They’ve already banned menthol in California and it did nothing. Alternatives are already being marketed and sold and some of the better ones recreate the exact same effect but cost $1.20 more per pack at the low end. To put it simply, this is dumb as fuck.
The point is to make cigarettes as expensive and unappealing as possible.
That’s not in anyone’s own interests. Smokers have to pay more, tobacco industry gets more money. Literally a lose-lose. Dumb. As. Fuck.
My dad quit when his cigarette of choice became $80/carton.
It’s not lose lose if it’s causing people to quit.
Hooray for your dad, but one anecdotal claim is hardly a proven method.
Okay so here we are speculating about this, but there’s data on this isn’t there? Is it not the case that countries who tax tobacco more have all but eliminated it? I’m not well versed on the subject, but I think it’s a bit silly to just pull this out of your ass as if it were fact. Here’s a link to an ncbi article that talks about it. I’m sure there’s plenty more out there to show one way or the other, so I’m interested to know whether you have anything to back up your stance.
Sure, and I agree that this should be approached with scepticism and not blind bias.
I’m basing this off tobacco being the third most addictive substance on the planet.
Being that dependent on a substance suggests that practical decision-making and rational thinking, such as adding motivation to quit through price, is certainly not going to be the most effective way to reduce dependency while also further harming those that fail to break their dependency.
Edit: Also I just want to point out, again, that I was never referring to tax. From what I saw there’s not enough conclusive data for me to form an opinion one way or the other on the effectiveness of increasing tobacco tax . All of my comments are about this ridiculously assanine ban, or the increased prices that come as a result of this ban.
What do you mean? The more people have to pay in order to smoke the less people will smoke.
There’s a reason why people tend to hit rock bottom before they finally kick their drug addiction. If they don’t have the means, they will attempt to find it. Your logic is flawed, and only serves to disproportionately impair the poor while bolstering the very industry you fight.
I don’t fight, and I am pretty sure the focus is too reduce new users. How the fuck do you hit rock bottom solely on nicotine?
How the fuck do you hit rock bottom solely on nicotine?
Tobacco, the main ingredient in cigarettes, is more addictive than meth. If you can imagine somebody hitting rock bottom on meth then it should be easy enough to wrap your head around it. Especially when cigarettes contain added chemicals to make it more addictive than tobacco alone.
Also, I would be inclined towards believing that the habit is mostly spread through peers. Price as a barrier to entry wouldn’t be effective at preventing peer pressure if they’re your first supplier.
I call bullshit on that. Not to meantion the danger of meth is the physically damage it causes starting from the very first dose.
To clarify, the addictiveness of nicotine ≠ the addictiveness of tobacco. Even aside from the additives used by the tobacco industry, tobacco naturally contains an array of MAO inhibitors and other compounds that work in harmony with nicotine causing it to be far more addictive than nicotine itself. Pure nicotine is much farther down the scale of addictiveness, classed as a “weak reinforcer” in studies.
If you are interested in the subject, I highly recommend reading the studies and posts by Maryka Quik, director of the Neurodegenerative Diseases Program at SRI International. I first found out about her in an interesting article published in Scientific American — LINK.
This is effectively a Pigouvian tax, and will absolutely keep some people from smoking.
Also higher prices do not necessarily mean the industry is making more money. Far more likely, given the saturation of competition, that they simply cost more to make.
Thanks for your opinion.
This is not an expression of an opinion. These are statements of fact. As in our other discussion, I am simply explaining things to you.
You not liking these facts does not make them less true.
Then where’s your data?
Would you like a citation on what Pigouvian taxes are, how the cigarette industry is flooded with competition, or that putting further regulations on products makes them more expensive to produce?
I assumed you could Google any of these but I can do it for you. Fair warning, you’ll be getting a “let me Google that for you” link.
Not one of these facts is even remotely controversial so my mind is a bit boggled that you’d even try to contest any of them
That’s not how capitalism works. If the tobacco industry could raise prices and get more money today, they would. Since they haven’t, you have to assume that any increased taxes or burden on them will reduce their profits.
Yes, it might increase prices to the end consumer, because the demand curve will change when the costs change. But that doesn’t mean the tobacco industry is making any more money. If it did, they would already charge more.
Wrong. Prohibition increases demand.
Edit: Based off some replies, I think a lot of people are forgetting some rudimentary aspects of the concept of “demand”, so allow me to help:
Demand is an economic concept that relates to a consumer’s desire to purchase goods and services and willingness to pay a specific price for them.
When supply decreases, the price of the good increases. Inversely, when the supply of the good increases, the price falls
putting a tax on something is not the same as prohibiting it.
Go ahead and look at the post title
go ahead and look at the comment you were replying to
Prohibition has no net effect on demand, it simply enables black markets. Alcohol use after Prohibition was not higher than pre-prohibition, but did rise to the same levels fairly quickly.
Incorrect. Prohibition decreases supply. Supply and demand have an inverse relationship. This is economics 101.
There exists no accurate data of consumption during prohibition because it was a black market.
Supply and demand do not have an inverse relationship. Demand exists, and when supply exceeds demand, prices fall. When supply does not meet demand, prices rise. You understand they are related but forgot the actual curve on the graph. Supply and demand can both be low, for instance, as is the case with mega yachts. Supply and demand have no direct effect on one another, though low supply does tend to encourage firms to increase supply to try to compete and meet the demand.
Data during prohibition is irrelevant to this specific discussion, because your claim is that demand goes up when goods are prohibited, which is false, as I showed with my link
I don’t believe you have actually taken Econ 101, given the things Ive seen you say here.
Already banned where I live.
They now sell cigarettes with hollow filters in which a separately sold tiny filter fits, which is infused with menthol.
“According to the American Lung Association, the use of menthol cigarettes is highest among Black, brown and LGBTQ+ communities. Medical groups like the American Lung Association have long advocated for menthol cigarettes to be banned because they can make it easier to start smoking and disproportionately affect minority communities.”
Gonna save the minorities from the opression of racism and homophobia by specifically targeting them with a ban.
I’ve never really understood references to “the left eating itself” until I hit that paragraph. The absolute irony of the anti racist/homophobe sentiment being so overtly racist/homophobic kinda made the light bulb come on.
This adverse thing is adverse, so in order to reduce adversity among minorities, we’ll target the specific option they tend towards… to reduce discrimination against them, by discriminating their specific choice. Discriminating against them… to reduce discrimination…
And then you publish that shit? That’s kinda fucked IMHO.
Huh I mean I get what you’re saying but can’t we just take this potential win? I’m a cancer survivor and it just seems weird to complain about legislation that will reduce cancer. Menthol cigarettes just make it easier to get cancer than plain ones. That’s how I see this. Just because minorities and lgbtq are more likely to use them doesn’t mean it’s racist.
It’s my body; I get to decide what goes in it. Poison or not. This isn’t a win at all.
I just wish it was banned in public because I choose to not put poison in my body, yet I have to inhale everyone else’s poison that they are ingesting near me. In public and in cars is where I wish it was banned. There’s nothing worse than being stuck behind someone in traffic that is smoking and you have nowhere to go and nothing to do except inhale that shit.
Menthol cigarettes are what are consumed by teens as well. Banning the sale of them is a restriction on teen smoking.
what a wanker take on it, cigarettes should be banned period, they do nothing good for anyoneand are an absolute blight for public health. Any step in making cigarettes worse for accessibility, as marginal as it is, is a step in the right the right direction. People who smoked in France had the same take when they upped the cigarette prices “ooooh it won’t stop the poor people smoking blah blah” “they’re just doing it for the money they don’t care about poor people it will just hurt the common man more”. Welll cookie it turns out that 10€ has forced a lot of people to stop and greatly reduced young people who start smoking in the first place. Granted now people have shifted to vaping but compared to cigarettes they’re heaven. You can’t even compare vaping to smoking.
So it’s totally fine to target minorities with a ban if it means forward progress in disincentivising tobacco use? I disagree on the ends justifying the means in this case.
No arguments at all on the merits of reducing tobacco use, just an objection to throwing minorities under the bus in pursuit of it. I would not actually object to taxation as a means. I wouldn’t object to an outright ban even. My objection is to the specificity to minorities… that’s not cricket…
Yes it is in the case of tobacco usage.
imagine a situation women drank more alcohol than men and then the government banned alcohol for everyone. So you would consider this bad because it’s immoral to impose any kind of ban on women?
So what then? Ban it for the rich, the middle class and white people and let the people at risk smoke themselves to death ?
Where are your morals in this ? Put down your ideologies for one second and be pragmatic.
If they banned all alcohol for everyone, its indiscriminate, and I would not consider it to be discrimination (I’d consider it a bad idea based on the obvious). In your example, a ban on wine, but not whiskey, with the publicly stated intention of reducing alcohol intake among women, would be the equivalent, and I’d absolutely consider that misogynistic. In the case of a wine ban, yes, it would be immoral to impose that ban, because it would be targeted at women specifically.
They aren’t banning cigarettes. They’re banning menthols, and the publicly stated intent is to affect use of cigarettes among minorities. The policy is specifically intended to affect a demographic. Not because I say so, or because I think it does… it’s what they’re citing as the basis of the policy… they published it as such.
The pragmatic solution is to ban cigarettes. That would still affect the minorities disparately, but it’s no longer an inherently racist proposal at that point, because it’s about tobacco use period, not just the tobacco use specific to the minorities.
Well agreed that they should ban all cigarettes. in the end this is a half arsed solution that they came up with to “help” minorities.
But to be honest, I’ve seen too many people die to tobacco. I don’t care if the proposal is racist or not. Anything that can merely annoy a smoker’s smoking habits for me is a step in the right direction.
That’s the tiny hill I’m willing to die on.
I’d agree with you if it was a blanket ban on cigarettes, but it isn’t. It’s targeted.
Sue Dillion needs to make some calls
“We’re making an effort, see?”
In 5 years:
Studies show menthol cigarette consumption has remained the same.
I do not trust they will handle this without corruption meddling laws and loopholes.
Canada has outright banned the sale of menthol cigarettes. You cannot buy them in Canada.
Glad to to hear that. Lemme know when the US is matched with Canada in terms of corruption. Also, let me know what happened to spicy skittles. They made them for a year and stopped entirely. They were fucking good, man. It sounds weird, and that’s why it was a Halloween thing, but they were good. Spicy, then sweet. I fucking loved them. And they ripped them away from me. Why?
Even in “Indian reserve”?
Yes. Indian Tobacco do not have a menthol option.
Good
They should have just banned all cigarettes, stinky discusting things!
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Or, how about we let people put whatever they want into their own body?
Normally I’d agree, but cigarettes in particular are a product that is designed to be as addictive as possible with a laundry list of negative health impacts and virtually zero positive ones. Combine that with the fact that you aren’t just putting it in your body but the body of anyone within breathing distance of you, there’s a strong case to be made for banning them outright.
Put it another way, if cigarettes are legal then marijuana, LSD, MDMA, and a whole host of other drugs should be legal too.
Put it another way, if cigarettes are legal then marijuana, LSD, MDMA, and a whole host of other drugs should be legal too.
Yes. Yes they should.
Fuck prohibition.
Prohibition=Oppression.
Combine that with the fact that you aren’t just putting it in your body but the body of anyone within breathing distance of you,
That’s part of responsible use. I’m ok with only letting smokers smoke in specialty ventilated & filtered areas. Easy for me to say, I don’t smoke. But if any adult wants to make an informed decision to, that should be their choice.
Put it another way, if cigarettes are legal then marijuana, LSD, MDMA, and a whole host of other drugs should be legal too.
I emphatically agree.
Maybe they could just regulate what they put in them instead? Good tobacco is pretty tasty and not insanely addictive. Why not just basically put them in legacy mode?
They’ve already hit a crazy stride with vapes. Maybe they could do a 5-10 year plan where the clean it up while also gaining the foothold that they have with younger people?
Bruh, you know tobacco is a plant. Right?
Alcohol needs so much work to be made.
Tobacco is a plant.
Just like weed.
So’s hemlock, what’s your point?
That noone “made it” the way it is, and if dudes gonna smoke a plant, let dude smoke a plant.
Vape for the same effect. I don’t want to choke on what you’re putting in your body.
Tell that to all the smokers trying to quit who wish their younger self had not started in the first place.
Because of the children, won’t someone think of the children?!
They already aren’t allowed to smoke!
But parents are allowed to expose them to the smoke.
Do we need to ban everything that a shitty parent might not be able to keep away from their kids?
Why not expand the definition of child abuse to include these things instead of punishing people who are never around kids?
Why not expand the definition of child abuse to include these things instead of punishing people who are never around kids?
That sounds like a great idea, but it’s going to be impossible to enforce.
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Wtf is 3rd hand smoke?
The theory that when you smoke, the nicotine binds to surfaces the smoke touches, causing cancer to anyone who comes near surfaces that nicotine has touched.
It was a “truth” run around in the 80s as we were discovering the nature of radiation, so lots of war on drug “research” papers got published functionally saying nicotine and radiation are the same thing.
I mean, nicotine does saturate things when you smoke in an enclosed area. It’s impossible to paint over the stained walls of a smoker’s house without chemically stripping them first, because all the accumulated tar will just seep through the paint and leave brown stains. There’s no way that shit’s healthy.
You mistake the word “nicotine” for the word “tar”.
2 wildly different concepts.
And thank you captain I have something to add for observing that tobacco is less healthy that a carrot.
I meant for me. I’m not sure if you were talking about people or real estate.
Are you suggesting that tar doesn’t contain nicotine or other harmful substances found in cigarettes? Because lol.
That’s okay though, I’m sure you are very special and immune to it.
So if some can’t enjoy something responsibly, no one can?
Can’t tell if you are joking or just that stupid.
Banning drugs or alcohol has never worked. The demand will still be there. People will turn to the black market instead if it gets banned.
There is a whole arc in the Battlestar Galactica reboot series that masterfully illustrates this topic.
Yeah, which is why illegal drugs have more users than legal drugs (alcohol and tobacco). Except they don’t.
Fuck you.
I spent half my life legally smoking tobacco and illegally smoking weed.
I moved a quarter of a country away for the mental health of legally smoking tobacco and legally smoking weed.
I WILL NOT be dragged back into a life where one of my vices give me crippling fear of imprisonment.
Get off your fucking high horse. Mind your own fucking business. Stop asserting your will over others. Live your own fucking life. Let me live my fucking life.
Seriously.
Stop.
Just stop.
Prohibition is horse shit.
Stop supporting prohibition.
I don’t think this person means criminalize use of cigarettes to be fair.
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Come to Colorado! If it’s worth legalization, we are all about it.
(One of my post-legalization projects…)
Leave it to Lemmyists to downvote a comment saying that you shouldn’t be allowed to force other people to breathe poisonous smoke.
Ok, I’ll bite. Why is banning only menthols racist?
Because African American smokers tend to favor menthol over other types of cigarettes.
“In the 1950s, less than 10% of Black smokers used menthol cigarettes. Today, after decades of tobacco industry targeting, that number is 85%. Menthol cigarettes continue to be heavily advertised, widely available and priced cheaper in Black communities."
https://www.tobaccofreekids.org/what-we-do/industry-watch/menthol-report
Black people tend to primarily smoke menthol, disproportionate to other races. I’m too lazy to link, but you can Google it and find studies pretty easily.
It’s why this same prohibition measure has failed in many legislative bodies many times.