International News Smoke-free NZ.....

[werthersoriginal]

I don’t see why tobacco products, which can only cause you sickness and death, should ever be legal and so readily available. And I say that as an ex-smoker of about a decade, who absolutely loved smoking, in the interest of openness. There is no ‘medicinal’ use in the way that you can claim so about certain alcohols, or certain types of marijuana (yet it’s banned in many parts of the world). All it does is slowly kill you and make you sick along the way. Do we need that? Do we need anything that we now know can only harm us? Aren’t we supposed to be an advanced species capable of learning and applying new knowledge? Once we realise something is toxic and can only cause harm, do we not have a duty to use our cognitive thinking to eliminate it? It seems strange to me that a big chunk of humans as a species want to protect their right to knowingly make bad decisions, and again, I say that as someone who has caught themselves doing so many times in their life, and constantly strived to get better in that department. If we sat and watched a load of monkeys purposefully and repeatedly doing things that they know only does them harm, and in some cases kills them slowly and painfully, we would be dismayed at their stupidity and there would probably be protestors saying that somebody should step in and take those things away from them. So I find it weird that when we are the monkeys, we don’t always want to do the same thing.

I am of course being intentionally extreme with my analogy (to a point), although I do stand by the core principle of what I’m saying. Parents let their kids make their own decisions on a lot of matters, sometimes for better and sometimes for worse, but they usually learn from getting it wrong and adjust their boundaries moving forward, and there are certain things where they go, “absolutely not, never on my watch” and that’s that. So why can’t a government, assuming the role of the parent, do the same when it knows that there is no benefit to the citizen? Does it not have a duty to eliminate something that only has negative consequences with absolutely zero upsides? Why would it want to protect the threat?

Processed foods is vastly different, as that’s often a poverty issue. I was raised in a very poor environment where highly processed, often frozen food was our only way to eat and therefore survive. It’s not good for you and as time goes on it’s obvious that long term it leads to huge cancer increases (when I was a kid the adverts used to say one in four people would get cancer in their lifetime, now they all say one in two), but for some people it’s all they have access to. That’s the thing we need to worry about and ultimately change - access and affordability to decent quality food. Should we get rid of processed foods entirely? In principle and purely on paper, absolutely 100%, but there’s a lot more at stake and a lot more to figure out before you can just turn the tap off. You can’t compare smoking to eating crap food as one of them serves no essential purpose - if you don’t smoke a cigarette it’ll never impact you negatively in any way, but if you don’t eat food and your only option in the form of cheap and nasty stuff is removed then you’ll die. Sure, many people can afford to not eat processed food and still choose to, but you can’t do much about that unless you’re wanting to dish out poverty cards and only allow carriers to purchase it. That’s where you hope that education steps in to minimise poor choice alongside unfortunate necessity, but where is the necessity with a cigarette? What would anyone really protect cigarettes for? Because of free choice? Cool - where’s my free choice to buy a safe and tested strain of marijuana from a licensed dispensary, which I know can’t cause me any biological or psychological harm (as well as providing tax revenue) because it’s government grown and has undergone extensive testing? Where’s my choice to buy a line of cocaine that I know has been equally and safely prepared and poses no risk of being mixed and diluted with concrete, or any other foreign powders? What’s so special about cigarettes that they need protecting?

I do understand the point that you raise in principle, and the suggestion that things like this can seem like slippery slopes and pose questions of where you draw lines moving forward, and I’m really not an advocate for a supreme nanny state or dictatorship. I do think that education is key to most issues, and I don’t know how it’ll go down in NZ. I guess nobody will know for decades to come, and even if they have the right call on paper they might have the wrong method. But I do personally think that when it comes to something that we know has absolutely zero trade off, zero upside and can only and exclusively cause illness, suffering and death, it’s not that outrageous for someone to go, “Why do we allow this again?” Cigarettes are pretty rare in that case. I can’t think of many other things that can only be used to poison yourself, which have no other use and possess not even the smallest potential benefit. You can only smoke them and they can only make you sick or kill you.

It’s probably a good thing that the debate has been opened up though, right? Feels good to have some sort of conversational exchange that isn’t about trade deals and flag shagging.

Yeah that's what I said. Only not as well

 

[RyanioBirdio]

Yeah that's what I said. Only not as well

Go away I’m having my picture taken

 

[tonyw]

I can’t think of many other things that can only be used to poison yourself, which have no other use and possess not even the smallest potential benefit. You can only smoke them and they can only make you sick or kill you.

Well, what about vodka?
I guess you could make the argument that it might be useful for disinfecting tools if you needed to do emergency surgery. But in that case, it should be sold in Homebase not Sainsburys.
As far as ingesting it goes - it doesn't contain minerals or nutrients, it doesn't have any calorific value.
There are some studies that suggest that one shot a day may have a positive impact on heart disease. But then there's also studies that show that cigarette smoking has a positive impact on ulcerative colitis or Parkinson's. In general, all vodka is doing is providing a psychological benefit (as does smoking) and poisoning your liver.

And then what about Coca Cola?
No minerals or nutrients in that either. Just sugar. The poverty argument doesn't really apply because even in the worst case scenario, you're better off (certainly in the UK) buying actual food of literally any form and drinking water. There's almost no studies out there in the literature suggesting any positive health benefits - but a laundry list of negative impacts of too much sugar consumption.
The only reason we drink it (and unlike smoking and vodka, this is one of my vices) is because we like the taste and are addicted to the sugar hit.


So if we believe that a government's obligations include protecting individual citizens from themselves, should we not ban sales of vodka and Coca-Cola as well?

 

[RyanioBirdio]

Well, what about vodka?
I guess you could make the argument that it might be useful for disinfecting tools if you needed to do emergency surgery. But in that case, it should be sold in Homebase not Sainsburys.
As far as ingesting it goes - it doesn't contain minerals or nutrients, it doesn't have any calorific value.
There are some studies that suggest that one shot a day may have a positive impact on heart disease. But then there's also studies that show that cigarette smoking has a positive impact on ulcerative colitis or Parkinson's. In general, all vodka is doing is providing a psychological benefit (as does smoking) and poisoning your liver.

And then what about Coca Cola?
No minerals or nutrients in that either. Just sugar. The poverty argument doesn't really apply because even in the worst case scenario, you're better off (certainly in the UK) buying actual food of literally any form and drinking water. There's almost no studies out there in the literature suggesting any positive health benefits - but a laundry list of negative impacts of too much sugar consumption.
The only reason we drink it (and unlike smoking and vodka, this is one of my vices) is because we like the taste and are addicted to the sugar hit.


So if we believe that a government's obligations include protecting individual citizens from themselves, should we not ban sales of vodka and Coca-Cola as well?

Maybe we should at least have an honest conversation about these things once in a while, if nothing else. Why not look at our habits and behaviour as we gain more knowledge? We’re supposed to be the most advanced we’ve ever been and the most intelligent species on Earth to boot. Maybe we should by now be at a point where we go, “This thing we’ve got can only harm people and serves absolutely no purpose beyond that, so why on earth would we have it?” Beyond the fact that somebody makes money from it, of course. Countless animals actively and instinctively avoid things that they know to be poisonous to their being, they just automatically steer clear of them, but we seem to charge headfirst towards dangerous items or situations “because we can and it’s our right to do so.” I find that a fascinating trait of ours.

You are, of course, arguing that one cigarette is no more damaging than one shot of vodka, or one small glass of coca-cola, even when consumed with a pattern of regularity or a set frequency. You’re also arguing that they’re no more addictive than each other, so being exposed to one or partaking in one substance is just as dangerous and harmful as the other, and I don’t know that I believe that to be accurate. Then there is the matter of the difference between a cigarette and tobacco full stop, which I should perhaps have acknowledged earlier. Mass produced cigarettes as we know them - sold in packs, little white fellas with the brown bottom parts, absolutely packed with artificial chemicals - are infinitely different to certain types of tobaccos that you may be able to purchase and smoke through a pipe. The common commercial cigarette is a really nasty little f*cker, and I would imagine that if there have indeed been found to be sporadic health benefits of the tobacco plant in general, that’s likely to be gravely different to a pack of Marlboro at the petrol station. But if you’re correct that the common cigarette as we know it is beneficial to people, I would like to know more about that.

People can smoke if they want to - that’s the law of the land where I live and that’s their right. I will also never be one of those horrific people who does the mock coughing or makes a scene about it, and still have plenty of mates who smoke 20 a day and we never even discuss it. I just think it’s a pretty bold and largely sensible step for someone to turn around and go, “Do you know what, we’re getting rid of these.” I find it odd that I can buy a packet of ciggies easier than I can buy a bag of apples, and I find it absurd that anyone in any country could ever tell anybody that they’re fine to buy a carton containing 200 cigarettes from the supermarket, but they can’t purchase one small bud of marijuana that has been tested and cleared for safe use at a federal level.

I think most people would at least be able to agree that whether they’re for or against cigarettes or the idea of banning them etc, they clearly get special treatment. Most likely because the industry surrounding them is TBTF.

 

[bazzer9461]

Question is @Sarge are we down to one a day now?

 

[tonyw]

Maybe we should at least have an honest conversation about these things once in a while, if nothing else. Why not look at our habits and behaviour as we gain more knowledge? We’re supposed to be the most advanced we’ve ever been and the most intelligent species on Earth to boot. Maybe we should by now be at a point where we go, “This thing we’ve got can only harm people and serves absolutely no purpose beyond that, so why on earth would we have it?” Beyond the fact that somebody makes money from it, of course. Countless animals actively and instinctively avoid things that they know to be poisonous to their being, they just automatically steer clear of them, but we seem to charge headfirst towards dangerous items or situations “because we can and it’s our right to do so.” I find that a fascinating trait of ours.

You are, of course, arguing that one cigarette is no more damaging than one shot of vodka, or one small glass of coca-cola, even when consumed with a pattern of regularity or a set frequency. You’re also arguing that they’re no more addictive than each other, so being exposed to one or partaking in one substance is just as dangerous and harmful as the other, and I don’t know that I believe that to be accurate. Then there is the matter of the difference between a cigarette and tobacco full stop, which I should perhaps have acknowledged earlier. Mass produced cigarettes as we know them - sold in packs, little white fellas with the brown bottom parts, absolutely packed with artificial chemicals - are infinitely different to certain types of tobaccos that you may be able to purchase and smoke through a pipe. The common commercial cigarette is a really nasty little f*cker, and I would imagine that if there have indeed been found to be sporadic health benefits of the tobacco plant in general, that’s likely to be gravely different to a pack of Marlboro at the petrol station. But if you’re correct that the common cigarette as we know it is beneficial to people, I would like to know more about that.

People can smoke if they want to - that’s the law of the land where I live and that’s their right. I will also never be one of those horrific people who does the mock coughing or makes a scene about it, and still have plenty of mates who smoke 20 a day and we never even discuss it. I just think it’s a pretty bold and largely sensible step for someone to turn around and go, “Do you know what, we’re getting rid of these.” I find it odd that I can buy a packet of ciggies easier than I can buy a bag of apples, and I find it absurd that anyone in any country could ever tell anybody that they’re fine to buy a carton containing 200 cigarettes from the supermarket, but they can’t purchase one small bud of marijuana that has been tested and cleared for safe use at a federal level.

I think most people would at least be able to agree that whether they’re for or against cigarettes or the idea of banning them etc, they clearly get special treatment. Most likely because the industry surrounding them is TBTF.

I am not at all saying that cigarettes, vodka and coca-cola are all equally damaging. I'm just saying that they are all damaging, with no significant offsetting beneficial effect.
They obviously all sit somewhere on a spectrum. Which then means there's three choices - either you leave the choice of what product to consume wholly up to the individual, or you ban every product that has only deleterious effects or you draw a line somewhere on the spectrum.
And as someone who admittedly tends towards hyperrationality, I tend to hate drawing lines on spectrums because it's almost always arbitrary and at the whims of the people in charge at any given moment. Why would we decide that it's OK to either pickle your liver or balloon your weight up to twenty stone and mess up your blood sugar in search of your own particular artificial high, but it's not OK to shred your lungs?

I imagine that it goes without saying that I'm in favour of marijuana legalization - which does seem to be a general global trend. It's legal here in New Jersey now.


Also I'm not making up the link between smoking and ulcerative colitis. There are numerous papers on the subject that have shown it. The theory is that it's actually nicotine that is the therapeutic agent - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2014383/#b4 - but I don't think that's been completely proven.

Or, if you don't believe the scientific literature - believe Hugh Laurie:

Course the fact that it helps sufferers of a specific bowel disease does not make smoking a generally positive influence on anyone's life.

 

[m]

Decent standard of discussion here. It'll almost be a shame when it descends into what a c**t Boris is or what racists Brexiteers are.

Have we signed anyone yet?

 

[RyanioBirdio]

I am not at all saying that cigarettes, vodka and coca-cola are all equally damaging. I'm just saying that they are all damaging, with no significant offsetting beneficial effect.
They obviously all sit somewhere on a spectrum. Which then means there's three choices - either you leave the choice of what product to consume wholly up to the individual, or you ban every product that has only deleterious effects or you draw a line somewhere on the spectrum.
And as someone who admittedly tends towards hyperrationality, I tend to hate drawing lines on spectrums because it's almost always arbitrary and at the whims of the people in charge at any given moment. Why would we decide that it's OK to either pickle your liver or balloon your weight up to twenty stone and mess up your blood sugar in search of your own particular artificial high, but it's not OK to shred your lungs?

You’re talking in severe extremes. Again, you are assuming the damage that can be done by them is equal, that they’re all as likely to be as addictive as each other and are all on the same scale as each other in terms of quantities and the impacts they have etc. You’re giving them all a value of 1 when you phrase it this way. There is a difference between a sprained ankle and a broken femur when it comes to leg injuries, just as there is a difference between something being bad for you and making you not very healthy if you do too much of it and something that is really bad for you and is really likely to make you gravely ill and kill you. At least with coke you can get a really similar taste from a diet or zero version with severely reduced risks, which is why although I wouldn’t do it myself (we don’t know enough about the long term effects yet as it’s still fairly new technology) I am broadly comfortable with the idea of vaping. But I might have a different opinion on that in 10/20/30 years if it turns out that it’s making people sick in ways that we can’t see yet. If it turns out that it’s just a silly and harmless waste of time and money, I wouldn’t have an issue with that.

To put it on your doorstep since you live in the States, there’s a difference between a small handgun and a semi-automatic assault rifle. You can probably argue that one of them could be considered a reasonable weapon to own in the interest of personal protection, as per the constitution, but I think most people would struggle to say it’s exactly the same as a weapon that Rambo could use to take down a helicopter. I believe in shades of grey, so I’m all for lines on a spectrum and the idea that something can be ill-advised and require moderation, and something else can be solely destructive and serves absolutely no purpose other than to inflict addiction and lead to potential death. Different crimes carry different sentences, some are custodial and some aren’t within that, and there are different points applied to a driving licence for different levels of offence. We live in a world full of lines and spectrums as it is. I don’t personally think a can of coke and some commercial cigarettes are in any way comparable or pose an equal threat, but that’s just my opinion and you’ve brought Hugh along now, who I really don’t like being on your side. He’s incredibly charismatic.

I suppose I’m not particularly libertarian, which is part of it. I believe that far too many people are too silly and / or selfish to safely live and play in a world where there is too much ‘freedom’ as some people might call it. I think we do need boundaries and that some things are just downright unnecessary as opposed to a bad idea, and that when you get to that position there’s no point in leaving certain things on the table, but I’m also open to being educated and having my opinion changed, or even proven incorrect (doesn’t even bear thinking about). I haven’t changed my mind on cigarettes on the basis of anything you’ve said as yet, but you’ve got me attempting to ask myself different questions. And I certainly do understand why you wouldn’t want to go as far as banning them, as I acknowledge that’s quite extreme. I suppose that, ultimately, I don’t consider it a fair fight. I don’t think there’s enough education or attempts to educate people on smoking, as in the UK in particular it seems we’ve gone for censorship rather than discussing the issue, which doesn’t really address anything. But that’s probably an entirely different conversation that’s somewhat off course to the topic at hand.

 

[Marked Ox]

What else are you going to do with it then?

Maradona found a way.

 

[tonyw]

You’re talking in severe extremes. Again, you are assuming the damage that can be done by them is equal, that they’re all as likely to be as addictive as each other and are all on the same scale as each other in terms of quantities and the impacts they have etc. You’re giving them all a value of 1 when you phrase it this way. There is a difference between a sprained ankle and a broken femur when it comes to leg injuries, just as there is a difference between something being bad for you and making you not very healthy if you do too much of it and something that is really bad for you and is really likely to make you gravely ill and kill you. At least with coke you can get a really similar taste from a diet or zero version with severely reduced risks, which is why although I wouldn’t do it myself (we don’t know enough about the long term effects yet as it’s still fairly new technology) I am broadly comfortable with the idea of vaping. But I might have a different opinion on that in 10/20/30 years if it turns out that it’s making people sick in ways that we can’t see yet. If it turns out that it’s just a silly and harmless waste of time and money, I wouldn’t have an issue with that.

I'm really not.
What I'm saying is that cigarettes, vodka & cola are all on a spectrum of unhealthy things.
For the sake of making my point, let's say the spectrum is a scale of 1-10 in terms of the damage that the particular thing does to you. Well, on that scale, cigarettes might be an 8, vodka a 4 and cola a 1.

So if you now come to me and say "OK, we're going to ban the sale of everything above a 5".....my response is going to be "OK, fair enough - but why 5? Why is it OK to do this much damage to yourself, but not more? Is there anything about that number you've chosen which isn't arbitrary?"

But then it's even worse than that - because it wouldn't be you making an arbitrary decision of what number on our scale was OK for banning. It likely wouldn't be a panel of logical, knowledgeable experts either. It would likely be a bunch of politicians - a group of people in whom I now have zero trust in their capabilities or impartiality.

No thanks, I would rather make the determination of where on that scale is OK for me myself.


And every other example you raise - guns, crime, driving licenses - they are all rules and laws that protect individuals from other individuals. And yes, sometimes we have to set a bar for offenses in that system which is somewhat arbitrary.

But my argument would be that coming up with, and enforcing, rules to protect members of society from each other is a primary - if not the primary - purpose of a government.

Coming up with rules to protect members of society from themselves is a choice by a government. And I guess I am a libertarian at heart, because it always makes me slightly uncomfortable when they do.

 

[chuckbert]

The difference is that something like Coca Cola belongs to a class of product which does have benefits. If you are starved, a cola, or any high energy food will actively benefit you. That means that any kind of ban has to get very carefully worded and legalistic, to the point that it will be unmanageable.
There is never a circumstance where having a fag is beneficial (except when as a smoker you are “gasping”, or trying to make the bus come sooner).
Alcohol is more difficult - I mentioned the social aspect above, but there are clearly negative social aspects to alcohol.
You would have the choice of banning all alcohol or getting into the nitty gritty of banning >15% etc which gets difficult to implement.
Tobacco can definitely be more comprehensively banned without society having to do a massive reset.
Interestingly I see Uni students now barely drink at all. A big change from when I was at Uni. For the last few years when when I take my lab members out for lunch, the only ones who drink are the 30+ postdocs - none of the others would dream of having a beer during the day. Different from when I was doing my PhD - was occasionally sitting back at my desk steaming of an afternoon.

 

[holdsteady]

The difference is that something like Coca Cola belongs to a class of product which does have benefits. If you are starved, a cola, or any high energy food will actively benefit you. That means that any kind of ban has to get very carefully worded and legalistic, to the point that it will be unmanageable.
There is never a circumstance where having a fag is beneficial (except when as a smoker you are “gasping”, or trying to make the bus come sooner).
Alcohol is more difficult - I mentioned the social aspect above, but there are clearly negative social aspects to alcohol.
You would have the choice of banning all alcohol or getting into the nitty gritty of banning >15% etc which gets difficult to implement.
Tobacco can definitely be more comprehensively banned without society having to do a massive reset.
Interestingly I see Uni students now barely drink at all. A big change from when I was at Uni. For the last few years when when I take my lab members out for lunch, the only ones who drink are the 30+ postdocs - none of the others would dream of having a beer during the day. Different from when I was doing my PhD - was occasionally sitting back at my desk steaming of an afternoon.

Young people have moved onto weird drugs like those ballon things etc as they are much cheaper than alcohol and don’t make you fat in the social media age.