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
National speed running worst govt.
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.
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.
sure but this is for people that were born after 2009. If enough 14yos have smoked to justify your argument humanity is doomed anyway
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.
Marijuana at least has medicinal use though, right? I mean, it’s not 100% the same.
Tobacco has some very legit medical uses.
I’m not for banning tobacco. But as you can see, these medicinal uses are not the same as those for Marijuana, and even if they were, I wouldn’t be aghast if kids stole tobacco leaves from the hospital and rolled joints with the.
I’m also not for banning tobacco. Not sure how anyone would think I am from what I said, but apparently that’s the interpretation.
We all understand that. The link you provided doesn’t really show a wide amount of medicinal value. Some value, sure. A lot? No.
So? I didn’t claim it cured cancer, just that it had some use as opposed to no use. What do you people want?
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.
