• set_secret@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    And this is the kind of shit that happens when the right are put in power. Fuck people yay money.

    Disgusting.

      • loutr@sh.itjust.works
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        7 months ago

        I do. And as a smoker, I also support attempts to eliminate tobacco. It’s a shit drug, only good at making the craving stop for a bit, and it’s awful for your health and general quality of life.

      • Doll_Tow_Jet-ski@kbin.social
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        7 months ago

        The thing is, if you smoke outdoors, you are violating people’s right to live in an clean environment and breathe fresh air. I don’t care if you fuck yourself up in your own house, but the moment smokers smoke outside of their own homes, they are messing with the liberties of all other citizens.

        • InternationalBastard@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          I hate smoking, but where do we stop? Gamers who sit too long in a chair are an issue for the medical system, too. People who do no sports. People who do not sleep enough. Eating habits…

          • nicetriangle@kbin.social
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            7 months ago

            I mean that’s the classic slippery slope fallacy you’re employing here. The answer is, sometimes it’s a more clear cut situation and other times it isn’t.

            But just because the next rung down your logical ladder is more of a gray area than smoking does not mean that smoking is now also as much of a gray area. That’s not how this works.

            This is the same style of argument people make when debating against gay marriage. Well if gay people can get married does that mean people can marry dogs now? Why not? Where do we draw the line?

            • FishFace@lemmy.world
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              7 months ago

              But this isn’t clear cut; I tend to hear that smokers are a net plus for a country’s finances because of the taxes on cigarettes and due to dying younger, before costlier chronic disease treatments and social care are required.

              So yes, you should be asking where to draw the line.

            • lolcatnip@reddthat.com
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              7 months ago

              Slippery slope arguments are usually fallacious, but I don’t think this one is. A slippery slope argument is valid when thing A actually does enable thing B. Banning something because it’s unhealthy does, in fact, enable further bans on other things by normalizing the notion that something being enticing but unhealthy is a sufficient reason to ban it.

              Just look at all the things that have been criminalized at some point on the principle that they’re dangerous to the people who use them, or just that they’re vaguely bad for you. Cannabis, pornography, sex toys, gambling, even raw milk! And look at the specific things we know are next because they’re already being taxed in some jurisdictions. Tobacco is actually a great example because it’s going through the transition right now from being heavily taxed to being banned outright.

            • rambaroo@lemmy.world
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              7 months ago

              Cool so when do we start banning junk food? This isn’t a slippery slope argument. I’m using the same logic you’re using against tobacco, except sugar kills more people than tobacco does.

        • Akasazh@feddit.nl
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          7 months ago

          Depends statistically they die earlier and of relatively quick diseases. Combined with a life time of paying steep taxes to ingest poison, usually they tend to be a net positive for the state (coldly put).

          • AA5B@lemmy.world
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            7 months ago

            Not enough. I support discouraging use by greatly increasing taxes and insurance.

            And yes, as someone who sometimes enjoys alcohol, that goes for all vice taxes. They need to be raised regularly with inflation or they need to be a percentage

      • Zrybew@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        Bruh, they’re trying to make sure the next generation who never smoke, don’t start smoking.

        The same way they ensured our generation didn’t have to deal with asbestos or lead pipes.

          • Zrybew@lemmy.world
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            7 months ago

            ? Alcohol consumption has been dropping consistently with each new generation…

            • thehatfox@lemmy.worldOP
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              7 months ago

              That’s because of gradual shifts in culture and attitudes, not due to prohibition.

              Prohibition has failed to effectively “ban” any drug, and often tends to encourage their usage and harm efforts to alleviate addiction.

              Tobacco smoking is also declining in many nations in response to improved public health awareness and again cultural shifts. If those trends continue it could all but fade away naturally. Tobacco prohibition is arguably not necessary and could even become counterproductive.

              • AA5B@lemmy.world
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                7 months ago

                Raising the legal drinking age has definitely helped. While there’s still all too many teenagers drinking, my experience through my teens is that it’s a lit fewer than when I was a kid and harder to get.

                — funny story - as an obviously older adult I got carded a couple years ago at a baseball game. They had a zero tolerance policy so I could not get a beer, despite going to multiple stands. Finally, partly out of amusement, I asked a newly legal intern less than half my age to buy beer for me

                • thehatfox@lemmy.worldOP
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                  7 months ago

                  I’m not so sure. I’m in the UK, many parts of Europe have more liberal laws and attitudes towards alcohol than us, but it’s the British teens (and the British in general) infamously known for binge drinking.

        • LemmyIsFantastic@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          Barking up the wrong tree with that one 🤣

          It’s amazing how you’ve imagined an entire political perspective from one comment. My goodness you have an imagination!

  • CarbonIceDragon@pawb.social
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    7 months ago

    I mean, trying to get rid of smoking is admirable, but completely banning a drug has historically not often ended well, because it forces those who ended up addicted underground, and creates opportunity for organized crime to profit from their production.

    • deadbeef79000@lemmy.nz
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      7 months ago

      If that was their reasoning: fine, but it isn’t.

      They actually, out loud, said they need the tax revenue to fund top bracket tax cuts.

    • Jumuta@sh.itjust.works
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      7 months ago

      sure but this is for people that were born after 2009. If enough 14yos have smoked to justify your argument humanity is doomed anyway

      • thehatfox@lemmy.worldOP
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        7 months ago

        Many of the smokers I’ve known started smoking at that age or younger. When I was at school there was a playground back market for cigarettes.

        Banning cigarettes for younger people now won’t stop that. Just as banning cannabis for everyone doesn’t stop those who want to smoking it.

        Many of the younger people in my family now however don’t want to smoke. There has been a significant shift in cultural and health attitudes against tobacco consumption, without a ban being required.

      • CarbonIceDragon@pawb.social
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        7 months ago

        It’s not a temporary measure though I imagine? If someone born after 2009 gets ahold of some illegal cigarettes a few years from now (I definitely remember some high schoolers when I went to school that smoked, despite being under the legal age at the time) and gets addicted, then the issue still arises. People end up addicted to illegal drugs all the time.

    • thehatfox@lemmy.worldOP
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      7 months ago

      Yes, if prohibition has taught us anything it’s that it doesn’t work.

      My country, the UK, is attempting to follow in New Zealand’s footsteps and recently announced its own “generation ban” on tobacco smoking. Despite the fact that tobacco usage has been declining here for many years and seems likely to all but cease naturally anyway.

      I’m no fan of tobacco smoking, but prohibition does not seem the right approach to take. It doesn’t seem helpful or necessary from a public health standpoint, and is also an impediment of individual liberty.

      Revoking such a ban for tax reasons isn’t a great angle either though in New Zealand’s case. However, from what I remember of USA history tax was a motivation to repeal alcohol prohibition in the 1930s, so maybe that’s an unpleasant taste we should be willing to swallow in this case.

      • lad@programming.dev
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        7 months ago

        If the cigarette smoking is on historical low, isn’t it a best time to ban it, because the least people is going to be affected?

  • LotrOrc@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    So I’m a little torn on this

    In general I’m very left leaning, and I was a fan of most policies adern put in. This one I thought was a weird one and really harsh. You want to raise the smoking age to 25 or 30 sure. But banning it entirely is to me like banning weed entirely or when people tried to ban alcohol, etc.

    I understand smoking isn’t healthy for anyone. But it’s still someone’s choice to do so or not. Drinking isn’t healthy either. Lots of people die every year from drinking entirely too much. You can’t ban that entirely either.

    • SatanicNotMessianic@lemmy.ml
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      7 months ago

      Bans work better on tobacco because unlike alcohol or drugs, they’re used habitually but generally not recreationally. That is, the role of cigarettes in society and individually is different from those of alcohol, cannabis, and the like.

      I am going to hazard a guess that tobacco industry lobbying is responsible for this. They went into Eastern European nations and pitched the idea that tobacco control was bad for the country’s economy because without smokers they’d have to deal with more people who live to retirement age, and killing them earlier makes things cheaper.

      Banning cigarettes removes them from convenience stores, making them much harder to buy. The work they’ve done so far has pulled the smoking population down to 8% from over 16% ten years ago, although it’s still 20% among Māori.

      I would not be surprised if the ban cut that in half or more.

    • CheeseNoodle@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      I guess the difference is you have a right to smoke, the 6 people sitting next to you have 6 rights not to. Maybe that was the consideration at the time?

      • SirVer@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        Then just ban it in public spaces and let businesses have private smoking areas if they want to. That’s what was done here in India and it seems to have worked out okay in my state at least.

    • ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca
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      7 months ago

      2nd hand smoke isn’t someone’s choice and the difference between banning cigarettes and banning a full class of a drug is that people aren’t going to turn to the black market for cigarettes (barring poverty) when vaping is still legal

  • acargitz@lemmy.ca
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    7 months ago

    Ex smoker here, who is very against smoking as practice. I am also against the complete ban because it makes no sense whatsoever to be for the legalization of cannabis and other drugs but to also be for banning smoking. If I support one, I cannot support the other. I support drug legalization, so I can’t support a smoking ban.

    • AA5B@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      The article only talks about cigarettes and smoking, but doesn’t say whether that includes other uses of nicotine

      Same with other drug legalization - I think we’re well past the point of knowing that intentionally inhaling burnt stuff is bad, no matter what it is. I can support legalizing cannabis while trying to ban smoking anything

    • neptune@dmv.social
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      7 months ago

      Marijuana at least has medicinal use though, right? I mean, it’s not 100% the same.

    • Chee_Koala@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Even when you consider the differences in addiction/habit forming? Do you feel the same way about morphine and heroin and their derivatives, that we should either legalize all or nothing?

      It might be useful for an inbetween period, first we legalize softdrugs and ban all extremely addictive stuff, then after a year or 5 we open all the gates.

      I don’t even know if I’m for a complete ban but it sounded refreshing to have a smoker free generation, is such a low quality drug as well…

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldB
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    7 months ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    New Zealand’s new government will scrap the country’s world-leading law to ban smoking for future generations to help pay for tax cuts – a move that public health officials believe will cost thousands of lives and be “catastrophic” for Māori communities.

    National has had to find new ways to fund its tax plan, after its coalition partner, New Zealand First, rejected a proposal to let foreign buyers back into the property market.

    “Coming back to those extra sources of revenue and other savings areas that will help us to fund the tax reduction, we have to remember that the changes to the smoke-free legislation had a significant impact on the Government books – with about $1bn there.”

    But public health experts have expressed shock at the policy reversal, saying it could cost up to 5,000 lives a year, and be particularly detrimental to Māori, who have higher smoking rates.

    Te Morenga highlighted recent modelling that showed the regulations would save $1.3bn in health system costs over the next 20 years, if fully implemented, and would reduce mortality rates by 22% for women, and 9% for men.

    “This move suggests a disregard for the voices of the communities most affected by tobacco harm – favouring economic interests,” said chief executive Jason Alexander.


    The original article contains 601 words, the summary contains 211 words. Saved 65%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

  • Affidavit@aussie.zone
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    7 months ago

    I have never smoked in my life, but I am one hundred percent against the government deciding that I am not permitted to take up the habit should I choose. Seriously, fuck you. People framing the scrapping of this as being ‘right-wing’ clearly have no understanding of what the ‘right’ and the ‘left’ stand for.