Shit policy idea. Banning things never works. Please see all of history as evidence.
Increase taxes on nicotine ten-fold if it's so important. Use taxes in part to ensure that the amount of smokes that fall off the back of trucks doesn't spike. That's about as good as you're gonna get to influence anyone who's addicted.
You don't have to increase it 10 fold, that just creates an overnight black market.
Banning sales to people born after a specific date is just as good a solution as any. If you want go full retar-, er, libertarian on it, let people grow their own, but forbid sales/distribution.
There is no upside to cigarettes -- it's the leading cause of lung cancer and a dozen other diseases that cost our health care system billions in each province, every year. The only people who will complain will be the companies who make billions in profit from human addiction, misery, and death.
Which "all of history" are you using as a base? Because this is a slow phase-out of cigarettes, nothing like anything we've had before.
This is not a ban on nicotine, like we had bans on alcohol. People would still be able to vape nicotine.
This kind of policy is not about influencing people who are already addicted, it is about trying to prevent anyone new from getting addicted and eventually putting the entire thing in the rear view.
I like the idea of nobody smoking, but any policy like this probably needs to be coupled with some kind of enforcement. Half or more of cigarette sales are already illegal:
Illegal cigarette sales could comprise up to 67 per cent of Ontario's total tobacco market, 45 per cent in B.C. and 44 per cent in Newfoundland.
I like the idea too, but prohibition has never been successful at anything other than creating black markets
Maybe nicotine addiction should be medicalized.
Anyone born after [date] could get it legally through a pharmacy after talking to their doctor/nurse-practitioner and explaining why they need a prescription (ie they are addicted and can't function without it).
I actually like that framing. I'm imagining explaining it to my 5 year old:
What's that person doing?
They took the wrong medicine and now they have to take that medicine everyday. It's yucky, expensive, and very hard on their body.
Why did they take the wrong medicine?
They didn't realize it was medicine and they thought it looked interesting or fun, I'm not sure exactly. You know not to take medicine without talking to mum, dad, or a doctor right?
Yeah sure let's go back to banning drugs.
This is a ban on cigarettes, not on nicotine
Good point I didn't think of. I guess removing that convenience could discourage a lot of people. But won't it still increase contraband?
Unlikely because the cigarettes can still enter the market and be commercialized legally, so the economics of contraband doesn't change. It's like the currently existing age restrictions already in place.
We might observe some just not caring to check birthdates, like currently not every cashier asks for IDs selling alcohol as they should. But the benefit is still there if a decent percentage of the next generation will just trade cigarettes for vapes for the sake of convenience.
Yeah, let's bring back lead in gas. And asbestos. And raising radiation exposure limits. And measles. Smallpox. In fact, let's roll back all progress we've ever made to improve human health. Let's get those 10 year olds back into the coal mines and smoking unfiltered cigarettes.
Actually, filtered cigarettes have been said to be worse in some articles I've seen.
As you said above though, unadulterated natural tobacco should always be available to people who have a cultural connection with it and can prepare it traditionally. Take away the cool factor and the chemical-laden stuff could hopefully be phased out. Education campaigns can also talk about the human suffering and environmental costs of production on a large scale.
filtered cigarettes have been said to be worse
Yeah. They add fiberglass to the inhaled particulate and are easily defeated as a filter as the act of smoking crushes and chanellizes the filter.
Yeah, let’s bring back [...] measles. Smallpox
You heard what America's aristocracy was making its dumbest do during CoVid, right?
I feel like as a country, we should be pragmatic more broadly. Not just about tobacco, but about anything a person could enjoy, extending to the black market. Determine the things that people will consume no matter what the taxation, social, or regulatory structures are. Quantify the costs of the consumption of those things openly and honestly, and create systems to build those costs into the price of the thing consumed.
I think we're running aground on that right now, because federal & provincial tax on enjoyable things is set at a rate that isn't indexed to the costs incurred by the enjoyment of those things.
Personally I enjoy Nicotine, and I would like to know that the price I pay for it is fair to the base of taxpayers who fund our healthcare system. It doesn't stop at Nicotine though, of course.
I remember reading (but not where, or how true it is) that tobacco use doesn't impact the healthcare system much at all, because smokers tend to die younger, and old age is the most expensive and longest illness to treat.
Interesting.
I'm not an expert on the matter, but to my eyes, taxes on alcohol and tobacco are set arbitrarily. It would be nice to see those funds enveloped for specific programs & a layer of transparency on how the numbers are determined. Canada taxes spirits at ~$13/ litre of absolute alcohol. We ought to wonder - why exactly that number? Is that too much, or not enough, from a healthcare outcome standpoint?
On the one hand I respect personal choice but on the other hand I feel like this is definitely something that should be done (or the recommended idea from undercrush's comment of extremely high taxes on the products to disincentivize use) because the public healthcare system is definitely spending too much time and effort dealing with the ramifications of peoples decisions to continue to hurt themselves.
Yes, quitting sucks, I was at like a pack a day before 16, ended up going cold turkey around 24 and although the first few months suck with the odd craving for the next year or two, it's not that bad. If push comes to shove, changing smokes to sugar free gum would be a vast improvement.
Although a few friends have tried that 'fum' thing and said they succeeded in quitting but I haven't personally tried that. There's a wide variety of ways to beat the addiction these days and if everyone is contributing to a national money pool for everyones health then at the very least we need to do the minimum amount of effort to try to be healthy so as to not overburden the system and collapse it.
... especially when canada keeps losing billions of dollars to corporate tax fraud. Fucken CRA is trash at everything.
This kind of law cannot be tolerated. Not even if the goal is admirable.
'Legal for you, forever' but 'forever illegal for your children' is blatantly not the same thing as 'you must be eighteen.' It's inequality. It's generational discrimination. It is a separate set of laws, based on the circumstances of your birth, without any fig-leaf for safety, ability, or intellect.
Grandfathering and phasing things out are common
It’s generational discrimination
You mean, like between the people who lived and died without being able to smoke cannabis legally and those who now can?
Every single law ever approved has created a barrier between those who lived before the law was approved and those who lived after. Public health care, public pensions, everything.
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