• maaj@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    If you only ban the menthols, it’s racist. If you ban all cigarettes, it’s health-forward and progressive. Ban all cigs.

    • Chestrade@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      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.

      • Melkath@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        There is a whole arc in the Battlestar Galactica reboot series that masterfully illustrates this topic.

      • xigoi@lemmy.sdf.org
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        1 year ago

        Yeah, which is why illegal drugs have more users than legal drugs (alcohol and tobacco). Except they don’t.

        • papalonian@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Their argument was that banning cigarettes wouldn’t eliminate their use, only drive people to continue doing it through other methods.

          What does your comment have to do with that…? Nobody said there would somehow be more users than before, just that people would continue doing it…

          • xigoi@lemmy.sdf.org
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            1 year ago

            My argument is that since illegal drugs have significantly fewer users, prohibition does reduce usage.

            • papalonian@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              That logic doesn’t flow, though. You need to compare number of current illegal users vs number of users before it was illegal.

              Have you heard of the US prohibition on alcohol? It’s a pretty famous counterexample to your argument showing that it absolutely does not reduce usage.

            • SCB@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              The same number of people, as a percentage, smoke marijuana as smoke cigarettes. Marijuana use is federally illegal and illegal in most states.

              So no, it really doesn’t reduce usage. Price and perceived risk are the two factors that reduce usage the most.

    • seathru@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      Or, how about we let people put whatever they want into their own body?

      • yukichigai@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        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.

        • Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          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.

        • seathru@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          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.

        • discodoubloon@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          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?

          • kungen@feddit.nu
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            1 year ago

            Good tobacco is … not insanely addictive

            Nah, nicotine is very addictive by itself. But yes, the additives make it even worse.

            I agree though, it’s disappointing that governments don’t have better labeling regulations on “sinful” products. Alcohol: why not require a list of ingredients and calories? Cigarettes: same thing, show what it has been processed with, etc? Like how the EU used to require showing how much tar and nicotine each cigarette contained, but realized all the producers started to fake the testing machines by designing holes in the filters (like “light” cigs) where the user’s lips would otherwise cover when smoking.

        • Melkath@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          Bruh, you know tobacco is a plant. Right?

          Alcohol needs so much work to be made.

          Tobacco is a plant.

          Just like weed.

            • Melkath@kbin.social
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              1 year ago

              That noone “made it” the way it is, and if dudes gonna smoke a plant, let dude smoke a plant.

              • yukichigai@kbin.social
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                1 year ago

                Cigarettes != tobacco. Tobacco is an ingredient in cigarettes, and not the only one, not by a long shot. Literally dozens of additives are included in cigarettes, many of which are designed to make them more addictive.

                Secondly, modern tobacco absolutely was “made” the way it is, first through selective breeding and then genetic modification to (among other things) increase Nicotine content. Much in the same way that modern weed is far stronger than the stuff grown 50 years ago, so too is tobacco.

      • xigoi@lemmy.sdf.org
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        1 year ago

        Tell that to all the smokers trying to quit who wish their younger self had not started in the first place.

            • Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              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?

              • xigoi@lemmy.sdf.org
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                1 year ago

                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.

      • maaj@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        I’d be with you if second and third hand smoke wasn’t a thing. And also if I didn’t just kick nicotine a month back for causing severe pain in my hands and wrists.

          • Melkath@kbin.social
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            1 year ago

            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.

            • Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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              1 year ago

              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.

              • Melkath@kbin.social
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                1 year ago

                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.

                • Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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                  1 year ago

                  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.

    • Melkath@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      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.

        • xigoi@lemmy.sdf.org
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          1 year ago

          Leave it to Lemmyists to downvote a comment saying that you shouldn’t be allowed to force other people to breathe poisonous smoke.

        • remotelove@lemmy.ca
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          1 year ago

          Come to Colorado! If it’s worth legalization, we are all about it.

          (One of my post-legalization projects…)

        • AA5B@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Think of it more like a safety standard - prevent the sales of variations doing the most harm to public health

      • dangblingus@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I’m glad I live in a country with universal healthcare. Your point is made completely erroneous by the fact that everyone’s taxes are paying for your cancer treatment. This “fuck you i’ll do what i want” mentality is literally antisocial conservative garbage.

      • Beardsley@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        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.

        • Melkath@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          It’s why this same prohibition measure has failed in many legislative bodies many times.

    • aelwero@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      This apparently is an objectionable point to bring up… not sure if your downvotes are the “all or nothing” aspect, or the spotlighting of the blatant racist aspect, but it seems people don’t want to see this at face value :/

      I’m with you though. The selective targeting is wrong. Equal ban or no ban is the right position to take IMHO.

      • SokathHisEyesOpen@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        I down voted it because I don’t think the government should ban substances. Not cigarettes, not alcohol, not marijuana, not psychedelics, and probably not a bunch of other drugs too. The government’s job is not to play mommy and daddy for a nation of adults. Our citizens are entirely too eager to strip away their own liberty these days.

        • aelwero@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          I agree with that.

          The specific ban in question on this particular post isn’t a general matter though… it’s targeting minorities…

          That kinda makes it a moot point in my opinion on wether or not prohibition is appropriate in general, because regardless of where you fall on the matter of bans or liberties, the specificity of the intended targets is wildly inappropriate, because it’s racist/homophobic, so I kinda disregarded the last point they made entirely :)

      • maaj@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        And I agree with you. It’s not like I give a shit what anyone does to their own bodies, as long as it doesn’t harm or negatively affect anyone else.

    • dangblingus@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      It aint racist my guy. The chemical processes involved in menthol cigarettes increase the carcinogenic properties of the cig.

      Yes, no shit cigs are bad. Menthol cigs are the worst offenders.