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New Zealand repeals world-first smoking ban passed by Jacinda Ardern
(www.independent.co.uk)
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this post was submitted on 27 Feb 2024
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Smokers do not live in vacuum with their own healthcare that is only paid by them.
Smoking has huge impacts on our healthcare system, the high is shit and they only exist to make rich people richer and keep poor people poor.
I say this as someone that recently restarted, I wish it was banned when I first started. It's easily the thing that I've wasted the most money on uselessly and has caused the most damage to my health.
Cannabis was illegal when I started smoking it. We tried banning alcohol, and look how that turned out.
I think there's a huge difference between them. Alcohol and weed is used occasionally by most and is more of a social activity("lets go for drinks, lets smoke a J"). Smoking affects all it's users negatively while the others really only do so for a small subset of the population.
No one only smokes occasionally, it is much more addicting then the others for the general population and isn't done in a social context neither. No one invites their friends for a cigarette on a Friday night.
There is just nothing positive about cigarettes. I don't think it's at all comparable.
Yeah but we could ban all sorts of things by that logic. Alcohol, obviously. Sports. Any foods that a lot of people are allergic to. Suntanning. It's holding smoking to a standard that we don't hold any other vices or hobbies to.
Most of those are social activities. A lot of places did ban tanning booths because of their link to skin cancer.
Alcohol and smoking is not at all comparable. No one invites each other for a pack of smokes on a Friday night. There aren't any casual smokers because it's much more addicting than anything you mentioned.
Imagine if alcohol was brutally addicting for 98% of the population and then ask yourself if you would ban it.
Addiction alone is no reason to ban something. And what does being a social activity have to do with anything?
Solo weightlifting alone causes 450,000 major injuries a year. Why no ban on that?
A harmful substance being highly addicting with zero benefit is a valid reason to ban it.
I'm bringing up social activities to highlight that alcohol and weed, while also being much less addictive and damaging, are also part of our social culture.
It's a false comparison same with weight lifting.
Well, since you've just declared it a false comparison, now I'm convinced. Thanks for clearing that up.
I cannot disagree strongly enough. The State should not tell me how to live my life. My body, my choice.
New Zealand has publically funded health care. If the government can force me to pay for your medical treatment (via tax), why is it a stretch for them to prevent you from running up those costs by engaging in self destructive drug use?
In any democracy, the voting public should choose how tax money is spent. If the majority don't want to pay to manage smoking related illness, or pay to enforce a two tiered medical system, a democratic system would restrict or ban smoking.
We've been over this. It's a standard that other activities are not held to.
It's a democracy, the people have the right to value different things differently if they choose. The previous administration ran for office with the cigarette restrictions as part of their policy package and people voted for that. They didn't vote for alcohol or fast food or whatever else your claiming is the same, if people wanted to ban other things they have the right to vote accordingly.
We're not mob rule here. There are (or should be) checks against the tyranny of the majority. Just because most voters want a thing doesn't mean it's necessarily the right thing.
Most new zealnders don't smoke, if most new zealanders don't want to fund smoking how is that different than any other drug being illegal? Would you describe illegal cannibas or prescription only medications as tyranny of the majority?
There are checks and balances in place to prevent actual human rights abuses. You still haven't answered why tax paying new zealanders should be forced to pay health costs for smokers when the majority don't support it. If banning smoking is tyranny of the majority, forcing taxpayers to fund smokers against their will is surely tyranny of the minority.
I didn't want to get too deep into it because it's an open question. But there have been some studies suggesting that smokers cost the healthcare system less, because they die younger.
The main point though is that we don't, and shouldn't, exclude people from the healthcare system for their personal choices. Nor should we restrict people's freedom to make personal choices because it would save the government money. That's a terrible precedent.
If you're saying it's tyranny to prevent people from taking actions, that the majority feel shouldn't be allowed, that drive up healthcare costs then that's one thing. However if your position on this is based on a liberal ideal of people being allowed to do what they want, then it should surely equally apply to the taxpayers (particularly if they are majority voters) who don't want to pay for the decisions of others. Either way that is government intervention restricting individuals freedom.
I think it's not right to say "the governments money" as if an administrative body that is beholden to the voters has true autonomy over how it's spent - that is the populations money and should be their choice on how it's spent. One can argue it's immoral to refuse migrants access to the country and healthcare but that isn't accepted as justification for open borders. I also don't understand, assuming cigarettes are some special case different than immigration where morality should trump democracy, why it's more valid to say this taxpayer control over how their money is spent should be restricted based on your moral judgement compared to someone else's moral judgement who's claim is cigarettes are immoral (for whatever their chosen reason).
The claim of smokers dying younger and therefore costing less is something I didn't consider and is an interesting point (that very well could prove true). But even if you discredit the taxpayer funded health argument, there's moral arguments around selling addictive substances, human pain caused by premature death and sickness etc. that could just as readily be made as any argument based around individual freedoms. Why should your claims on what's moral have precedence over someone else's?
Taxes have forever been an exception to the liberal idea of freedom to do whatever. They're a social and economic necessity.
Taxpayers decided to fund universal healthcare. If we start picking and choosing who is "deserving" of that care...that's a terrible precedent.
In several ways, a cigarette ban is an exception to how democracies have traditionally dealt with issues around freedom. There's really no precedent or defense for it except that cigarettes are currently unpopular.
And I think it's nearly universally acknowledged that ceding to the government the power to decide how its individual citizens should live their lives is a terrible idea. If we were talking about almost anything else, there would be an uproar. Government says religion makes no objective sense and causes a lot of fighting and mental stress, decides to ban worship. Uproar. Government decides that having children when you can't afford to offer them a good life is immoral, decides to ban children for poor people. Uproar.
A cigarette ban only feels like it makes sense because it's cigarettes. Copy the justification for the ban to anything else and you realize how bad an idea it is.
Marijuana among many other drugs are illegal in New Zealand with no uproar. How is that different than cigarettes?
I'd argue it's not, and I'm disappointed that there's no uproar. My only explanation is cognitive dissonance.
What are the health benefits of weight lifting when compared to cigarettes? Whats the impact monetarily of both on the health system?
Whats the cost on the users for partaking in it. Where do they sit relative to each other and different substances/activities in terms of addiction. How many weightlifters end up having real health complications because of their addiction compared to smokers? How many of them die? How many weightlifters regret doing it compared to smokers?
This is why its a false comparison and rhetoric. If you want to live in a world where every activity that has health complication is comparable to cigarettes in the present context, then stop responding to my comments and pretend.
"You wouldn't ban weightlifting" is not an argument.
So we're weighing health effects good vs bad and choosing, on behalf of society, how bad is too bad?
It's like a theocracy, but without the religion.
Clearly there's no hard criteria, like "has the potential to cause personal injury on a wide scale". Which means inevitably it gains a moralistic/tribalistic quality, something that has no place in government, especially when talking about government restrictions.
There is a hard criteria, "Causes serious health issues to all it's users with no benefit and is highly addicting". There is literally nothing else in our society currently legal that crosses that line except smoking.
The rest of your argument doesn't make much sense to me, you will have to explain. Most of our laws fall under that umbrella. The potential for damages is weighed against the benefits and the liberties it restricts. Lots of things are outlawed that really aren't as clear cut as cigarettes.
Smoking has social benefits. Same as alcohol.
It's possible to consume alcohol responsibly and a small amount doesn't appear to be harmful.
Why do you want to legislate people away from harming themselves and only themselves?
Smoking doesn't just effect the smoker
Yeah it does.
There is also the impact on our healthcare system and our economy. Another albeit minor consequence compared to the other two is littering.
There are already laws against littering. And lots of things affecting our healthcare system and economy. Sports, processed food, alcohol
Comparing sports, processed food and alcohol is a false equivalence.
In any case, it's not because problems exist elsewhere that we can't solve this one. It's also much easier to stop the damage by banning cigs like it was done in New Zealand (where thee age limit rises as the population ages) then to fix any of your other examples.
Sure, it's much easier to force people to be healthy, if your goal is a healthier population. But it's morally wrong. People should have the right to make unhealthy decisions.
I think I remember reading that smokers, paradoxically, cost less to the social security net systems including healthcare because they die so young. So I guess don't feel so bad? Other than the money and health problems.
For real, I'm sorry that you have this addiction that forces you to take part in an activity it sounds like you don't enjoy (or at least the enjoyment does not even out the downsides for you.)
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3533014/
Canada did a separate study in 2017 which includes lost productivity for shorter years of life and that obviously was a huge cost to the system.
I will quit again but I ultimately wish I had never started, and I'm fairly certain that sentiment is found in practically all smokers.
I understand the importance of having choice, even bad ones. But if 99% seriously regret one of the choice and are affected negatively with no gain by it, why even offer it?
And society can easily shrug off the negative effects but it's just not healthy imo. A solid percentage of our population is a slave to this stuff and it's just bad form.
The 99% might be an exaggeration, I'm clearly not impartial about it.
I never said any of those things. It's also worth noting that it doesn't take anything away from current users but stops new ones from starting.
I'm advocating this because of my bad choice, something that came about mostly because I was a stupid kid that got caught in their propoganda. Back when I started it was still "cool". I don't want other kids to make those same mistakes and there isn't a situation where it isn't a mistake.
But sure, keep licking malboros boots lol
I did own it.
If you spent your time making home made explosives as a kid and one blew up in your face, should your first hand experience be ignored because it turned out badly?
And it's not so crazy when the personal choice can only harm the person and it's only being given to line the pockets of Marlboro and co. You're acting like if this is abortion we are talking about.
If your so confident, go out and buy a pack, and then buy one a day for the next two years and then try to quit. You don't know what you are defending.