National’s unaffordable tax cuts to be funded by… (checks notes) …giving more people lung cancer.
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Argh that’s such short-term thinking. Smoking costs a ton in hospital care etc.
This government’s plan seems to be:
- Scrap everything they can that Labour did.
- ???
- PROFIT!
This is the only thing Oceania conservatives are good at: opposition.
Sounds like ‘Merica conservatives too.
While personally against the loss of the ban, this reminds me of when I once heard that, from a purely economic point of view with no regards for human life, tobacco and other unhealthy products are a net positive for the economy.
The reasoning is that people who smoke will die younger, usually after their “productive lifetime” has concluded (where they consume more than they produce), thus being a burden to the state less time.
This is the same way of thinking as people who throw trash into the streets, saying they’re benefiting the local economy because it has to employ more sanitisation personnel. Which is stupid.
The reasoning is that people who smoke will die younger, usually after their “productive lifetime” has concluded (where they consume more than they produce), thus being a burden to the state less time.
My grandfather would have seriously skewed those statistics. He lived to a ripe old age of 90 drinking whiskey and smoking a pack of Lucky Strikes (unfiltered) every single day for decades. On more than one occasion doctors warned him the next cigarette could kill him. He proved them wrong for a very long time.
It is very unlikely that he would have skewed the statistics, the immense weight of the people killed early by smoking would overwhelm the very small number of outliers.
The number of years lost by individuals is determined by a huge number of factors, but smoking has been shown to really drag down the number of years that you are likely to achieve.
This is interesting from a few points of view.
From a health point of view, it is bad.
From a choice point of view, it is good.
From a leadership point of view, it is bad.
From an economic point of view, it is good.I’m quite cynical about this; it seems that a policy has been chosen to specifically rile up the opposition.
Are they going to fully legalise cannabis as well?
Based on the general deregulation stance, they definitely should have that policy.
But because the right wing parties have hard core Christians in their donors and MPs (including the new PM), it won’t happen.
Hahahaha ha ha ha!
Oh wait, you’re serious, let me laugh even harder.
Hahahaha hahaha hahahahaha!
But why?
$$$ from big tobacco.
Nope, it’s the tax dollars. The tax is about $1.18 per cigarette. That’s $8614 per year in tex for a 20 a day smoker. In Australia it’s even higher. They will never end smoking.
The old, poor, and vulnerable will continue to be sacrificed for tax cuts for the wealthy.
This law always felt weird to me, the idea that one adult would be legally allowed to smoke cigarettes, but another adult a day younger would be unable to.
They would be unable to buy cigarettes, there would be no law against smoking them. That’s an important difference.
So how would you propose we end the sale of tobacco?
Tax it more, and make it available for sale only in specialist retailers, would be a great way to dramatically decrease the amount sold.
I don’t think ending the sale altogether is worthwhile actually, this will merely create a black market for the product.
Really? It was a law I thought of myself as a kid because it just seemed logical and makes way more sense than sudden prohibition.
So when it became law I was pleased, because I don’t see smoking as a genuine choice for addicts. I used to live next to someone who was literally dying of emphysemia and she couldn’t give up smoking, and her self-hate and despair made a big impression on me.
another adult a day younger
It’s less stark but health changes always have an arbitrary cut off, there is always a last person to get/first person to not get. E.g last person to get old style knee replacement, first person to get new style.
Fuck that shit. Oppressive overstep. It should be scrapped.
