New Zealand scraps world-first smoking ‘generation ban’ to fund tax cuts
New Zealand scraps world-first smoking ‘generation ban’ to fund tax cuts
Health experts say axing plan to block sales of tobacco products to next generation will cost thousands of lives
And this is the kind of shit that happens when the right are put in power. Fuck people yay money.
Disgusting.
So they can decide what’s good for your body except for abortions? It’s incredible how people values are so fluid. They might as well say that everything the right does is evil and wrong.
I get a choice what I can and can't do with my body? Sign me up I guess.
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.
sure but this is for people that were born after 2009. If enough 14yos have smoked to justify your argument humanity is doomed anyway
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
National speed running worst govt.
Shouldn't this read, "New conservative NZ government scraps..."?
It's for money, so it's OK.
My bad.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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
Banning in public spaces or in specific areas something would be fine
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.
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..
Marijuana at least has medicinal use though, right? I mean, it's not 100% the same.
Tobacco has some very legit medical uses.
I don't think any recreational drugs should be branded or advertised. It should be very factual what you are getting and that's it. I think tobacco should still be available from tobacconists only, which can be state run because it's unlikely to be profitable otherwise. I'm for complete legalisation of everything but I think the smoke free generation is a great and noble idea.
It conflicts but I'm not a machine ,I see that tobacco is the most readily available addictive substance in the world, responsible for hundreds of millions of deaths and I can just thumbs up a law that removes it as an opportunity without impacting those who are addicted and don't want to quit.
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
Also, is it just cigarettes or also cigars and pipe tobacco? I know people that, after the 'flavored cigarette' ban here, switched to flavored cigarillos or whatever. Just moved someone to a worse product.
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!
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.
Good. Fuck government telling me what I can and can't do with my body.
Shut it crybaby, you’re government property and you need to learn to accept it.
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