6 ms·

> The most effective measure against smoking is taxation. I hate this method of behavior control. It's always a disproportionate tax on the poor and yet anothe

• toomuchtodo 11y ago
  Do you have a better way to convince people not to smoke?
  • snarfy 11y ago
    It's an addiction. There is no convincing. That's not how addiction works. What does need to happen is people need to be convinced to never start smoking. Taxing the existing addicts does nothing for this.
    • dnc 11y ago
      Completely share this point of view. I was a heavy smoker for a ten years and no level of taxation would make me quit. Back at the time I would rather smoke and stay hungry for a while if I was to choose. And quitting is very hard. I have had dozen of failed attempts to actually quit smoking for good. Having said that, I know a lot of people who smoke just to socialize and occasionally; they are not addicted and seem to have no problem with not smoking at all...
      • Thriptic 11y ago
        > I know a lot of people who smoke just to socialize and occasionally; they are not addicted and seem to have no problem with not smoking at all... I'm one of these people. I enjoy smoking cigars every once and awhile, and will enjoy a cigarette or two with no danger of addiction if I happen to be drunk and at a party with smokers. With that being said, I could easily see how an occasional smoker could turn into a regular smoker over time if tobacco was readily available and they were hanging around with other smokers regularly.
  • amelius 11y ago
    I know one way: depict smokers as unlikeable beings in popular media, instead of the other way around.
    • pessimizer 11y ago
      So, lie to people? Depicting smokers as vermin, and censoring depictions of smokers that imply that they have any positive characteristics would definitely work over the long term. The technique has often worked really well on homosexuals, communists, and immigrants.
      • amelius 11y ago
        Cigarettes have been promoted through media for a long time. I say it wouldn't hurt if we invert the process for a little while. You can call this lying. However, it is what advertisers have been doing for ages.
• tmvphil 11y ago
  And yet it is empirically effective. What alternative would you suggest? It's true that rich people are not burdened by cigarette tax, but then again smoking rates are already much lower among the rich (at least in the US).
  • rory096 11y ago
    Tax and dividend. Don't toss Pigovian tax money into the general fund, return it to the people by sending everyone a check for their share. Solves progressivity, forms the basis of a basic income, and ideally directly defrays some of the damages from externalities. (Last is somewhat less true with tobacco, where the biggest externality tends to be health problems that society ends up paying for.)
    • joosters 11y ago
      Tax from the poor and give to the rich(er)? Plus lots of extra bureaucracy costs with all the paperwork and administration. I won't be voting for you!
      • rory096 11y ago
        You're right about inferior goods making a T&D program somewhat regressive (the canonical example is probably carbon). Still, the biggest winner is the non-smoking poor - there's just not as many rich people. Plus the whole point is to reduce bureaucracy - a simple dividend that everyone qualifies for is much lower overhead than pretty much anything else you can do with that tax revenue. (And hey, I never said I supported it. tmvphil asked for less regressive alternatives to a straight Pigovian tax.)
  • vezzy-fnord 11y ago
    What alternative would you suggest? Banning it. I'm not even joking. If your only goal is to lower consumption rates, prohibition works. If you use cirrhosis deaths as a proxy, then alcohol consumption declined during the Prohibition era. [1] The problem, of course, is everything else that happens in the wake of enforcing it. An alternative option is to do nothing, because it's kind of a bikeshed issue, anyway. [1] http://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/arh27-3/209-219.htm http://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/arh27-3/209-219.htm
• learnstats2 11y ago
  I would note that the negatives from smoking generally fall disproportionately on the poor. If you are unsuccessful at discouraging people from smoking, people are going to pay more through health outcomes later on. Health problems will be particularly difficult for poor people to overcome, even if they have help from the state (which may be increasingly over-burdened).
• dazc 11y ago
  I have a friend on a very low income - most of which he spends on alcohol and tobacco. When he runs out of money he borrows it to fund his bad habits. High taxation hasn't help him. I'm not sure anything would?
  • cmdrfred 11y ago
    People often forget the hidden costs of what your friend does. The taxes exist to defer those costs to people who actually attempt to make a life for themselves.
    • pessimizer 11y ago
      Are you insinuating that dazc's friend is not alive?
      • cmdrfred 11y ago
        I don't understand. His future medical costs will be spread out though society (he won't pay the bill). That isn't my bill to pay, so tax his vice to recoup some of the costs. *Now I understand, what I mean by a 'life for themselves' is be a functioning member of society who pays his debts.
      • dazc 11y ago
        He's still alive - just about. I agree with the point about using the tax to recoup some of the inevitable costs to society as a whole. But, on the issue of using taxation to modify people's behaviour, it doesn't always work as intended.
• jokoon 11y ago
  * smoking is recreational, its not a necessary expense * the rich pay the tax too * it has a cost and is a nuisance to others * some countries fund the health programs caused by smoking thanks to those taxes * you got to stop finding excuses about smoking, smokers are addicts, society must be intolerant towards regular smokers. I went through passive smoking as a kid, believe me, its awful.
  • perfTerm 11y ago
    Rich people are far less likely to smoke, and when they do they don't smoke enough to make up for the imbalance so this is by its very definition a regressive tax policy that affects lower class communities the hardest. And I'm just not sure I can get down with your intolerance. Smokers are people too. I know a tremendous number of them having made friends with my working class neighborhood in Brooklyn as well as my father. Passive smoking sucks but shaming people who smoke isn't really the answer just like shaming people who are overweight is also a tremendously shitty thing to do.
    • jokoon 11y ago
      I'm not talking about shaming. But I think it's a right thing to penalize people who smokes, at least financially. How else ? It is the same thing for marijuana I believe. If both the supply and demand are high, but the health effect are bad, it's fair to introduce a tax. It doesn't have a lot to do with regressive tax policies, which are based either on income or wealth, you can't apply that to tobacco products. Next time are we going to argue about the tax on heroin once it's legal ? Public health policies are tricky because markets force are involved with addiction forces.
      • perfTerm 11y ago
        You can though. When someone says raising tobacco taxes will increase government coffers by X, they're effectively levying that tax primarily on lower and lower middle class families since those communities are more likely to smoke cigarettes.