Poll: Should smoking be made illegal?

[MikeFrost]

No. If smoking is banned then drinking has to be banned as well.

Smoking harms you and others around you.

Drinking only harms you.

Both are done by choice, so any third consequential damage (like driving under the influence and running over a guy) would hold that person accountable. Smoking however, doesn't make you guilty for causing other people to breathe in your smoke involuntarily.

These are two different things we're discussing here. One is harmful to the public in general and the other is harmful to the user only. I'd have no problem with smoking being banned from small confined public spaces and keeping alcohol law as it is.

 

[Harbinger_]

Sure just as long as you're willing to ban anything with caffeine in it because caffeine is actually a drug where cigarettes aren't.

 

[Crumpet Man]

I would say that they shouldn't make smoking illegal, because, again, if people like killing themselves than they can go do that all they want

 

[Jezzascmezza]

No.
As much as I hate the fact people smoke regularly, if it was made illegal it would just cause more problems.
People would be fined and charged all over the place, and smoking would be even less healthy and possibly more deadly, with the likely possibility that make-shift cigarettes sold at night in dinghy back alleys.

 

[DraconianGamer]

No. If smoking is banned then drinking has to be banned as well.

Smoking harms you and others around you.

Drinking only harms you.

Both are done by choice, so any third consequential damage (like driving under the influence and running over a guy) would hold that person accountable. Smoking however, doesn't make you guilty for causing other people to breathe in your smoke involuntarily.

These are two different things we're discussing here. One is harmful to the public in general and the other is harmful to the user only. I'd have no problem with smoking being banned from small confined public spaces and keeping alcohol law as it is.

Driving harms you and others around you.
Stabbing only harms you.

Both are done by choice, so any third consequential damage (like stabbing a guy) would hold that person accountable. Driving however, doesn't make you guilty for causing other people to breathe in your exhaust smoke involuntarily.

These are two different things we're discussing here. One is harmful to the public in general and the other is harmful to the user only. I'd have no problem with driving being banned from earth and keeping stabbing law as it is.

(By the way, you breath in more carcinogens from exhaust smoke than you do from tobacco smoke, unless you are a smoker of course.)

 

[Blue_vision]

The matter of simple economics is that tobacco is a massive net gain for society. Ignoring the size of the industry in production and selling, and just looking at the people who get higher disease rates from smoking, the tax on cigarettes is sufficiently high that the average smoker's tax contribution just through buying cigarettes funds their entire healthcare (smoking and non-smoking related diseases) + the average cost of a non-smoker's healthcare. Add in factors like the rate of mortality amongst smokers only really being significantly different towards the end of the working life (meaning that smokers tend to work all their lives and then die either just before or just after retirement) and you're seeing an even greater contribution.

That you don't like to see it in a public space seems awfully unaccepting - there are massive groups of people in the world who think that seeing any part of a woman not covered up in a public place make that area a lot less attractive, and I'm sure you'd agree they'd be wrong to push their views on society.

Again, here you're trading human well-being for money. Sure, if you think it's right that we should attempt to grow the economy as much as possible (to what end, I may ask,) while basically ensuring the tragic ends of a relatively large demographic. Though perhaps with this argument you've put up, we may start seeing people advocate for factories dumping their toxic waste into rivers because it lowers costs for them, and creates GDP to clean up the watersheds and treat all the cancer and birth defects that come from neighbouring towns.
But in case you didn't think of that, there's a reason that people don't encourage factories to dump their toxic waste into rivers; the well being of people and the environment around them vastly outweighs the "advantage" of saving a couple bucks on the factory's side. Perhaps if the goal in life is to maximize your country's GDP so you can wave your dick high and proud, then smoke away. But if you want a happy, healthy society on the other hand, smoking in huge amounts (packs a day,) is a bad move.

And as for the latter, no, I don't like to breathe in toxic smoke while I'm out for my stroll. I got asthma from my great grandfather constantly smoking around me as a child which seriously affected the first 12 or so years of my life. And while I may be wrong to say that women are less appealing if they're not covered up (which is a bit of a silly and totally untrue blanket statement you've made on muslims,) I'd say that reducing smoking would be a lot more similar to locking up muggers than forcing women to wear the hijab.

 

[USSR]

Taxes.
Taxes.
And more taxes.

If you want to slowly kill yourself, find another way or be rich.

 

[V8 Ninja]

Y'know, if people really wanna breath in toxics, then I'm not gonna stop them. Of course, it would be nice if we had a world where people didn't pump their bodies with deadly chemicals, but there are more important issues to deal with.

 

[Sikachu]

The matter of simple economics is that tobacco is a massive net gain for society. Ignoring the size of the industry in production and selling, and just looking at the people who get higher disease rates from smoking, the tax on cigarettes is sufficiently high that the average smoker's tax contribution just through buying cigarettes funds their entire healthcare (smoking and non-smoking related diseases) + the average cost of a non-smoker's healthcare. Add in factors like the rate of mortality amongst smokers only really being significantly different towards the end of the working life (meaning that smokers tend to work all their lives and then die either just before or just after retirement) and you're seeing an even greater contribution.

That you don't like to see it in a public space seems awfully unaccepting - there are massive groups of people in the world who think that seeing any part of a woman not covered up in a public place make that area a lot less attractive, and I'm sure you'd agree they'd be wrong to push their views on society.

Again, here you're trading human well-being for money. Sure, if you think it's right that we should attempt to grow the economy as much as possible (to what end, I may ask,) while basically ensuring the tragic ends of a relatively large demographic. Though perhaps with this argument you've put up, we may start seeing people advocate for factories dumping their toxic waste into rivers because it lowers costs for them, and creates GDP to clean up the watersheds and treat all the cancer and birth defects that come from neighbouring towns.
But in case you didn't think of that, there's a reason that people don't encourage factories to dump their toxic waste into rivers; the well being of people and the environment around them vastly outweighs the "advantage" of saving a couple bucks on the factory's side. Perhaps if the goal in life is to maximize your country's GDP so you can wave your dick high and proud, then smoke away. But if you want a happy, healthy society on the other hand, smoking in huge amounts (packs a day,) is a bad move.

And as for the latter, no, I don't like to breathe in toxic smoke while I'm out for my stroll. I got asthma from my great grandfather constantly smoking around me as a child which seriously affected the first 12 or so years of my life. And while I may be wrong to say that women are less appealing if they're not covered up (which is a bit of a silly and totally untrue blanket statement you've made on muslims,) I'd say that reducing smoking would be a lot more similar to locking up muggers than forcing women to wear the hijab.

I'm afraid that human cost doesn't really figure in the "simple economics" part of a sentence like:

High disease rates meaning high costs to treat people who are statistically far more likely to get diseases such as cancer, which is also a big social issue as well as a matter of simple economics

So that deals with the majority of your ill-conceived rant about growing GDP and polluting rivers etc. showing it to be irrelevant. Your toxic waste dumping metaphor is hopelessly misguided but I'm not going to explain how unless you ask me to.

So we've now demonstrated that smoking does not present society as a whole with a burden, though it does present smokers with one. This hasn't at any point been argued against, and I think we're all agreed here that smoking is bad for you.

Turning to your second paragraph, I said precisely nothing about Muslims and that you've made that inference shows your bigotry, not mine. Enforced female 'modesty' features heavily in many cultures. If you don't want to breath toxic fumes while out for a stroll, don't stroll in the cities where you'll encounter cars, vans, trucks, diggers, motorcycles, mopeds, factories, and smokers.

 

[Colour Scientist]

Make the tax higher, there is no downside.

The government will get more money from tax.

Less people will smoke making healthcare cheaper and people happier

Cigarette tax is what makes your health care cheaper, less smokers equals health care increases.

less smokers = less money spent treating smokers with illnesses.

Actually, the tax on cigarettes more than covers the expense of treating people with smoking-related illnesses.

then I will go back to my original point about raising the tax so that more money is made and less people will die.

More than half of the price of cigarettes it tax. How much more do you want?
Why not put more tax on alcohol or fast food and leave my vice alone.
People moan about cigarettes cause it's socially acceptable whereas you can go into get McDonalds and get ten burgers for the price of one pack of cigarettes.
To be honest I'd take the cigarettes any day.
How much burger tax goes towards paying for the health complications that come with being obese?

 

[Sikachu]

Make the tax higher, there is no downside.

The government will get more money from tax.

Less people will smoke making healthcare cheaper and people happier

Cigarette tax is what makes your health care cheaper, less smokers equals health care increases.

less smokers = less money spent treating smokers with illnesses.

Actually, the tax on cigarettes more than covers the expense of treating people with smoking-related illnesses.

then I will go back to my original point about raising the tax so that more money is made and less people will die.

More than half of the price of cigarettes it tax. How much more do you want?
Why not put more tax on alcohol or fast food and leave my vice alone.
People moan about cigarettes cause it's socially acceptable whereas you can go into get McDonalds and get ten burgers for the price of one pack of cigarettes.
To be honest I'd take the cigarettes any day.
How much burger tax goes towards paying for the health complications that come with being obese?

Smoking isn't a vice. It's a decision that you make for yourself. The concept of 'vice' is just an old attempt by people like C95J to force their opinion of what you should do with your life on everyone else.

 

[Colour Scientist]

Make the tax higher, there is no downside.

The government will get more money from tax.

Less people will smoke making healthcare cheaper and people happier

Cigarette tax is what makes your health care cheaper, less smokers equals health care increases.

less smokers = less money spent treating smokers with illnesses.

Actually, the tax on cigarettes more than covers the expense of treating people with smoking-related illnesses.

then I will go back to my original point about raising the tax so that more money is made and less people will die.

More than half of the price of cigarettes it tax. How much more do you want?
Why not put more tax on alcohol or fast food and leave my vice alone.
People moan about cigarettes cause it's socially acceptable whereas you can go into get McDonalds and get ten burgers for the price of one pack of cigarettes.
To be honest I'd take the cigarettes any day.
How much burger tax goes towards paying for the health complications that come with being obese?

Smoking isn't a vice. It's a decision that you make for yourself. The concept of 'vice' is just an old attempt by people like C95J to force their opinion of what you should do with your life on everyone else.

Semantics.
It's just a phrase.
I'm well aware of what I chose to do.

 

[Sikachu]

Smoking isn't a vice. It's a decision that you make for yourself. The concept of 'vice' is just an old attempt by people like C95J to force their opinion of what you should do with your life on everyone else.

Semantics.
It's just a phrase.
I'm well aware of what I chose to do.

Just a friendly reminder for you or anyone else reading this that language like 'vice' is manipulative and skews the debate away from the issues.

 

[256th Banshee]

Whatever you think SHOULD happen isn't going to change what WILL happen.

Step one: higher taxes. Already happening. Cigarettes were I live have gone up almost 40% in the last 2 years. And they're planning on taxing it more.
Step two: Limited legality or whatever you want to call it. You have to be 18 to legally buy it and you can't smoke indoors at work, bars or other public places. Also happened. But you can buy 8 bottles of cheap vodka and drink it all in an hour, when you're 16, no problem.
Step three: Higher taxes on anything else that's bad for you (fat for example). If people complain you just point to tobacco and say "that's bad for you too, what's the difference?"
Step eighteen: Completely sanitised, politically correct society, where everyone is healthy, doesn't listen to music with offensive lyrics, computer games have been banned, cars are all electric, have a top speed of 10 mph and are made of foam, everyone gets waken up by a government official at 6 am, while being reminded that they have to work out at least 14 hours a week or be sent to prison for not being healthy enough...

Anyway, my point is that cigarettes are the next, in a long line of targets, to sanitise, normalise and enslave society in the holy name of political correctness. I don't care if you think I'm being paranoid, delusional or insane. It's what's happening right now. And nothing you, me or the pope can do will change that. So I'm going to smoke. The more they try to prevent me from doing so, the more I'll smoke.

EDIT: Forgot to mention something.
Last year we had a health-guru/fanatic come to work and tell us all that we were fat, useless and not as pretty as he was. He talked at length about how we could improve our health, live longer and thus work longer and harder (and pay more taxes) and so on. Pretty standard affair. Anyway, he mentioned smoking very briefly, saying that he couldn't tell us anything that we hadn't heard 5,000 before, so he wouldn't bother.
Except to tell us a few positive things about smoking. It takes 8 seconds from you inhale to the components in cigarette smoke to reach your brain. That's way faster than any medicine. And after those 8 seconds, you're more awake, less stressed/more relaxed and your metabolism has gone up.

 

[erto101]

It's already illegal in public places in Denmark. Places like bars and resturants is smoke free area

 

[Sikachu]

Whatever you think SHOULD happen isn't going to change what WILL happen.

Step one: higher taxes. Already happening. Cigarettes were I live have gone up almost 40% in the last 2 years. And they're planning on taxing it more.
Step two: Limited legality or whatever you want to call it. You have to be 18 to legally buy it and you can't smoke indoors at work, bars or other public places. Also happened. But you can buy 8 bottles of cheap vodka and drink it all in an hour, when you're 16, no problem.
Step three: Higher taxes on anything else that's bad for you (fat for example). If people complain you just point to tobacco and say "that's bad for you too, what's the difference?"
Step eighteen: Completely sanitised, politically correct society, where everyone is healthy, doesn't listen to music with offensive lyrics, computer games have been banned, cars are all electric, have a top speed of 10 mph and are made of foam, everyone gets waken up by a government official at 6 am, while being reminded that they have to work out at least 14 hours a week or be sent to prison for not being healthy enough...

Anyway, my point is that cigarettes are the next, in a long line of targets, to sanitise, normalise and enslave society in the holy name of political correctness. I don't care if you think I'm being paranoid, delusional or insane. It's what's happening right now. And nothing you, me or the pope can do will change that. So I'm going to smoke. The more they try to prevent me from doing so, the more I'll smoke.

EDIT: Forgot to mention something.
Last year we had a health-guru/fanatic come to work and tell us all that we were fat, useless and not as pretty as he was. He talked at length about how we could improve our health, live longer and thus work longer and harder (and pay more taxes) and so on. Pretty standard affair. Anyway, he mentioned smoking very briefly, saying that he couldn't tell us anything that we hadn't heard 5,000 before, so he wouldn't bother.
Except to tell us a few positive things about smoking. It takes 8 seconds from you inhale to the components in cigarette smoke to reach your brain. That's way faster than any medicine. And after those 8 seconds, you're more awake, less stressed/more relaxed and your metabolism has gone up.

That's not way faster than any medicine. That's the same speed as any number of medicines distributed by the same mechanism.

It's risky to make slippery slope arguments like the one you've tried with civil liberties, but to not look at the big trend over a long period would be foolish. I agree with you that the current trend does seem to be towards centrally controlled patriarchal society. There is something you can do about it though.

 

[256th Banshee]

That's not way faster than any medicine. That's the same speed as any number of medicines distributed by the same mechanism.

So you quoted my entire post, just to point that out? Fair enough, I'll revise it: It's way faster than any over-the-counter medicine currently available. And seriously... How many times have you been asked to inhale medicine?

 

[C95J]

Make the tax higher, there is no downside.

The government will get more money from tax.

Less people will smoke making healthcare cheaper and people happier

Cigarette tax is what makes your health care cheaper, less smokers equals health care increases.

less smokers = less money spent treating smokers with illnesses.

Actually, the tax on cigarettes more than covers the expense of treating people with smoking-related illnesses.

then I will go back to my original point about raising the tax so that more money is made and less people will die.

More than half of the price of cigarettes it tax. How much more do you want?
Why not put more tax on alcohol or fast food and leave my vice alone.
People moan about cigarettes cause it's socially acceptable whereas you can go into get McDonalds and get ten burgers for the price of one pack of cigarettes.
To be honest I'd take the cigarettes any day.
How much burger tax goes towards paying for the health complications that come with being obese?

I agree, raise the tax on them as well, especially alcohol. What is so special about it anyway? It only causes bad things.

 

[tehroc]

Smoking isn't a vice. It's a decision that you make for yourself. The concept of 'vice' is just an old attempt by people like C95J to force their opinion of what you should do with your life on everyone else.

So is gambling or alcohol or drugs or sex addiction or or books or video games or this forum. All are decision yet all of these are vices for people. A Vice is something you use to escape from the troubles in your life.

 

[meowchef]

I live in Kansas. Recently it was made illegal to smoke in public places or within 10 feet of a door/window into a public place. Just awesome.

The answer is undeniably yes. There is absolutely no good that comes of it.