kind of techniques in play with recycling and fire-retardants in corporations getting together to work to legislate things that people think are pro-public-interest but are really pro-corporate with effects on the public ranging from benign to actively harmful. [1] https://www.politico.com/story/2018/04/01/congress-bans-airing-cigarette-ads-april-1-1970-489882 https://www.politico.com/story/2018/04/01/congress-bans-airi...
battery_glasses 4y ago
I don't exactly know how this bill works, but I wouldn't consider banning the public sale of something to be the same as forcing someone to do something. Presumably even if it's illegal to sell tobacco in a store it could still be legal for someone to possess and use tobacco in a private setting.
anonu 4y ago
> Alcohol has zero benefits for your health I would disagree. Multiple studies have shown that moderate alcohol consumption lowers HDL cholesterol and reduces strokes. Also, if you use alcohol in a social setting, then you are getting added benefits from human-to-human social interactions where you are likely to have more conversations, talk more, smile more. Obviously those benefits are not directly connected to alcohol - but they pair well together.
- Ylpertnodi 4y ago
  >Multiple studies have shown that moderate alcohol consumption lowers HDL cholesterol and reduces strokes. Source(s)? And who paid for the studies? >Also, if you use alcohol in a social setting, then you are getting added benefits from human-to-human social interactions where you are likely to have more conversations, talk more, smile more. Obviously those benefits are not directly connected to alcohol - but they pair well together. Come take a walk through my home town on a Friday and Saturday night at chucking-out time, there's plenty of "human-to-human social interactions", and with a lot less of the "smiling" part.
mharig 4y ago
You underestimate alcohol. It is a cheap and versatile desinfectant, that can be made relatively easy in remote areas or by people who want to live more independant. Furthermore, hot alcohol, especially beer, is a very strong medicine for respiratory infections. Red meat: https://www.healthdata.org/research-article/health-effects-associated-consumption-unprocessed-red-meat-burden-proof-study https://www.healthdata.org/research-article/health-effects-a... Saturated fats: Nina Teicholz: A short history of saturated fat: the making and CURRENT unmaking of a scientific consensus I do not understand why so many adult people favor a nanny state; it means to be treated like a child or an idiot and to promote that all people get forcefully treated like this. One should fight this with all means. Edt: I forgot, that a moderate amount of alcohol each day (i.e. 1 glas of wine) reduces the probability of dementia when one approaches death.

urthor 4y ago

> do you really want to trust your personal decisions on health, diet, and entertainment to those elected via a popularity contest? Yes. Read the history of Teddy Roosevelt & the Food and Drug Administration. https://www.fda.gov/about-fda/fda-history https://www.fda.gov/about-fda/fda-history If you're familiar with the political culture of Australasia, you'll realise it's an overwhelming "nanny state" culture. Also, you'll realise that Australia/New Zealand have the highest HDI indicators of any nation globally with mean winter temperatures above 10 degree Celsius. Why? Because Australia and New Zealand have a particular cultural value others don't. They trust technocratic experts to know what's best for people. And implement.

polemic 4y ago
> They trust technocratic experts to know what's best for people. And implement. It helps to be small & pragmatic. People (mostly) follow the rules and politicians (mostly) only implement rules with broad support. Police have wide discretion to apply laws and (mostly) do this to benefit public good. That's not to say we don't have problems, of course, but this particular law is seen as a compromise approach to public health that more-or-less works for everyone.
- urthor 4y ago
  I find the root cause is not so much size... and more so younger sibling syndrome. Australia/New Zealand have a... very, very, very deep-seated feeling of inadequacy, comparing themselves to large Anglophile nations. There's a genetic urge to "impress Mother England." For Australia, also a deep seated desire to prove they're not an island of criminals. For New Zealand... a deep seated desire not to be left off maps. It's not so much size... there's just a culture of needing to be a better place to live than America. To stop people moving away. Edit: root cause. Not benefit.
  - elliotto 4y ago
    Your other statements about AU/NZ culture have been extremely questionable, but this one is just complete nonsense. The idea that there is a genetic urge to impress England is bizarre, typically about 50% of people support becoming a republic. Some recent data in [0] Australia's original status as a penal colony seems to be held onto as trivia externally but is entirely irrelevant in modern discussion (as it should be as it stopped 150 years ago). Thinking that this is something Australians think about suggests that you have a very outside perspective. I don't know what a culture of needing to be a better place to live than America means. I don't think being a good place to live is a culture, I think it's an objective of a society. [0] https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/support-for-republic-is-strong-enough-to-win-approval-in-bigger-states-poll-20220123-p59qiv.html https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/support-for-republic...
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - polemic 4y ago
    As we'd say here: "Yeah, Nah". This is a caricature of parochial English thinking of the colonies from the 50s, and is entirely divorced of what Australia and New Zealand are like today.
    - spoils19 4y ago
      As someone from a southern US state who faces similar "caricatures", there's no need to pretend and hide your feelings. Instead, I think we should join together against those who would oppress us and keep us down and uninformed in modern society.
b3nji 4y ago
Or put another way, they don't take personal responsibility, and hand their decisions over to other people running the state.
- Bjartr 4y ago
  Put another, another way, they recognize the limits of their own discipline and choose to remove the temptation by social agreement.
- urthor 4y ago
  Individual responsibility is tied to economic rationalism. With 100% devolved individual responsibility, you create market failure. Nicotine based addition is a pure example of market failure. To advocate for 100% unhindered individual responsibility, is to advocate against economics. No rule-free economic market, free of arbitrary constraints, is ever truly rational. That's because market failure is the default state of nature. The rich take from the poor, the incentive to economically specialize is lost due to theft. "Personal responsibility" is a gross simplification of the complexities of political and economic science. I would never simplify the enormous complexities of human computer interaction and UX, fields I know nothing about. Don't over-simply how difficult a decision regulating nicotine was, and how many decades of academic careers have been sacrificed to come to this consensus. Cable news slogans can never summarize the efforts of thousands of doctorate wielding technocrats arguing endlessly over the solution to nicotine.
beambot 4y ago
> They trust technocratic experts to know what's best for people. And implement. I think reasonable people could object to Australia's internet censorship laws, COVID response, climate activities, etc. There's a big difference between being an expert & representing the will of the people (aka policy).
- urthor 4y ago
  There's a margin of error in decision making. By no means do they always get it right. Remember, much of the fourth estate innately will be crassly negative, for commercial reasons. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pamphlet_wars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pamphlet_wars. New Zealand for example has some remarkably shrill national news stories about remarkably petty crime. > There's a big difference between being an expert & representing the will of the people (aka policy). Yes, and the technocrats don't always get it right, at all. Democracy works because nobody actually trusts the technocrats. Just like nobody trusts the investment bankers, politicians, real estate developers, police, lawyers. However, Australasia has had a remarkable run of success via eventually doing what the technocrats tell them to do. The will of the people supports the technocrats.
- slj 4y ago
  I’m a resident of Melbourne, in the state of Victoria, which had the longest pandemic lockdown in the world AFAIK. It certainly was at the time the lockdown ended, at least. Victoria recently had an election wherein the government which was responsible for implementing the lockdown was re-elected. Notably, the state government’s pandemic response was dictated by facts, indeed the chief health officer responsible for informing politicians and implementing policy was a medical practitioner and undeniably an expert in public health matters. During lockdown and even still, there continue to be protests against the government for their pandemic response, despite the re-election being a clear sign that the will of the people is that they want a government led by (or at least informed by) experts who know what they’re doing. It’s important to note that there are examples within the Victorian government which show the opposite, though. They have aided logging of old-growth forests, despite saying they won’t allow it to continue. They’ve repeatedly and demonstrably used tax dollars to fund infrastructure projects in electorates where the ruling party has a slim majority (so-called marginal seats). My point is the Victorian government is far from perfect. It’s been a year since the last lockdown ended, yet the lockdown is still the thing people discuss when it comes to policy. It’s the most invasive action a state government has taken, affecting so many people. It’s what people remember. And it mattered at the polling booth last month, when people voted the government back in. They even saw an increase in the seats they hold, from last election.
haihaibye 4y ago
> Also, you'll realise that Australia/New Zealand have the highest HDI indicators of any nation globally with mean winter temperatures above 10 degree Celsius. Why? .... culture If you want to look into temperature vs productivity you should note these populations overwhelmingly have ancestry from colder weather climates

gleenn 4y ago

Can I play devil's advocate and say it's not black and white, and currently a lot of people make really bad decisions and the worst ones are the ones that affect surrounding people. Vaccines are another hot-button issue where making the wrong choice causes you harm and those around you as does smoking. I lived in Japan for a year and never smoked in my life but probably "smoked" a hundred packs after being in some environments. You can argue to avoid such environments but the logical extreme of that is people being forced to stay inside for fear of unvaccinated people. There is clearly some gray area here IMHO.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

CharlesW 4y ago

> I grew up in a household with two smoking parents, and it sucked. It sounds like you're saying that their freedom to inflict harm on you was more important than your freedom from the harmful health effects of secondhand smoke. Can that be true?

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
mmsimanga 4y ago
I presume the two smokers did more than just smoke. If they were parents They probably also provided food, education, love and whole lot of other things than just secondary smoke. Life tends to be a complex mix of good and bad.
- CharlesW 4y ago
  For sure, and I'm assuming the parents were great in every other respect. Assuming the best — that they didn't understand the harm of secondhand smoke — wouldn't a ban have been helpful to them in the same way that a ban on lead paint is helpful?
  - mmsimanga 4y ago
    Sounds like Prohibition but for cigarettes. We know how that went. We also know what banning marijuana hasn't worked out too well. At the start of Covid pandemic South Africa banned the sales of cigarettes for about three months. Result was lots of unscrupulous people became rich [0][1]. [0]https://businesstech.co.za/news/trending/468724/governments-spectacular-cigarette-ban-fail-billions-of-rands-lost-and-hardly-anyone-quit-smoking/ https://businesstech.co.za/news/trending/468724/governments-... [1]https://www.africanews.com/2022/06/17/cigarette-smuggling-thrived-after-south-africa-banned-its-sale// https://www.africanews.com/2022/06/17/cigarette-smuggling-th...
    - mharig 4y ago
      I didn't know that. It is double ridiculous, because smoking reduces the probability to get COVID19.

lost_tourist 4y ago

I think there are levels to it though. Smoking is across the board "fucking awful". Whereas a glass of wine a day isn't going to really stress your liver (presupposing no existing issues), whereas a pack of smokes a day absolutely will do damage to your healthy lungs. Also second hand smoke is a big deal.

bdamm 4y ago
Is there such a thing as "a glass of wine"? Usually it is "two" unless you happen to always dine in groups of four.
- leetcrew 4y ago
  yes, you can buy a single glass of wine at many bars and restaurants. while somewhat triggering to the oenophiles, you can also buy wine packaged in 12 oz cans, which is close to a standard pour if split between two people. I get that this was probably a tongue-in-cheek question, but like many other things, drinking follows a power law distribution. there are many more moderate drinkers than heavy ones.
- lost_tourist 4y ago
  I usually have a glass of wine with dinner :) . I have an actual chalk mark on a measured standard "glass" lol. I do not have more than that. Sometimes I'll have a beer instead if it's fish and chips. I don't drink more than that, except maybe on the weekend during a social "thing". Those aren't very often though, mostly once a month.
jayski 4y ago
I don't think this is a fair comparison, on one side it's a whole pack of cigarettes per day and on the other one glass of wine. How about we compare two bottles of wine every day with a whole pack of cigarettes. I think that's comparable and both would be terrible for you. I hate smoking, I had a really hard time quitting 8 years ago and in general I dislike being in a room where people are smoking. However my grandmother smoked 1 cigarette every day with her morning coffee after breakfast her whole life and it did her no harm whatsoever. I think with most substances moderation is always an important factor.

Gatsky 4y ago

Ah well sure but when the smoking rates drop low enough, smoking related healthcare costs greatly exceed the cigarette tax receipts. NZ is a small country and needs to contain the costs of its socialised healthcare. Is there a fundamental ‘right to give money to Tobacco companies’? Buying cigarettes is banned, smoking isn’t.

arghnoname 4y ago
I'm not a utilitarian because I think there are many things that we should do that can't be justified with a straight-forward look at the bottom line. Judging things this way can end with things that are pretty ethically dubious, e.g., forced abortion for fetuses with condition X, where X may be various levels of impairment whereby the resulting human is not profitable.
- Gatsky 4y ago
  Agreed, but the OP is obviously unconvinced by the moral observation that Big Tobacco hack people’s brains for profit while externalising the costs to society.
petre 4y ago
Is one allowed to plant their own tobacco if they're inclined to do so? What about other tobacco products like rolling tobacco? Is that banned from sale as well?
- Gatsky 4y ago
  The bill says that sale of smoked tobacco products will be prohibited if the recipient was born after 2009-01-01. Just giving them a smoked tobacco product is also illegal if it occurs in a public place.

toss1 4y ago

>>o you really want to trust your personal decisions on health, diet, and entertainment to those elected via a popularity contest? And the "experts" they solicit their advice from? Maybe not every personal decision, but certainly decisions that scale should be handled by actual experts. And yes, actual experts exist who actually know more than you and I, and can make better decisions based on the actual data they have gathered and knowledge they have gained, vs our 5minute Internet search. And much of what you see as a "personal decision" is actually decided by corporate money. When smoking was completely unregulated, corporations advertised and distributed at will. Smoking rates declined dramatically when advertising and distribution was constrained. Yes, we can make a decision collectively to not make certain kinds of harmful activities readily available and pushed on the people by sophisticated influence campaigns. From the article: >>"Thousands of people will live longer, healthier lives and the health system will be NZ$5 billion (US$3.2 billion) better off from not needing to treat the illnesses caused by smoking," Personally, I'm not thrilled to be paying into the insurance system to support the massive healthcare costs of smokers. If they can be made to pay in their FULL cost, then that is fine. Otherwise, go make your personal decision - grow and cure some tobacco, and roll your own. Nobody is stopping you. The only thing they are stopping is every corner store selling it.

Eisenstein 4y ago
> Smoking rates declined dramatically when advertising and distribution was constrained. The tobacco companies agreed to have TV cigarette ads banned because there is no real reason for cigarette preference other than what you started smoking (this is why you see ads that were targeted at youth), and they couldn't not advertise when competing with so many others. They figured that if they were all forced to the same level they would save a lot of money while gaining the benefit of a PR win as well as removal of the mandated 1:1 anti-smoking ads.[1] You can see the same kind of techniques in play with recycling and fire-retardants in corporations getting together to work to legislate things that people think are pro-public-interest but are really pro-corporate with effects on the public ranging from benign to actively harmful. [1] https://www.politico.com/story/2018/04/01/congress-bans-airing-cigarette-ads-april-1-1970-489882 https://www.politico.com/story/2018/04/01/congress-bans-airi...

battery_glasses 4y ago

I don't exactly know how this bill works, but I wouldn't consider banning the public sale of something to be the same as forcing someone to do something. Presumably even if it's illegal to sell tobacco in a store it could still be legal for someone to possess and use tobacco in a private setting.

anonu 4y ago

> Alcohol has zero benefits for your health I would disagree. Multiple studies have shown that moderate alcohol consumption lowers HDL cholesterol and reduces strokes. Also, if you use alcohol in a social setting, then you are getting added benefits from human-to-human social interactions where you are likely to have more conversations, talk more, smile more. Obviously those benefits are not directly connected to alcohol - but they pair well together.

Ylpertnodi 4y ago
>Multiple studies have shown that moderate alcohol consumption lowers HDL cholesterol and reduces strokes. Source(s)? And who paid for the studies? >Also, if you use alcohol in a social setting, then you are getting added benefits from human-to-human social interactions where you are likely to have more conversations, talk more, smile more. Obviously those benefits are not directly connected to alcohol - but they pair well together. Come take a walk through my home town on a Friday and Saturday night at chucking-out time, there's plenty of "human-to-human social interactions", and with a lot less of the "smiling" part.

mharig 4y ago

You underestimate alcohol. It is a cheap and versatile desinfectant, that can be made relatively easy in remote areas or by people who want to live more independant. Furthermore, hot alcohol, especially beer, is a very strong medicine for respiratory infections. Red meat: https://www.healthdata.org/research-article/health-effects-associated-consumption-unprocessed-red-meat-burden-proof-study https://www.healthdata.org/research-article/health-effects-a... Saturated fats: Nina Teicholz: A short history of saturated fat: the making and CURRENT unmaking of a scientific consensus I do not understand why so many adult people favor a nanny state; it means to be treated like a child or an idiot and to promote that all people get forcefully treated like this. One should fight this with all means. Edt: I forgot, that a moderate amount of alcohol each day (i.e. 1 glas of wine) reduces the probability of dementia when one approaches death.