Prohibition only serves to empower organized crime and cops. We have been through this shit with booze and cannabis. We know better than this. Come on people.
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This is just going to make them cool as hell for kids???
Trust me I grew up with marijuana being illegal and somehow it made marijuana, the least edgey drug I have ever encountered, feel edgey and cool.
I think it was the back alley deals that made weed cool and the bit of camaraderie that comes along with the in-group baddies smoking weed.
Now you just go into a shop and there’s a 19+ year old trying to sell you the ultra super duper bubble gum thunder blitz hybrid with 91% THC that you smoke through the shatter bong. Feels like Vegas when you just want a Doobie.
What made weed cool was that weed was made illegal because of racism and was always cool… we are just addicted to the forms of racism that disappear when you look right at them more than we are willing to let ourselves have cool things.
I’m confused. If smoking is bad for you because it clogs up the blood vessels in the lungs with tar and reduces oxygen to the body, and with 500 or so chemicals added to the equation. Why is vaping ok when, in fact, it has as many chemicals and does the same amount of harm to your body? Make it totally illegal for dumb people who don’t realize this.
Here is an extra bit of wisdom: we all know we’re going to die one day; what we should worry about is “How you’re going to die.”Black market suffer too much after loosing hand on canabis?
Which prohibition has ever been good for health?
Also the other history notr: we literally did win against cigarettes with public health interventions.
Then we defunded public health and for some reason aslo took a decade to start treating vaping as smoking.
Treating vaping like smoking is wrong, though. They are nothing alike besides containing nicotine.
And you can’t even compare that because the forms of nicotine are different. The one used in modern vapes is only about 12% as bioavailable as the nicotine in tobacco.
Vaping is 95% less harmful, but there’s a gigantic misinformation campaign against it. Most studies that show that vaping produces harmful substances either had methodology that was designed to produce harmful results by using the devices in ways humans wouldn’t, or the scientific reporting on the study grossly misrepresented the findings to make vapes sound scary.
You underestimated the risk factor of the delivery method.
Cigarettes are not only cancerous because of the content but also the fact that you’re breathing in burnt material.
Nicotine has a threshold for addiction. A lot of vapes go over it. And the companies complain when they are forced to produce nonaddictive products.
More disinformation comes from the vaping industry. How has the finacial incentive to suppress vaping? Even tobacco companies own vape products so they are not being hurt.
Public health interventions can do far more than banning! The reason it tooks so long to treat vaping as smoking is the far lesser danger of vaping for health (if you put aside the US studies).
This has nothing to do with health. We could cure death and everyone would still think smoking is the deadliest thing ever. I realized this 20 years ago while reading a book on nano technology that posited that we could cure death someday with it.
And I thought “That’d be great. Then I can smoke and not worry.” But then immediately I thought, “That can’t be right!” And I spent 5 minutes trying to figure out how smoking would be bad for me in a scenario where it’s impossible for it to be bad for me. When I present this puzzle to others, they do the same thing.
This question can be rephrased like this: how can shooting myself in the head be bad for me in a world where shooting myself in the head is impossible to be bad for me? We could cure death and people will still say shooting yourself in the head is the deadliest thing ever.
So therefore, trying to prevent people shooting themselves in the head is not about health.
If nothing can kill you (even shooting yourself), then can anything (including shooting yourself) be dangerous?
I present this puzzle to others, they do the same thing.
Think of it this way, if we had death curing nanobots, does this mean you can survive a nuclear explosion? Will you become immortal?
The nanobots the book was talking about are nanobots that stop the tendency for the body to decay as we age. They are not meant to make us immortal.
Think of them like very advanced prosthetics.
Having the ability for prosthetic arms and legs does not mean that arms and legs (both natural and prosthetics) is impossible to be chopped off. Having heart pacers does not mean that poor diet and low exercise is impossible to cause heart disease.
People with poor health need more medical intervention and earlier than people with good health. The existence of inventions does not change risk factors.
We have a real life example. Oxygen is a very reactive molecule, it is unstable in large amounts and corrodes everything else, yet we need it to survive. Something that is bad for other things is required by us. The reverse is also true. CO2 is harmful for us but good for plants.
Hope that actually clears up your thought process and helps you stop believing in none sense.
I’m not believing in nonsense. When they cure death and we’re in our 200s, I’ll be out smoking cigars, enjoying hot sex orgies, and playing Counter Strike for real while you’ll be at home worrying about your health and freaking out that second hand smoke will kill you at the age of 915,278 instead of the average of 995,562.
I was being purposely absurd about shooting people in the face to prove a point.
But since you would actually play counterstrike IRL if these nanobots were invented, I’d gladly take the opposing side to your team.
When (not if) I win, I’ll emphatically take over those sex parties, but leave the cigars and smoke (not really my thing).
You really think technology will make you immortal. I bet my mortal life that you didn’t take a STEM degree. You really are a delusional joke.
You really think technology will make you immortal. I bet my mortal life that you didn’t take a STEM degree. You really are a delusional joke.
It’s a hypothetical and it’s making you hopping mad, jumping all around it. It’s a moral issue.
You know what? Your right, when someone’s mad it is a moral issue. When your face gets shot, and you mad about it, it is not a question of fact but a moral question.
Shooting a gun is one thing, the trajectory of the bullet is another thing.
Smoking is not just you. Because of the public effects of smoking, I will be affected and I should be asked to consent. If you see my consent or lack thereof to you smoking as a moral issue than I see your non consent to your face being shot as a moral issue to be corrected.
Even without die of it, I would still prefer to avoid cancer. And smoking clearly rise the risk to have one.
Also, a cure we may have someday, is just a call to found research, not a real promise. Don’t build anything on such.
Sure, but if we can’t imagine a scenario where it’s okay to smoke, then it’s clearly a moral issue and nothing else.
There is a way for smoking to be OK, you’d have to change biology and chemistry laws first, not legal laws. Good luck with that.
It is impossible in this universe for smoking to be neutral in your health. In another universe, sure but not this one. It is not a moral issue but one of which universe we live in. A universe where smoking is non consequential or one where it is bad. We live in the universe where smoking is bad.
This is not a moral question but a question of which reality we find ourselves in.
Cancer is an health issue. Without health consequences at all, smoking would not be a problem.
I don’t see how moral could be related to smoking…
Well there is also the part that it stinks like shit
Because when you have a scenario where if you get cancer all you do is take a pill full of nanobots and you’re cured, it’s working kind of hard to find a problem with that. Admit it. It feels icky and wrong to say “It’s okay to smoke”. There’s a part of you that feels guilty for writing what you just wrote. What if a child reads that and starts smoking because of what you said?
Admit it. It feels icky and wrong to say “It’s okay to shoot yourself in the head”. There’s a part of you that feels guilty for writing what you just wrote. What if a child reads that and starts shooting themselves in the head because of what you said?
“It’s okay to eat rotten food that has mold growth on” “It’s okay to stop breathing air” “It’s okay to tan using a UVC lamp” It’s okay to jump off a skyscraper"
The only reason why you consider one question (smoking) to be a moral issue instead of all questions is because you want to smoke. You’re not saying jumping off skyscrapers is a moral issue, let along the infinite other questions not listed here.
Yes. I do want to smoke! If we cured death, would it be okay?
I have absolutely no guilt at saying that if there were no health problem, smoking would be totally ok ; and even sometimes recommanded, since the benefice/risk balance would become positive. Yet for now, smoking bring health issue and it is therefore better for your health that you avoid smoking. But should you smoke, it would not be wrong, but dangerous (for you).
You and I may be standing outside Plato’s Cave, but most people are stuck inside. Imagine if we got control of the Star Trek franchise and made it canon that smoking has zero health effects.
Riker goes to sick bay and Dr. Crusher scans him. She has a Marlboro red dangling from the side of her mouth. She says, “You have stage four lung cancer.”
She injects him with the hypospray. “There. It’ll be gone by tomorrow. Get back to work.”
Riker goes to the bridge. Geordi is smoking a Marlboro Light 100. There’s an ashtray on the console. Data is smoking his pipe, of course. Troi sits. She elegantly and languidly sucks on a long, glamorous Eve 120 cigarette. Picard comes on to the bridge with a huge Churchill cigar clenched between his teeth. Worf turns around and he’s got an even bigger cigar, some Klingon brand, blood red and fluted or some other kind of weird alien design.
You and I see no problem. But everybody else would be saying, “Dear Lord! This is a family show! Do you want this to be part of their image?!”
Edibles are pretty nice
Plenty of opportunities for me on the black market then.
Morons.
I was thinking that too. I’m all for people quitting smoking, but this doesn’t seem lie the smart way to do it.
We shouldn’t ban cigarettes and vapes instead we should push people to healthier alternatives.
Education and freedom, yes!
But please don’t push, making addicts guilty doesn’t help health issues.
Education and Freedom is not enough. You must pave the road of a smoke free life and put barriers on the road to a smokers’ life.
You’re educated and free to drive your car how you please. We design roads to make it easy to drive one way over another. But if the driver overcomes those barriers and drives in a poor manor, there are physical and legal penalties.
I strongly disagree.
Driving involves other people in your car and around you. And the public power should be used to protect them if you represent a threat toward them.
If you drive on some private road or circuit, you may drive how you please (according to the private rules). And this freedom is important.
The barrier you want to put on smokers life are abusive, in my opinion, not only as it restricts liberties, but mostly because it comes with criminalization of smoking. If it is a crime or a shame, people are most likely to hide it, do it worse, and make it cause more harms. And it also make it harder to help those who want to stop.
Driving involves other people in your car and around you. And the public power should be used to protect them if you represent a threat toward them.
As opposed to smoking, which doesn’t affect other people’s health? Secondhand smoke is a thing.
Second hand smoke is a thing, and it is dangerous for health… so are pollutions from cars, and most production of electricity… but other things as well. Banning everything isn’t a good way.
Education and health campaign are a good way to make people willing to protect themselves and others ; or at least less of a charge on others.
Those who pay attention to depollution systems on their car pollute less, and those who pay attention to where their second hand smoke goes aren’t much of a danger. And when a majority makes efforts for the comon good, those who don’t make efforts are seen socially wrong. A bit as someone who doesn’t shower more than once a year: it is not illegal, but the way they are seen is a social cost. And you may notice fewer people go for never washing themselves than for smoking. In my opinion, because there is nothing “cool” at never washing self. Smoking give a shady vibe, a bit gangster, a bit “cool”. Treat it as a pure health problem, and it will become a sickness (and it is not “cool” to be sick).
Like autoerotic asphyxiation.
All the rage these days. You even got the school yard pushers selling belts.
Like smorking
Having watched my own parents die from smoking related illnesses, my father in law and sister in law succumb to lung cancer, it’s a shit way to go. Not something I want to watch or wish upon anyone.
As an ex smoker myself who hasn’t smoked in over 20 years, there are still days I think I’d like a smoke. It’s got a helluva mental hold on you.
Anything we can do to keep the next generation of kids to pick up this filthy habit is a win in my opinion. Stop them before they ever get the chance to start.
This may not be perfect, but at least it’s something.
And a great way to help stop cigarettes are vapes.
This. I know some people who have switched to vapes and have steadily reduced their nicotine to 0.
I used vapes to quit cigarettes and became more addicted to vaping than smoking. I could puff pretty much anywhere anytime. Nicotine pouches actually helped quit vaping though.
regulatory hubris will only strengthen the black market.
personally I am actually FOR this as I want my dual nicotine/thc vapes ASAP. the black market always provides. and I dont give a fuck what your opinion is on this.
Same
Dont make tobacco illegal, make cigarettes illegal to sell. I highly doubt kids are gonna take the time to roll a cigarette to get hooked
Make nicotine a controlled substance. Smoke all you want, quit when you want.
Selling a drug that does nothing but addict people is fucking evil.
When are those people going to push for a ban on cars, specifically gas powered cars.
The health burden analysis indicated that TRAP from Canadian sources was associated with 1,200 premature deaths in Canada in 2015.
Non-fatal health outcomes included 2.7 million acute respiratory symptom days, 1.1 million restricted activity days and 210,000 asthma symptom days per year. The total annual monetary value of the health burden was estimated at $9.5 billion (CAD 2015), with $9 billion being associated with premature deaths.
To me this all seems a bit hypocrite and extreme. C’est de l’acharnement.
Well they haven’t officially cancelled this yet and I think we should keep reminding people of it: https://www.canada.ca/en/transport-canada/news/2021/06/building-a-green-economy-government-of-canada-to-require-100-of-car-and-passenger-truck-sales-be-zero-emission-by-2035-in-canada.html
It’s a start, but I’m a bit like those anti smoking people except for cars. I know it’s not realistic to ask everyone not to use cars and trucks so I can settle for electric vehicles with massive investments in public transit and bike lanes.
But if I wanted to go further, and also just to add information, cars and vehicles in general cannot be entirely zero emission. Even the tires and brakes of bicycles are emitting pollutants in the air and water. It’s one of the oversight about electric vehicles. In the last decade, we found out that tires are also emitting a lot of harmful shit that gets in the air and the water. The production of cars and tires are also producing harmful pollutants.
Tire Pollution May Threaten Human Health, Study Finds
Car tyres produce vastly more particle pollution than exhausts, tests show
So, only by the logic of “it’s never enough”, like people asking for a complete ban on smoking, I say electric vehicles are not enough and that we should ban all cars and trucks. (/s)
I can go on.
And that’s not counting animals, which are in the billion.
Parking spaces and parking lots are also not permeable and bad for the environment. They contribute to pollutant runoff and increase the heat island effect. Even their colour can have an impact.
So me it’s funny that smoking outside is banned in certain places, while people breathe in all those nice pollutants from the cars. Breathing in that “fresh air”, on a terrace next to the town’s main road.
We can go full in on banning smoking, to protect the health of everyone, smokers and non-smokers, while ignoring other obvious health hazards. In a way, electric cars are the vaping form of smoking. They claim to be better for the environment and/or healthier, but in reality, they still have other problems and issues.
Again, that’s why I think those anti smoking people are going too far. I’m “anti car” and understand very well that it’s impossible to just ban them.
Or like any other movements. I’m not vegan, but I usually avoid eating meat. I don’t prepare it myself. And I know the meat industry is a terrible blight on the environment. It may even be human health issue. So reducing our consumption should be a priority. But there’s still going to be some people that will want to over consume red meat. Just as there’s going to be some people that want to smoke. Yes, it has collective impacts. Yes, it should be reduced as much as possible, but banning things, even gas powered cars, or smoking, is extreme and goes too far.
“Kids who vape are 3 1/2 times more likely to smoke tobacco in the future,” said Jessica Buckley, president and CEO of the foundation.
Sounds like bullshit. There are lots of fraudulent studies around vaping.
One of the things people need to understand is that many people self medicated using nicotine. But it’s almost inconceivable that vapers will go to smoking.
Sounds like bullshit. There are lots of fraudulent studies around vaping.
Vapers say what?
“One of the things people need to understand is that many people self medicated using nicotine.”
This is a given. Most people self medicate with alcohol and tobacco.
A lot people don’t want to be a statistic for side effects either. Here take some hydroxyzine, but hey it may cause you to be hyper aggressive. Sounds too similar to hydrazine.
I don’t know if it seems more rational to use something that’s been around forever.
How many are the same ones who would have smoked anyway too
If u think the study is flawed, the onus is on you to explain why it’s flawed
Sadly yes. But this has a long tradition - put out flawed study methodology or write publish incendiary claims and then only later it gets debunked. It’s fucking evil because vaping actually is one of the most effective ways to quit smoking and vastly safer.
We’re talking about quiting in this thread or the study, but starting.
It’s fucking evil because vaping actually is one of the most effective ways to quit smoking and vastly safer.
So far you’ve accused studies that say otherwise of being flawed without providing any analysis as to why, and you haven’t provided any sources of your own. It should like you just like vaping and have an axe to grind
Sure I have. Smoking kills. And vaping is ultimately just as safe as the nicotine patch. It doesn’t take much to understand that.
But as long as you are entertained mocking me by posting smarmy pictures, enjoy. I find it despicable. I doubt you ever research the topic. But the WHO, the World Health Organization, can be accused to killing millions with their zealotry that pushed many countries to outright ban vaping, while smoking remains perfectly legal and convenient. That is the result of many fraudulent studies.
This is not a trivial topic about “an axe to grind”. From my perspective, it’s not much different than mass murder. Why? Because of stupidity or profiteering.
So laugh it up. Mock me if you want. I don’t have time or energy to read and debunk this latest study, they are relentless. But I have read these kind of studies in the past and all the anti-vaping studies turned out to be fraudulent. Fraud use for propaganda leading to bad policies and preventable deaths. That is the moral dimension of this shit.
So reputable scientists at the WHO telling people that they shouldn’t inhale vape juice is tantamount to “mass murder”? I don’t know how to respond to this message without it sounding like I’m “mocking you” because what you are saying is so unbelievable and has so many flaws in reasoning that there is no sober response that doesn’t make you look bad
I don’t get why getting the patch and vaping should be seen as a simple neutral choice of delivery method when the delivery method is the very thing being debated?
Nobody here is against the patch to get off smoking. The article is about starting the habit. And studies about vaping is literally about the delivery method.
People who start vaping are more likely to start smoking. Before vapes, they may have gone straight to smoking? Or not done it at all? But to focus on the getting off, when there are people getting on and then going further should be seen as diversion from the topic at hand.
Yes. There is no flaw in reasoning - if you had read any of the fraudulent studies that the WHO policies back then were based on you would understand. But you know nothing about this topic do you?
You people don’t seem to be able to wrap your heads around that bad shit is happening because the media doesn’t tell you about it. They love the headline about danger this and that. But still people like you think they can just parrot the headlines and mainstream media and are automatically right and can insult and shit on anyone who says differently. It’s very arrogant.
Vaping is very safe. Vaping can be very effective and getting people off smoking. And there are powerful interests arrayed against them for various reasons.
Take the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement. Ever since then Big Tobacco pays off states. The more cigarettes they sell, the more the state profits. And then they leveraged or borrowed money against those future profits. Then vaping comes along and threatens that. What do you think their motivation is? A moral one? Or are they going to do what is best for themselves?
I don’t know exactly what the dysfunction at the WHO is but it’s probably related to nicotine replacement therapies which make pharma good money. Or it’s related to anti-smoking zealotry, a kind of fanaticism. But their recommendations have led to a lot of countries banning vaping outright while cigarette smoking and deaths continues. You might disagree with calling this murder. I have no such qualms.
There is no flaw in reasoning -
You are suggesting that there’s a massive conspiracy at the WHO to promote fraudulent studies yet you’re providing zero evidence to support this claim. I am not going to continue engaging with you here because you are clearly not a serious person
I agree with prohibition.
However, I know this incentivises the black market. The middle ground I would be OK with is the crown monopolies model in them like LCBO, not now where you can get it at any store.
not now where you can get it at any store.
Please understand, a carton at any store cost north of $200. Drive 1 hour from any major town an you can buy a carton for less than $50 at the rez.
While the majority of the tobacco is illegally sourced through the HA. First Nations Peoples in Canada have asserted their right to produce and sell tobacco. RCMP enforcement has only succeeded in pushing sales to further from major city centers.
Basically restricting locations will just drive more people towards the already flourishing black market supply chain.
Because teaching temperance takes too long. And regulate the companies is too much of a hassle.
We already do both. This is prohibition. This is dry laws for tobacco.
Not enough. Most people simply ignore tobacco as a substance and do not talk with their children, family and friends about it. It is addictive, it is dangerous for health but it should never be banned as it is being attempted on several countries.
Tobacco should be treated as a luxury, an indulgence, not something to label as a drug and criminalize. As you state and very well: this is prohibition. Puritanism never works and this will not be an exception.
Its part of school curricula, and there is a ban on advertising and it is now seen in film a lot less and you cannot smoke indoors. You have to ho outside to smoke. And tobacco products are locked in a case and you have to ask the cashier to get it.
I don’t see how much more can be mandated through legislation. I would be OK with an LCBO model. But after that, it’s prohibition
Prohibition doesn’t work because there will always be some people would still do it anyway. The goal should be to get to as close to elimination as possible.
This is not like small pox where it can be eradicated. Behaviours cannot be eradicated because people do the behaviour. You’d have to make it impossible for people to do the behaviour to eliminate it. But since we can’t change biology, the next best thing would heavily enforced prohibition and since that is impossible, make the activity extremely inconvenient.
I have a couple of ideas.
First would be making tobacco a specialty item, to be sold solely on specialty shops. Take it out of the supermarkets, convenience stores, gas stations, etc. Put it in an enclosed, reserved space, with knowledgeable people behind the counter to actually teach a customer on tobacco and smoking and we have a start.
Second would be to end specific tobacco blends that invite to grab a cigarette after another. I work around smokers and the more conscious ones mention there are such blends, while others satisfy after just one, whatever that may mean.
Third measure would be to make tobacco expensive and perhaps even cap the price. I worked with a person that said he’d quit the day a pack cost 10€. We’ve been farther from that but the cheapest pack available on the market is 5,5€ which is cheaper than the average pack was when I had that talk with my coworker. Twenty years back. I wonder how the companies manage to put such cheap product on the market today and not then.
Next would be to move the culture forward and bring back the notion of smoking as an indulgence and not an escape. My country, in the 60’s and 70’s, during a civil war, dispensed cigarette packs to soldiers where it was stamped “Have a cigar and relax.” It did wonders to boosts the tobacco consumption in the country. Previously it was mostly confined to more afluent people, who would usually smoke the pipe or high quality cigars, which is a better form of tobacco.
And where is tobacco a part of curriculum?
Should have been illegalized in the 20th century.
Yeah, cause everything that has been made illegal has just stopped being used and didn’t ever result in becoming more alluring as an underground substance.
The Canadian temperance movement was largely a success, that went on for a long period of time in a number of regions.
It didn’t so much fail (as it did in the U.S) as It was abandoned due to government disinterest due to lost tax revenue, societal transformation due to urban centralization and the generational shift that coincided with the allure of the short lived age of the roaring 20’s.
In the U.S, it can be argued that it was profiteers that dismantled prohibition. Not society. They’ve pushed the message that “prohibition can’t work” ever since.
https://thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/temperance-movement
In the U.S, it can be argued that it was profiteers that dismantled prohibition. Not society. They’ve pushed the message that “prohibition can’t work” ever since.
How can it work? The most glorious criminal job possible is being a rumrunner, alcohol came custom designed to be an agent of chaos and I don’t see how trying to deny that won’t just backfire. In my experience growing up the drinking age laws in the US only made things far more dangerous as people drinking under age, it did LITERALLY NOTHING to stop our access to alcohol while making it cooler and more edgey in a way that supercharged our desire to access it.
Are you arguing against underage drinking laws to make a case against currently nonexistent prohibition?
Essentially yes, I have seen no evidence in my entire life that underage drinking laws save lives or reduce the abuse of alcohol, especially because of how car dependent the US is the only places underage kids can drink they have to drive to and then there are no responsible adults wherever that is which just makes it all WAY more dangerous. It also makes it so most kids introduction to alcohol is through hard liquor because it is way easier to hide and move around.
It wasn’t super uncommon for people from my hometown to die in drunk driving crashes and it is no mystery why to me.
Is it your position that underage drinking laws should be dismantled as they are the last vestiges of prohibition?
What’s your position on the illegality of narcotics or opiates? Crack cocaine, street fentynal, crystal methamphetamine?
In general I consider the prohibition and ESPECIALLY the criminalization of drugs to be 99% about people feeling righteous about their beliefs about society and 1% about the actual impact.
Prohibition is about the righteous satisfaction of violence and control, not really about helping people.
If you are going to disagree with me prove I am wrong.
Your linked source doesn’t support your comment. You should read it more carefully.
Its worked in other countries, they should phase out THC too
Yeah, and while we’re at it, let’s phase out ethanol and sugar too. But not caffeine, we need workers to be productive.
