So many people like to portray everything as a 'personal choice' while ignoring all said implications to others. Very rarely does something only actually impact you.
Too many people use it as a cop-out to avoid being accountable. It's like when meat eaters say it's a 'personal choice.' Like yeah, it is a choice you mean, but it also implicates other things not only you.
Let's ban McDonalds while we're at it. Obesity has higher health care costs than smoking, believe it or not. In fact let's just ban eating meat altogether. Surely you'll smugly agree with these simple numbers.
The difference being that cigarettes are always unhealthy, no matter how many you smoke, they procure zero benefits. McDonald's is just a meal and becomes an issue if you eat too much of it, once every now and then won't have any consequences.
Banning it for everyone is OK, telling some people that they can't ever because they were born too late is silly, discriminatory and will inevitably create a flourishing black market.
"If it harms the people using it (and makes them addicted and unable to stop even if they wish to), the people around them, and the planet, I don't like it"
If I never have to smell cigarette smoke again and also no one ever uses the medical system to cure the consequences of smoking then I don't care. Otherwise I am all for this.
Except it doesn't, less than 9% of the population in the USA uses tobacco in any form, including in that group is past smokers and vapers so it's probably around 7% or less. Continually attacking a vice that's basically done is just virtue signaling bullshit. Alcoholism has skyrocketed and kills way more people a year, and obesity is now our number one killer by miles. No one is dying from second hand smoke…you sitting in traffic is doing way more damage to your body than getting a random breeze of smoke from someone outside.
Indoors maybe. People really have a warped idea of how much smoke they're inhaling in outdoor scenarios, unless they're literally blowing it in your face from centimetres away it's not doing anything.
You may not know it because you're a smoker (smokers' noses are completely and irreparably fucked), but normal people can tell a cigarette was lit in a 10 meter radius, even on a windy day.
I'm surprised they can still walk around outside, when there are literally cars everywhere. Those are killing way more people on 'second hand' exposure than tobacco.
Except smokers always insist on slowly murdering everyone around them and littering everything in their path. If you want to smoke in a hermetically sealed room and not get close to me for at least 6 hours after, fine by me.
Rolling my eyes at "slowly murdering everyone around them". Why do people think they're inhaling a non negligible amount of smoke outdoors? It barely registers compared to traffic fumes. Stop with the over exaggerating pseudo scientific moralising.
I mean, I understand that it smells really bad to non smokers. On the other hand, statements like this seem so ridiculously over the top that it makes me question you as a person.
We live in car country - assuming you are German as well -, with a wide variety of unhealthy crap that you have to inhale on a daily basis. Smog, exhaust fumes, half the food we can buy is unhealthy.
Honestly I don’t understand how people can be so worked up about smokers in that context. Is it because those are people you can bitch at and boss around, instead of nebulous corps and governments who ignore your calls for climate action and environment protection?
Otherwise it makes no sense. Smokers are already segregated away from non smokers nowadays, what about their freedom to live (or die) as they want? Your freedom not to smell unpleasant things doesn’t trump that. Me farting in your vicinity doesn’t constitute harm to your individual rights.
Your freedom ends where mine begins. You are free to kill yourself, but not to blow cancerous substances on top of me - and yes, that should include cars.
I generally agree, just that it seems cheap to pile on smokers like they are some sort of lepers. Also you are free to go somewhere else when around a smoker. Their habit doesn’t make them second class citizens, or should I say your freedom ends where theirs begins?
If we want clean air we have to start with the actual polluters, not the easy pickings who are just random people. That’s like, obsessively worrying about your personal climate impact when the vast, vast majority of climate change is caused by just a handful of corporations.
I guess we should allow people to sell antifreeze as both an industrial chemical and a soft drink. Arguably, people have the right to quickly and painfully kill themselves as well.
They absolutely are talking about any form of tobacco…hell track and trace in the EU has effectively destroyed the nasal snuff industry in Germany…a form of tobacco that has no deaths on its hands… literally. This is just ignorance being used in the name of "think of the children" hell that's one of the main things everyone keeps bringing up in this thread.
Meanwhile, smoking has been on a sharp decline for decades, is no longer a mass killer…while obesity is and alcoholism has grown 10 fold, so much so that they created a new label called social drinkers because it would put a massive amount of the population into alcoholic territory.
They are either domestic bootlegs or imports. If cigarettes were actually fully banned, organized crime groups would begin mass cigarette smuggling and manufacturing operations. Sounds ridiculous, but it's true
I see angry wankers want to moan for the sake of moaning.
Eliminating smoking is a goos thing! I'll take my wins whenever possible, doesn't happen all that often.
But but there are other things that are also bad and if one proposal doesn't solve everything it is complete trash!!!
Yea not everything is a partisan issue, and this seems like a good thing? Antismoking efforts have largely been successful in a lot of places.
It's not one of those things where someone is choosing to harm themselves only. Smoking affects the people around you
So many people like to portray everything as a 'personal choice' while ignoring all said implications to others. Very rarely does something only actually impact you.
With enough hoop jumping anything can have a terinary chain of impact if you need to justify your cause.
Too many people use it as a cop-out to avoid being accountable. It's like when meat eaters say it's a 'personal choice.' Like yeah, it is a choice you mean, but it also implicates other things not only you.
It’s gobsmacking what people will argue for. Shines a light in the general dimness of people.
Let's ban McDonalds while we're at it. Obesity has higher health care costs than smoking, believe it or not. In fact let's just ban eating meat altogether. Surely you'll smugly agree with these simple numbers.
The difference being that cigarettes are always unhealthy, no matter how many you smoke, they procure zero benefits. McDonald's is just a meal and becomes an issue if you eat too much of it, once every now and then won't have any consequences.
Eating a vegen diet is always more healthy than eating a meat diet. You like banning harmful things, surely you should be in favor of banning meat.
I mean… I wouldn't complain if megacorporation fast food restaurants that provide nothing but cheap, unhealthy junk were driven out of business…
That's the authoritarian spirit!
Banning it for everyone is OK, telling some people that they can't ever because they were born too late is silly, discriminatory and will inevitably create a flourishing black market.
"If I don't like it, then neither should anyone else!" - you
"If it harms the people using it (and makes them addicted and unable to stop even if they wish to), the people around them, and the planet, I don't like it"
So, ban alcohol then.
Cause that worked so well the first time.
If I never have to smell cigarette smoke again and also no one ever uses the medical system to cure the consequences of smoking then I don't care. Otherwise I am all for this.
First and foremost, people have the right to slowly kill themselves with cigarettes as long as it isn't harming innocent bystanders.
Arguably more importantly, the proposed ban is worryingly dystopian.
Finally, agreeing with anything Sunak does is unforgivable. And in this case would reflect neo-liberal sympathies.
Considering that's exactly what second hand smoke does, I really don't see what point you're trying to make.
What they are trying to say is to ban it in public areas, but not at home.
But consumption isn't being banned…
Except it doesn't, less than 9% of the population in the USA uses tobacco in any form, including in that group is past smokers and vapers so it's probably around 7% or less. Continually attacking a vice that's basically done is just virtue signaling bullshit. Alcoholism has skyrocketed and kills way more people a year, and obesity is now our number one killer by miles. No one is dying from second hand smoke…you sitting in traffic is doing way more damage to your body than getting a random breeze of smoke from someone outside.
No.
That's the thing with smoking though, second hand smoke is a big problem, especially for vulnerable people
Indoors maybe. People really have a warped idea of how much smoke they're inhaling in outdoor scenarios, unless they're literally blowing it in your face from centimetres away it's not doing anything.
You may not know it because you're a smoker (smokers' noses are completely and irreparably fucked), but normal people can tell a cigarette was lit in a 10 meter radius, even on a windy day.
deleted by creator
We're talking about the outdoors. That shit dissipates rapidly following an inverse square law.
I'm not a smoker.
There is a difference between smelling and inhaling enough smoke to do any sort of real damage.
The fact you think they're exactly the same thing is exactly the point.
I bet you think you can get high from sitting next to a weed smoker as well.
Let's be honest, people just hate smoking and want to get rid of it.
See, you get it afterall!
Why don't you just mind your business instead of being a puritanical twat?
Because fuckers keep burning and smoking stuff that smells like shit in public spaces.
I'm surprised they can still walk around outside, when there are literally cars everywhere. Those are killing way more people on 'second hand' exposure than tobacco.
Whataboutism.
Except smokers always insist on slowly murdering everyone around them and littering everything in their path. If you want to smoke in a hermetically sealed room and not get close to me for at least 6 hours after, fine by me.
Rolling my eyes at "slowly murdering everyone around them". Why do people think they're inhaling a non negligible amount of smoke outdoors? It barely registers compared to traffic fumes. Stop with the over exaggerating pseudo scientific moralising.
I mean, I understand that it smells really bad to non smokers. On the other hand, statements like this seem so ridiculously over the top that it makes me question you as a person.
We live in car country - assuming you are German as well -, with a wide variety of unhealthy crap that you have to inhale on a daily basis. Smog, exhaust fumes, half the food we can buy is unhealthy.
Honestly I don’t understand how people can be so worked up about smokers in that context. Is it because those are people you can bitch at and boss around, instead of nebulous corps and governments who ignore your calls for climate action and environment protection?
Otherwise it makes no sense. Smokers are already segregated away from non smokers nowadays, what about their freedom to live (or die) as they want? Your freedom not to smell unpleasant things doesn’t trump that. Me farting in your vicinity doesn’t constitute harm to your individual rights.
Your freedom ends where mine begins. You are free to kill yourself, but not to blow cancerous substances on top of me - and yes, that should include cars.
I generally agree, just that it seems cheap to pile on smokers like they are some sort of lepers. Also you are free to go somewhere else when around a smoker. Their habit doesn’t make them second class citizens, or should I say your freedom ends where theirs begins?
If we want clean air we have to start with the actual polluters, not the easy pickings who are just random people. That’s like, obsessively worrying about your personal climate impact when the vast, vast majority of climate change is caused by just a handful of corporations.
Their children aren't.
Not always.
That's not how it works.
So you want to ban cars?
They're literally cancer sticks…
I guess we should allow people to sell antifreeze as both an industrial chemical and a soft drink. Arguably, people have the right to quickly and painfully kill themselves as well.
Humans have been smoking tobacco for thousands of years. Banning it will only allow the black market to swell to an unimaginable size
These are cigarettes. Engineered to be as addictive as possible. We aren't talking about hand rolled stogies here
They absolutely are talking about any form of tobacco…hell track and trace in the EU has effectively destroyed the nasal snuff industry in Germany…a form of tobacco that has no deaths on its hands… literally. This is just ignorance being used in the name of "think of the children" hell that's one of the main things everyone keeps bringing up in this thread.
Meanwhile, smoking has been on a sharp decline for decades, is no longer a mass killer…while obesity is and alcoholism has grown 10 fold, so much so that they created a new label called social drinkers because it would put a massive amount of the population into alcoholic territory.
You can imagine it, it would be less than the amount that is currently being smoked.
Not necessarily. People could actually start smoking more because tax free cigarettes are astronomically cheaper
Are people smoking less weed now it's legal in many US states?
Where do you think tax free cigarettes are going to come from?
They are either domestic bootlegs or imports. If cigarettes were actually fully banned, organized crime groups would begin mass cigarette smuggling and manufacturing operations. Sounds ridiculous, but it's true
People don't enjoy or need smoking that much, so no.
And my first question?
By that logic we should continue slavery. Aren't you worried someone's going to purchase one of your children on the black market!?
Slaves don't grow on trees though
Moving the goalposts or something like that?