8 ms·

> Cigarettes kill people. That's it. That's not it. Cigarettes also bring a large amount of pleasure to people. If you think that doesn't matter, replace it wi

• justonepost 11y ago
  Cigarettes don't merely bring pleasure, they also bring physical addiction. High fructose corn syrup is also another problem. I generally think everyone should be allowed to do whatever they want to themselves, as long as they're not being influenced by others in a way they can't control or are not fully aware of, which is what advertising and marketing generally is. When you add in underlying physiological effects like chemical addiction to nicotine and sugar (and an ignorance of), this is clearly a case where individuals freedom and security is being infringed upon. When the day comes that we can structure our society such that might does not make right, I'll agree with you, we should relax our laws and encourage more a more libertarian outlook. Until then, centers of power and capital need to be constrained by our legal system to protect the vulnerable.
  • tptacek 11y ago
    So you also support restrictions on the sale of recreational drugs.
    • jfoster 11y ago
      The cigarette problem does seem to make a compelling case for recreational drugs being a more complicated problem than most people anticipate. Most people put themselves firmly in a pro- or anti- legalization camp, but in reality there are major problems (and solved problems) with both approaches. Fully legalize and you'll encounter this horrible scenario where big companies emerge to profit off addictions. They'll lobby governments domestically and abroad. They'll engage in all kinds of shady practices to protect their businesses, just as cigarette companies have. (the oft-proposed solution to the flawed status quo) Don't legalize and you'll miss many opportunities to help addicts, allow the black market to continue, etc. All the things you're already familiar with. (the status quo) It's complicated.
    • wpietri 11y ago
      Personally, my main opposition is to the industrial-scale production and sale of recreational drugs, because addiction and capitalism are a terrible combination. As an example, the park nearest my house has a guy who comes by occasionally on some busy weekends to sell pot truffles. I'm sure he makes a modest living, but I have no worry about people getting dangerously hooked. If we were to let Coca Cola put the cocaine back in, though? Or to let 7-11 sell hash and crack, with prominent placards outside and a billion-dollar ad budget? No thanks. My other half-serious plan is for licensing. Imagine that to be able to legally buy and take LSD, you have to take a 12-week class with practical exams where you drop acid with your instructor. I can think of no better way to remove the appealing mystique of drugs than to make kids turn up after school every Wednesday for a semester and have some teacher drone at them about mechanisms of action and key safety considerations.
      • baddox 11y ago
        > addiction and capitalism are a terrible combination. Have we ever seen that play out for hard drugs, when capitalism is also allowed to work on treatment and rehab?
        • coldpie 11y ago
          Alcohol would be the obvious example of a relatively unregulated, addictive hard drug with treatment centers.
        • wpietri 11y ago
          Might as well form a company that does both. Then you can make money from causing the problem and from solving it. It'd be the broken window fallacy on an industrial scale.
    • justonepost 11y ago
      Yeah, definitely. I think if you want to grow some pot plants in your backyard, go crazy. But if you start to sell them? No thanks.
• Osiris 11y ago
  Sure, but the health effects are smoking are well documented and significantly worse than eating candy bars, or even most other poor diet habits that people have. In addition, cigarettes negatively impact the health of non-smokers that have the misfortune of having sustained contact with a smoker (for example, children) due to not only second-hand smoke but also the toxins that cling to clothing and other surfaces. It would be different if smoking only affected the smoker, but as it affects the wider population (such as higher overall health care premiums), it deserves stricter controls.
  • turkeysandwich 11y ago
    Second hand smoke has a much weaker connection to health issues than actual smoking. And the "collective cost" argument is silly, because it can be applied to any personal liberty that negatively affects health.
  • donatj 11y ago
    Second hand smoke has been debunked years ago. Watch the "Penn and Teller Bullshit" on it. http://www.forbes.com/sites/danielfisher/2013/12/12/study-finds-no-link-between-secondhand-smoke-and-cancer/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/danielfisher/2013/12/12/study-fi...
    • paulcole 11y ago
      Two points: 1) From your link, "The study doesn’t cover the many other ill effects of breathing somebody else’s cigarette smoke, of course, which include asthma and possibly cardio-pulmonary disease." So not debunked exactly. 2) Penn & Teller are entertainers (and illusionists). They present controversial opinions for the sake of a TV show. It is not journalism and shouldn't be accepted at face value. ETA: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penn_%26_Teller:_Bullshit https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penn_%26_Teller:_Bullshit! Penn says, "right now, as I sit here, there probably is danger in secondhand smoke".
    • s73v3r 11y ago
      No it hasn't. There was a study that came out after that episode which confirmed secondhand smoke, and caused them to issue a retraction. www.youtube.com/watch?v=3s8yqj3EL7A
• bunderbunder 11y ago
  The occasional cigarette might bring pleasure to people. But typical cigarette smoking has the opposite effect. A tobacco addiction works by screwing with your brain's ability to perceive pleasure. The result is that most cigarette smokers do not get pleasure added to their lives by tobacco. It's just that they need to keep smoking just to keep getting themselves back up to feeling normal.
  • ColinCochrane 11y ago
    Agreed. It's like wearing shoes that are too small so you can have the "pleasure" of taking them off.
    • baddox 11y ago
      Or exercising strenuously so you can have the pleasure of being in better shape later.
      • tyrust 11y ago
        It's not like that at all. Smoking is effortless (unlike exercising) and leaves you far worse off (unlike exercising).
        • baddox 11y ago
          That has nothing to do with the analogy. The form of the analogy is "do something uncomfortable so that something desirable happens later."
  • baddox 11y ago
    That's all true, and like I said, it's more than "cigarettes kill people."
  • snarfy 11y ago
    It's a stimulant, very similar to caffeine. With the amount of caffeine addicts in the world I'm surprised at the hostility towards nicotine.
• jedberg 11y ago
  The difference is that a candy bar only kills the person who is consuming it (and kills them much slower than a cigarette), while the cigarette kills the people around the smoker too.
  • ars 11y ago
    Another difference is that cigarettes STINK and are disgusting. If you want to do something disgusting do it in private.
    • baddox 11y ago
      Whether it's done in private is an entirely separate issue.
    • PavlovsCat 11y ago
      What people find disgusting differs from person to person though, that's why it's the other way around, if you don't ever want to see anything you find disgusting, you have to stay at home or plan your routes extremely carefully, possibly wear blinders.
  • Karunamon 11y ago
    Not so. The whole "second hand smoke" thing is BS. http://www.forbes.com/sites/danielfisher/2013/12/12/study-finds-no-link-between-secondhand-smoke-and-cancer/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/danielfisher/2013/12/12/study-fi...
    • paulcole 11y ago
      From your link, "The study doesn’t cover the many other ill effects of breathing somebody else’s cigarette smoke, of course, which include asthma and possibly cardio-pulmonary disease."
    • jedberg 11y ago
      My anecdotal evidence says otherwise. I get a headache whenever I'm near a smoker, even if I didn't know they were smoking until after I got the headache (I have a bad sense of smell and sometimes I don't smell it).
• bhauer 11y ago
  Precisely. I'm a non-smoker, non-drinker, non-narcotic. I am quite fond of chocolate. I find it disingenuous to vilify cigarettes and smoking when alcohol is considered not just okay but popular and socially acceptable. In social routines, as a non-drinker, I am an outlier. Neither alcohol or cigarette smoking appeal to me. I personally find being around a smoker to be slightly more annoying than being around drunkards. But neither is pleasant. Still, although I personally wouldn't be directly affected by alcohol prohibition, I am glad that I didn't live during the United States' experimentation with prohibition and I don't want alcohol prohibition today. Similarly, I don't particularly like the current prohibition of narcotics due to secondary effects. I also don't like where things are with tobacco—wherein smokers are essentially painted as evil or weak, and certainly not partaking in a habit they actually enjoy.
  • RexRollman 11y ago
    I personally have no problem with people smoking but for two things: smokers often smell bad and many of them seem to feel that the world is their ashtray.
• jfoster 11y ago
  I've noticed that whenever discussions about smoking come up, people tend to reference other things that are also bad for health (vehicle emissions is a common one, as is junk food) as though it shouldn't be addressed unless other things are being addressed in the same way at the same time. Obesity through junk food is a problem as well. It's being addressed separately.
• bobbyi_settv 11y ago
  That's a terrible comparison. Most people eating a candy bar are doing do because they like candy and want to eat it. Most people consuming cigarettes are doing do because they are addicted and wish they weren't.
  • brandonmenc 11y ago
    > Most people consuming cigarettes are doing do because they are addicted Is that true? How many "social smokers" are there? I ask, because I do not know.
    • mfisher87 11y ago
      I'm going to go out on a limb and posit that most "social smokers" are physically addicted.
      • tptacek 11y ago
        That's probably not true (nb: I'm a "social smoker" in the sense of, if I'm out drinking, I'll follow friends out for a smoke break; that makes me a "pack a year" smoker) --- the demographics on smoking have changed to the point where it's become useful to study "light" smoking and not just daily addicted smoking. In studies, young smokers smoke much less than older people. Addicted smokers smoke all the time. From this, I conclude that there are, like me, people who smoke non-addictively. And, as the Surgeon General made clear: http://www.theonion.com/video/surgeon-general-smoking-fine-as-long-as-you-only-d-26936 http://www.theonion.com/video/surgeon-general-smoking-fine-a...
        • jsonne 11y ago
          My experience is very similar. I probably consume about 1 pack a year or so with friends in social environments. The other things is I do a fair amount of traveling and don't want to be rude or reject someone's hospitality if someone offers me a cigarette while I'm abroad.
        • tripzilch 11y ago
• MaysonL 11y ago
  The same exact argument could be made for heroin and cocaine.
  • baddox 11y ago
    And indeed I would make that same exact argument.
• sneak 11y ago
  Candy doesn't poison the cardiovascular systems of all of those around you.
• iolothebard 11y ago
  Yeah, now swap that with heroin. The Chamber is pro heroin. Sounds nonsensical, doesn't it?
• liebknecht 11y ago
  That's not it. Cigarettes also bring a large amount of pleasure to people. ... Of course things are more nuanced, when it comes down to the matter of lifestyle and individual choice. But it's kind of beside the main point. Which is: when it comes to their tireless efforts to tear down nearly any reasonable safeguards (whether in the form of health warnings on packaging, or access to minors) -- and especially the extent to which they resort to FUD and blatant anti-intellectualism to achieve these ends -- the tobacco lobby simply has no case.