General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsShould we ban cigarettes forever?
By John Tozzi, Businessweek
Doctors in the U.K. voted on Tuesday to support a "campaign to ban forever the sale of cigarettes to any individual born after the year 2000."
It's an appealing thought exercise for public health types: Smoking rates declined steadily in the late 20th century as the health hazards became more widely understood.
So what would happen if children born in the 2000s -- those just now hitting their years of tobacco experimentation -- were barred from buying cigarettes not just until they reach adulthood, but forever?
The flaws in this prohibition-by-generation proposal aren't hard to detect. Children under 16 were barred from buying cigarettes in England and Wales until 2007, when the age was raised to 18 (PDF), as it is in most of the U.S.. Despite widespread bans on sales of cigarettes to kids, kids still try smoking cigarettes, and some get hooked.
The author of the motion before the British Medical Association acknowledged as much to The Guardian. "Cigarette smoking is specifically a choice made by children that results in addiction in adulthood," public health specialist Tim Crocker-Buque told the paper. "Eighty percent of people who smoke start as teenagers . . . The idea of this proposal is to prevent those children who are not smoking from taking up smoking."
Prohibition -- the U.S. policy toward alcohol in the 1920s and toward many drugs today -- has its own problems. It tends to create a black market trade that carries its own social costs.
More here: http://money.msn.com/investing/post--should-we-ban-cigarettes-forever
Louisiana1976
(3,962 posts)in favor of banning cigarettes for everyone. My mother died of lung cancer after having smoked for years and my father died of coronary artery disease which I imagine his smoking had something to do with.
Shoulders of Giants
(370 posts)I remember spending my whole childhood breathing in cigarettes from my mom, my various stepdads, and my much older brothers. It sucked, and probably gave me health problems. Smoking around children should absolutely be banned. Smoking in public should be banned. (Yes even resturants and bars because its unfair to the waitors, waitresses, and cooks who may not have any other employment opportunities available). However, if someone can potentially smoke a cigarette without it harming an innocent party, I don't think it can should be banned. However, more and more, I realize its not possible. Even if someone goes outside to smoke, you can smell it on their clothes. I also get tired of picking up cigarettes in my front yard from losers walking down the street who think my yard is their ashtray. In general believe in the right to harm your self but not each other. Therefore the issue of cigarettes is hard for me, because its hard to say when the line from self harm to victim harm starts. I personally don't think its possible to be a chronic lifelong cigarette smoker without forcing your habit on someone in some capacity though.
OilemFirchen
(7,143 posts)I would also favor bans on brewpubs, patchouli and pot. Have you smelled any of those losers lately?
Oh, and infants too. Stanky!
Shoulders of Giants
(370 posts)However, I had to bury both of my wife's parents because of reasons related to a lifetime of cigarette smoking. This is a serious issue. Smoking kills and so does second hand smoke. I have probably unwillingly second hand smoked thousands of cigarettes in my childhood, and so did my wife.
OilemFirchen
(7,143 posts)Much like those who favor a ban on tobacco because smokers are stinky fools, I favor bans on things that offend me as well.
Add licorice to the list. My grandma died of licorice poisoning and she smelled weird.
Response to OilemFirchen (Reply #35)
Post removed
OilemFirchen
(7,143 posts)Despite my impairment, however, I never said you proposed anything.
Bibble, bibble.
A HERETIC I AM
(24,307 posts)Best reply to an absolutely hideworthy post I have read in a long while.
"bibble bibble"
Response to OilemFirchen (Reply #41)
Boom Sound 416 This message was self-deleted by its author.
Bandit
(21,475 posts)I mean come on... you can't even get high from cigarettes, and the damage they do is enormous.. Not to even mention the Litter problem..
Politicalboi
(15,189 posts)Should do it for booze too. Out here we got booze commercials at the beach with lemon added to beer. When is the day coming that they take booze commercials off the air too. No flavor for cigarettes, but making booze taste better for kids is alright. Not only alright, but on TV showing you what a good time you will have. is what they should be showing
Throd
(7,208 posts)FiveGoodMen
(20,018 posts)And that the results were ... disappointing?
OilemFirchen
(7,143 posts)that's fucking amazing.
nomorenomore08
(13,324 posts)OilemFirchen
(7,143 posts)I don't sense that the poster does nuance.
nomorenomore08
(13,324 posts)should remain illegal to grow or possess. Whereas the instant anyone so much as raises a point about the legality of alcohol - given that it's responsible for thousands of deaths a year - just watch the indignant, flabbergasted responses.
I'm not a mind reader, but I think that was more the poster's point.
OilemFirchen
(7,143 posts)You clearly are a mind reader. I was clumsily naive, basing my rejoinder on what he said, as opposed to what you believe he meant. As were, BTW, the two posters who preceded me.
Of course, the poster himself could settle this, but what are the odds?
nomorenomore08
(13,324 posts)FiveGoodMen
(20,018 posts)Let's have more of it.
nomorenomore08
(13,324 posts)AngryAmish
(25,704 posts)Prohibition does not work. There are already black markets around here.
RebelOne
(30,947 posts)If I cannot buy them, maybe I will be able to quit.
La Lioness Priyanka
(53,866 posts)as opposed to now, when they only seem to have scorn.
Shoulders of Giants
(370 posts)not following posted smoking ban signs, not respecting littering laws, or not keeping their habit away from children or general passerbys. For example, I hate it when Im on my front porch and someone comes down the sidewalk smoking. I can smell it on my front porch. That feels like an intrusion to me. Its disrespectful.
La Lioness Priyanka
(53,866 posts)i really dont think this is their entitlement issue but yours.
Shoulders of Giants
(370 posts)Many of them will even throw their cigarettes in my front yard. Are you a smoker and feel entitled to smoke infront of other people's houses? What justification do you have for that? There is none. Im on my own property and someone is coming to my house to force their habit on me. There is no justification for that, regardless of the law.
La Lioness Priyanka
(53,866 posts)but it sounds far fetched that someone cannot smoke outside your property on the street.
nadinbrzezinski
(154,021 posts)and let me tell you something. as somebody really allergic to the shit... I got an agreement with the only neighbor before he moved
He did not smoke if I was outside. It was a considerate thing to do honestly. Maybe it is NYC, because this is not urban living. Then again, I live in the land of fruits and nuts, and we tend to be a tad less tolerant of this shit.
That said, banning it has all kinds of bad idea written over it.
La Lioness Priyanka
(53,866 posts)however what the other poster said sounds like strangers on the street need to put out their cigarettes as they walk past his house. that makes zero sense to me.
nadinbrzezinski
(154,021 posts)Some places are far less tolerant than NYC of this shit. In California it is now pretty much understood that smokers are not wanted unless it is a clearly smoker area. Hospitals are a non smoking zone, all of it, including parking lots far removed from the facility (this expanded even faster to places like Mexico City).
So people mostly know, smoke at home... though case law is developing about apartment living and common walls, and in their car. So it is not a suburuban living thing, it is pretty much a state thing. My dad was a smoker, and could never ever quit, another reason why I hate that shit. His quality of life the last ten years, especially the last two, was horrific, and it was the smoking.
People should quit, but I know it is harder than quitting crack.. so I get it. The best choice is never start.
TransitJohn
(6,932 posts)Too much.
Shoulders of Giants
(370 posts)La Lioness Priyanka
(53,866 posts)of your house cannot smoke.
Throd
(7,208 posts)bigwillq
(72,790 posts)If it could be that way with cigarettes, I am all for it.
Hassin Bin Sober
(26,243 posts)But I wonder if the comparison between the prohibition drugs/alcohol and the proposed prohibition of cigarettes holds up.
I wonder if cigarettes' lack of truly mind altering effects would be the difference between a thriving underground in search of a "buzz" ... and a big "meh" where cigarettes are involved - Not counting current hardcore cigarette addicts, of course.
bigwillq
(72,790 posts)It would be interesting to see what would happen if cigs were banned.
meow2u3
(24,738 posts)The only thing the banning of tobacco and nicotine will accomplish is a burgeoning black market and a prison full of smokers and/or vapers.
Are you sure we want to ban something just because it's bad for you?
RKP5637
(67,008 posts)themselves regardless of what society does. I'm in favor of education and no smoking in public places. I feel sorry for people stuck at home with a smoker.
Prophet 451
(9,796 posts)Firstly, it would be unenforceable and an unenforceable law might as well not exist.
Secondly, this gets into the area of using legislation to enforce morality, of saying that because we dislike something, it should be illegal.
KamaAina
(78,249 posts)and black-market tobacco wouldn't have the additives found in commercial cigarettes.
HockeyMom
(14,337 posts)$10.00 a pack in NYC. Shirley Reservation $10.00 a CARTON. So many cars they have Natives directing traffic. Prohibition? lol
nomorenomore08
(13,324 posts)2. Telling adults what substances they may or may not ingest violates personal freedom.
Brisk
(37 posts).. At least for other people.
Whatever they do should be the standard for the rest of us.
Non smoker here also btw...
Warpy
(110,746 posts)It's a plant most people in the country can grow in the back yard.
Also, prohibiting something people want never works. Oh, we can slow down the number of reckless kids getting it, but we can never stop it completely.
We can cut the number of people who smoke enough to become dependent by taxing it, the main thing that has worked to decrease the number of both children and adults who smoke. If we had national health insurance, those taxes would go to defray the increased health costs smokers have. As it is, they go different places in each state, few of which are any benefit at all to people who smoke and pay them.
The problem with banning it for a specific generation is that their parents smoke and sneaking butts out of Dad's desk or Mom's purse is a rite of passage. The ones who like it will get forged IDs as soon as they can pull it off. Or they'll grow it in the basement under Gro Lights.
As long as people don't smoke in confined spaces where I am likely to be, it's fine. I figure smokers all know why they need to quit already so I don't lecture. Keep it outdoors so I don't have an asthma attack and we'll coexist just fine. Just keep it taxed enough to slow stupid teenagers down.
Mosby
(16,117 posts)The curing is a long involved process.
I think cigs should be by prescription only, that way current addicts can get their fix but we can still reduce the number of new users.
Warpy
(110,746 posts)Back in the 50s, the farmers would hang it on racks in semi open sided barns. They'd sell the dried (cured) tobacco in bales to the manufacturers, who would shred it and add whatever additional poison they thought it needed and that was that. It has to be dried out slowly and with good air circulation but that's about it if you are smoking leaf tobacco.
The time it needs to be dried varies, some people say 2 years, some people say a year and some who don't mind relighting say six months. The leaves are large and soggy, they won't dry in an oven like cannabis does.
aint_no_life_nowhere
(21,925 posts)You don't really have to cure it if you don't mind the acrid smell of uncured tobacco. It takes about 5 months for the plants to grow and mature I just air dried the leaves for a month or two. You can build your own diy curing chamber if you want. There are a lot of hobbyists who grow and dry their own tobacco. it's not hard and the leaf has none of the chemicals or additives of the commercially grown stuff.
Logical
(22,457 posts)Yo_Mama
(8,303 posts)It would be GREAT for the economy to generate 60 million new criminals.
Just think of how fast the private prison industry would expand!!!!
Jamaal510
(10,893 posts)should be banned in public places such as bus stops so that others won't have to be subject to the second-hand smoke. However, I also think what really should be done is for the country to establish and improve centers for helping people kick their addictions to cigarettes, marijuana, and other substances, rather than full prohibition.
nadinbrzezinski
(154,021 posts)And I am allergic to the shit and get asthma attacks m'kay.
loyalsister
(13,390 posts)limiting\banning cigarettes is addressing a public health hazard. It's more along the lines of ensuring food and pharmaceutical safety via regulations. I don't think criminalizing children would be helpful. I don't see where it would be helpful in the US. I would rather see tightening of regulations so that the the kind of chemical infusions that tobacco companies are notorious for are not permitted.
DustyJoe
(849 posts)As long as they add smoking cigarettes, pot, meth, crack or any combustible that could be breathed by another person.
It flies in the face of common sense to talk about banning cigarettes that have always been legal and legalizing smoking drugs that have always illegal. Just makes no sense, have you ever been in a room with a pot smoker ? Compared to the actual smoke put out by smoking a cigarette, pot smokers seem to try to inhale and exhale the equivelant of a pack of regular cigarettes, and I won't even mention the bongers who emulate old style wood fired locomotives in the amout of smoke swirling around them and others.
Zorra
(27,670 posts)Tobacco companies pay to have actors smoke in order to get kids to start smoking and ex-smokers to start again, and trigger the nicotine addiction impulse in smokers to light up.
Big tobacco must be killed, with a stake through it's diseased heart, so that it can never rise from the grave.
Romulox
(25,960 posts)I think that our existing drug policies are sane, rational, fact-based, but most of all--effective. Therefore these same policies should be applied to tobacco (and e-cigarettes, too!)
Boom Sound 416
(4,185 posts)Maybe it will force a company to make a safe one.
Is that so crazy?