I don't smoke yet I find this ridiculous, how much of a nanny state can New Zealand be?
If you want to make something disappear you educate the people through advertising campaigns and whatnot. This seems incredibly short sighted in the sense that people won't magically stop smoking because they can't buy their cigarettes at the convenience store.
Also purely on principle, the idea that there are things that are forbidden based on the year you were born seems like weird discrimination to me.
Or, you start piling on taxes. 10% tax on cigs for a year, with a 2% compounded increase every year after.
In all likelyhood, it will never make up for the cost to the country - I once saw a detailed study on the costs in treatment, support for families, etc.
But at some point, poeple will start phasing out smoking by themselves.
Also, the black market will less likely develop, since it will remain legal. And will not change overnight.
> it will never make up for the cost to the country
The opposite is true -- smokers contribute much more in taxes than the cost of smoking related illnesses [1], and more importantly, die younger so tend not to have the long lingering (very expensive) deaths of non-smokers.
See "The smoke screen" ("Yes, Prime Minister", 1986) for a comedic take on this.
I like the idea to say we actually help the country rather than are a burden.
Plus we're generally less dogmatic, more able to commit little rebellions and care less about the consequence of our naughty behaviour so we may bring something to a country of robot health nuts whose sole worries in life are self preservation and tax savings.
Now I wouldnt go so far as to encourage people to smoke, it's still an annoying daemon running permanently bothering you constantly to refill the craving.
Australia has had a progressive tobacco sin tax being indexed annually for a number of years now.
The average price of a packet of cigarettes is now close to AUD 40 (give or take a few $$ and up from being AUD 9 back in 2008 circa). People still smoke and chain smoke.
The question remains: do sin taxes actually work to compel people to give up smoking, or they merely benefit the state treasury?
Even if the tax doesn't cause people to give up smoking, it can offset the costs incurred by the state due to cigarette related health and sanitation issues. Let the retards kill themselves slowly, as long as I don't have to smell it or pay for their health care.
> you educate the people through advertising campaigns and whatnot
Keep in mind that the smoking industry can and will outspend almost any government on product advertisement and available information, unless laws forbid it. We had a time of "your doctor recommends smoking [brand X]" already. Let's not enable that again.
To me that's part of advertising campaigns though. I am young enough that tobacco company were effectively never allowed to advertise their product anywhere in my country for as long as I was in it.
> This seems incredibly short sighted in the sense that people won't magically stop smoking because they can't buy their cigarettes at the convenience store.
Cigarettes are awful, producing a minor buzz at best that you stop feeling after you're fully addicted (which doesn't take long). How many of us started as social smokers only to suddenly find yourself at a pack a day? Additionally, the companies that manufacture and sell cigarettes lied about their harmfulness for decades.
Other measures like education might work, except that the whole world knows smoking is harmful now and people still do it. Most people start young, at a time when it's hard to imagine ever being old and sick. My college friends used to call them "cancer sticks" as in "can I bum a cancer stick".
Taxes don't really work either, and they disproportionately affect poor people. Coincidentally poor people are more likely to smoke cigarettes. I hated paying $10 a pack, but I did it.
In exchange for feeling like a cool guy for three minutes, you get brown teeth, smelly fingers, litter everywhere... And the addiction is real. I haven't been a smoker for 8 years and I still think about them once a day or so. It's deeper than the physical addiction because when you are a smoker, you smoke often.
New laws come into effect all the time. Like the age of consent to have sex is determined by laws and has changed over time. Also some laws allow for grandfather clauses like seat belts in antique cars for example if your car is old enough you are exempt from needing to have them. Would you feel better if they worded the laws different? Say those born before 2008 are grandfathered clause to the old rules but those born after the new age to buy smoke is 110 years old. No it isn’t banning you but rather just raised the age limit a little. Lastly smoking is disgusting who cares if it feels like a nanny state, there are lots of things they do this with that we accept. We can’t buy explosives because that is dangerous and so is smoking.
Why do you think it's ridiculous for cigarettes only?
Why not criticize the ban on led paint? After all that's also poison.
I think if you think about it for a few seconds you realize that this law isn't so much banning cigarettes as it is removing an exception for a specific poison.
It is hard to beat the US as a nanny state where we even regulate diving boards in swimming pools, a license to serve drinks as a bartender (depends on state) and not only how you live but how you die (the licenses for funeral parlors are highly regulated in many states to benefit the mob).
Don't worry we've got the liquor license in NZ too. Only someone on duty has to hold the license though, it's usually a manager. "license" is a very strong word in this case, it's basically a course that takes about 2 hours that you can't really fail.
oh boy. you don't know about high taxing. "sin goods" is what its called and the governments do their best to tax the shit out of it. what happens? nothing. people continue to beg borrow and steal to get it. government only benefits from higher tax collection rather than a reduction.
https://www.indiafilings.com/learn/gst-rate-cess-tobacco-cig...
read this. the tax rate on tobacco products in india is 28%+204%. so, the costing is , $100+$28+$204= $332.
has that stopped or even lowered the consumption of tobacco products in india? absolutely not.
its not about authoritarianism when it comes to such issues. alcohol is banned in many countries across the world. "muslims" are most of them. do they have to enforce drunk driving ban or sale of liquor to minors or is there alcoholic epidemic in those countries? do people get wasted on the streets ? they might have other problems but not alcohol is not one of them.
i personally want this law to succeed because while i do not smoke, people i know do and i have seen teens get "attracted" to this because "oh i have depression. lets smoke", those stuff.
there will be consequences but if i read it correctly, its not about people who are current addicts but future expected ones. they "don't" know what cigarettes are or what they do. if done properly, these people will not grow up to find their corner shop selling tobacco and in some years, many people will not see smoking a cigarette as "normal" which it currently is.
the problem is current addicts are difficult to get off from their addiction. that is why "war on drugs" failed imo. if you prevent new users, you already win because they wont "desire" such stuff in the first place. well, that is my understanding at least.
Could you elaborate why you think failing to take drugs will lead to extinction of the human species within a generation (as we would see without sex)? Why would there be an evolutionary pressure towards taking drugs?
for example. there are around 1.6 billion people who call themselves muslims and they don't touch alcohol and haven't done so for around 1500 years. is that "fighting evolution" ? muslims have grown to not like alcohol, peer pressure, religion and what not. the result? people don't sneak out and have a swig. its just understood that no alcohol means no alcohol.
i am assuming that is the long term goals of new zealand
"Impact on the tobacco industry is going to be largely neutral since the 5% cess declared by the Indian government was less than the expected rate by the tobacco industry. There will be an increase in the expense of smokers due to the rise in the price of a cigarette in the initial period. Although, it is expected that the tobacco industry, irrespective of the tax rate, would have a neutral effect due to the implementation of GST."
"The lack of tax increases in post-GST years might mean that some current smokers smoke more now and some non-smokers have started smoking. This could potentially lead to a reversal of the declining trend in prevalence. This might jeopardise India’s commitment to achieving 30% tobacco use prevalence reduction by 2025 as envisaged in the National Health Policy of 2017 by the Government of India."
I don't think any of those really mention the number of smokers. They discuss the impact on the tobacco industry, which can make up the income in price difference on top of the lower-than-expected tax. The second article says only that not raising the tax higher means some people decided they're ok with the cost.
But neither one really shows that the prevalence of smokers pre- and post-tax hasn't changed.
In terms of numbers I can only find the 2016-2017 GATS numbers of 28.6% users, 10.7% smokers.
I'm kind of surprised about the negative reaction to this.
Keep in mind the NZ health system provides universal cover. So unlike the US for example it's tax payers who cover the medical bill if your cancer sticks give you cancer and seek treatment.
Education only goes so far. People are easily fallible in the face of peer pressure, perceived societal elevation and outside market advertising.
Finding simple pleasure in something is not a good enough reason to keep something legal.
I'd welcome a similar ban here in Australi. If for no other reason than to protect others especially given the number of people I still see to this day smoking around infants and children.
The US tried banning alcohol with a constitutional amendment, and later repealed it with another amendment. In general, when the government tries to police what someone can do with their own body, it does not end well.
The current abortion setup in America is by judicial dictat, not by legislation. If Roe is overturned, then the legislators could actually make policies that their constituents want.
If the state is responsible for paying your health bills, it should also be able to give you incentives towards a healthier lifestyle. Therefore, it should ban everything that may, given some level of consumption, cause addiction & physical or mental harm: cigars, drugs, alcohol, gambling, sugar & sweets, some medicines, social media & smartphones.
In some countries they pack cigarettes in ugly green boxes and ban imported brands. Maybe it was in NZ? Anyways those local brands were just horrible like smoking wet paper rolls. Then I just happened to ask "Marlboro" at a kiosk and the dude checked me out for 2 seconds and got a pack Genuine American Cancer Pacifiers from under the counter. It was not particularly expensive even. This was how these problems was handled in that country.
That's ridiculous law; you can discriminate by age, because this only applies to transient population groups, but you cannot discriminate by year-of-birth. I doubt this will hold up in court.
If you want to make something disappear you educate the people through advertising campaigns and whatnot. This seems incredibly short sighted in the sense that people won't magically stop smoking because they can't buy their cigarettes at the convenience store.
Also purely on principle, the idea that there are things that are forbidden based on the year you were born seems like weird discrimination to me.