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[Orange Wizard]

That sounds like an American problem.

Also, you'd have more money for rent if you stop smoking.

Also, what does rent and an obscenely long working week have to do with the ethics of gory cigarettes?

[Antsan]

Smokers believe that smoking helps relieve stress, which is wrong, of course – it's just the withdrawal symptoms going away.

That sounds like an American problem.

Martinuzz isn't American, though.

Also, you'd have more money for rent if you stop smoking.

That's just a claim you make. You don't know whether it's true. Comes off as kind of condescending.

[Jopax]

Well it does help, at first, and it diminishes with time obviously as you build the resistance. Plus, the act itself can be calming in a sort of placebo/meditative way. So there's some merit to it at least.

[Antsan]

That might be, but I think it causes more stress than it relieves in the long run.

[Helgoland]

I still don't get why folks applaud a measure that is blatantly manipulative instead of informative (as the previous warning labels were). If you want people to stop smoking, just be honest and ban the stuff already.


Ooooh, that reminds me:

There's a new law on 'new psychoactive substances' in Germany. The core idea is to ban whole classes of substances, like they've been doing in the UK for a long time. They didn't fuck it up as badly as I would've expected, but to the chemically and pharmacologically well versed the gaps should be obvious. They should've just copied the UK law.

[Arx]

Also, you'd have more money for rent if you stop smoking.

That's just a claim you make. You don't know whether it's true. Comes off as kind of condescending.

It seems to me to be a safe assumption that it costs money to smoke.

I still don't get why folks applaud a measure that is blatantly manipulative instead of informative (as the previous warning labels were). If you want people to stop smoking, just be honest and ban the stuff already.

It's arguably still an informative measure. Instead of just saying smoking causes cancer, the box now shows what happens to smokers. Assuming the box shows specifically smoking-induced maladies, of course.

[Sergarr]

I still don't get why folks applaud a measure that is blatantly manipulative instead of informative (as the previous warning labels were). If you want people to stop smoking, just be honest and ban the stuff already.

Simply banning smoking sounds like a recipe for a quick boom in black market industry. Just like banning alcohol and marijuana, banning smoking would not fundamentally solve the problem, if the population still wants it at large.

You have to first manipulate (or influence, or heavily suggest, or any other synonym you like) the active majority of your population to form an instinctual, reflexive antipathy towards something, before something like a general ban on consumption of that something can truly succeed.

[Helgoland]

Instead of just saying smoking causes cancer, the box now shows what happens to smokers.

Does it, though? It shows what happens to some smokers. It shows the extreme cases. The old warning labels - at least the ones here - avoided that problem: 'Smoking may kill you' 'Smoking severely harms you and those around you' 'Smoking while pregnant harms your child'

Ninja:

You have to first manipulate (or influence, or heavily suggest, or any other synonym you like) the active majority of your population to form an instinctual, reflexive antipathy towards something, before something like a general ban on consumption of that something can truly succeed.

But why bother? Let people kill them if they want! Just make them pay for it themselves. Making them quit because it's bad for themselves is classic nanny-state behaviour, no?

[Arx]

Instead of just saying smoking causes cancer, the box now shows what happens to smokers.

Does it, though? It shows what happens to some smokers. It shows the extreme cases. The old warning labels - at least the ones here - avoided that problem: 'Smoking may kill you' 'Smoking severely harms you and those around you' 'Smoking while pregnant harms your child'

Fair enough.

Perhaps a 'smoking license' should be instituted. Before you may purchase tobacco products, you must suffer through an hour long course on the harmful effects of tobacco, including a test on all the horrible ways you could die or harm others at the end. After all, driving and smoking are pretty comparable! Both can harm you and bystanders if done irresponsibly, but for some reason we only test for one of them...

That's only half serious. It would be impractical to implement.

[Helgoland]

There actually is an idea like that for 'harder' drugs, and psychedelics in particular. Doesn't sound too far-fetched to me, to be honest. In particular it would avoid the problem of people just sort of slipping into nicotine addiction.

[Orange Wizard]

If you want people to stop smoking, just be honest and ban the stuff already.

People demand freedom to poison themselves

Martinuzz isn't American, though.

Was he talking about himself? I did ask:

Also, what does rent and an obscenely long working week have to do with the ethics of gory cigarettes?

That's just a claim you make. You don't know whether it's true. Comes off as kind of condescending.

Haha, what? Spending less money on one thing will leave money available for other things. Pretty basic arithmetic here.

[Antsan]

I somehow dropped the "more" while reading.

Also, what does rent and an obscenely long working week have to do with the ethics of gory cigarettes?

Smokers believe that smoking helps relieve stress, which is wrong, of course – it's just the withdrawal symptoms going away.

[Antsan]

Ooooh, that reminds me:

There's a new law on 'new psychoactive substances' in Germany. The core idea is to ban whole classes of substances, like they've been doing in the UK for a long time. They didn't fuck it up as badly as I would've expected, but to the chemically and pharmacologically well versed the gaps should be obvious. They should've just copied the UK law.

Most of these substances come up as replacements for illegal drugs. Legalizing them would probably do more about the problem of NPSs than this law, especially with proper education about them.

[Sheb]

But why bother? Let people kill them if they want! Just make them pay for it themselves. Making them quit because it's bad for themselves is classic nanny-state behaviour, no?

So if forcing people to wear a seatbelt. There is no cost to wearing a seatbelt (assuming your car has one), and yet, back when I was in Thailand where it's not required, most people did not wear it. Sometime, forcing people to make the right decision can be justified, call it nanny-state behavior if you want.

[Sergarr]

Ninja:

You have to first manipulate (or influence, or heavily suggest, or any other synonym you like) the active majority of your population to form an instinctual, reflexive antipathy towards something, before something like a general ban on consumption of that something can truly succeed.

But why bother? Let people kill them if they want! Just make them pay for it themselves. Making them quit because it's bad for themselves is classic nanny-state behaviour, no?

1) Why would we bother with national healthcare?  Why would we bother with health education? Why would we bother with industrial safety regulations?
2) I know people who've become addicted to smoking solely because it was "a cool and hip thing to do" back when they were young, stupid, susceptible to social pressures, and didn't know about the real dangers of smoking at all, because knowledge of just how dangerous smoking really is has became widely known only fairly recently.
3) Why is "nanny-state behaviour" a bad thing here, in your opinion? Addiction is a really dangerous thing, and the best way to combat it is to prevent it from happening altogether. The singular person always underestimates the strength of addiction, but the society - and state, as the acting representative of said society - as a whole, has that knowledge, and thus can utilize their powers to prevent that singular person from doing something they would, most likely, heavily regret in the future.

I mean, with that sort of knowledge, you can justify people using hard drugs - like heroin, if they "pay for themselves". Yet, I'm pretty sure that the overwhelming majority of governments of Earth are, in fact, opposed to letting people do that.