Political Discussion

[RenegadeMonster]

Since you apparently support this measure, what do you see as the end goal here?

I support raising the minimum age to buy them. For example, instead of 18 to by tobacco make it 21 everywhere.

The older the age people are, the less likely they are to want to start. I have also read studies that teenagers are also more likely to become addicted.

 

[Chucktshoes]

I support raising the minimum age to buy them. For example, instead of 18 to by tobacco make it 21 everywhere.

The older the age people are, the less likely they are to want to start. I have also read studies that teenagers are also more likely to become addicted.

That is the law. It was made the law during the last administration.

Also, not what I asked.

 

[RenegadeMonster]

That is the law. It was made the law during the last administration.

Also, not what I asked.

For the end goal. I'd say to stop kids from getting addicted.

 

[Chucktshoes]

For the end goal. I'd say to stop kids from getting addicted.

Ok, so it’s the old “ it’s for the children” argument. What is the level of imposition on adults to make their own choices that crosses the line from justifiable to too much?

 

[TenderLovingKiller®]

I support raising the minimum age to buy them. For example, instead of 18 to by tobacco make it 21 everywhere.

The older the age people are, the less likely they are to want to start. I have also read studies that teenagers are also more likely to become addicted.

Most people don’t start smoking at 18 they just start being able to legally purchase them. Most of my friends who smoked picked up the habit well before turning 18. If your old enough to vote and go to war you should be able to smoke or have a beer.

 

[Chucktshoes]

Most people don’t start smoking at 18 they just start being able to legally purchase them. Most of my friends who smoked picked up the habit well before turning 18. If your old enough to vote and go to war you should be able to smoke or have a beer.

100%. Legally one should be considered an adult will full rights and consequences, or not. This graduated gray area is harmful to everyone.

 

[TenderLovingKiller®]

Seriously though have you ever seen someone vaping and thought to yourself that’s one cool motherfucker? I don’t smoke cigarettes anymore mainly for health reasons but for the millions of times I’ve seen someone in a movie or photo looking sharp a fuck lighting up a cig. I have never seen a person of any sort vape where It doesn’t detract from their mystique.

 

[Chucktshoes]

Seriously though have you ever seen someone vaping and thought to yourself that’s one cool motherfucker? I don’t smoke cigarettes anymore mainly for health reasons but for the millions of times I’ve seen someone in a movie or photo looking sharp a fuck lighting up a cig. I have never seen a person of any sort vape where It doesn’t detract from their mystique.

Yup. Like, there is no way to make this cool.

 

[debianlinux]

Yup. Like, there is no way to make this cool.

I dunno, a couple dozen of these guys going off into some serious lights at a rave while I am tripping out might win me over.

 

[Chucktshoes]

I dunno, a couple dozen of these guys going off into some serious lights at a rave while I am tripping out might win me over.

Maybe I could strap a couple to the cab of my truck to blow out of fake exhaust stacks once we transition electric semi trucks.

 

[Joe Mac]

On the other hand, if we’re not going to provide universal healthcare, then the poorest among us being one of the likeliest groups to do something that will also make them the sickest among us, creates a drag on all of us. These are after all also the groups who are the least likely to be insured, or are underinsured. That puts strain on medical services, increases costs, and so on.

Not coming down either way here, just pointing out that the impact of a person’s decision to smoke is not *solely* limited to their own body.

I agree to a point but I think you probably lost Chuck at universal healthcare.

Speaking from someone who grew up in a country with both free universal healthcare at the pont of access and access to fags over 16 I still think that education and creating a social taboo/ostracisation around smoking are more effective. I’m uneasy about prohibition.

Messages like you’ll get cancer and be the sad looser having to go outside on a filthy cold wet night to feed your dirty habit while we’re inside the pub by the fire enjoying our pint.

 

[Chucktshoes]

I agree to a point but I think you probably lost Chuck at universal healthcare.

Speaking from someone who grew up in a country with both free universal healthcare at the pont of access and access to fags over 16 I still think that education and creating a social taboo/ostracisation around smoking are more effective. I’m uneasy about prohibition.

Messages like you’ll get cancer and be the sad looser having to go outside on a filthy cold wet night to feed your dirty habit while we’re inside the pub by the fire enjoying our pint.

I’d say your post nails it on all points.

 

[Joe Mac]

That’s fair on all counts. I only meant that “paternalism” seems to imply, to me, that it’s a decision made for the smokers’ good, and for their good only, and I just don’t think that covers the extent of the overall perceived benefit.

That’s fair. I was actually thinking a bit more about that point in the interim because sleep is for the weak...

The simple truth is that whether or not you believe in universal healthcare the answer is as crude as it costs them more.

If you believe in a degree of universal healthcare you’ll have to accept that there is a need for taxation to fund it. In the U.K. with the NHS an £8 packet of cigarettes is £6.40 tax and duties. That’s 80% of the cost of a packet being tax.

If you don’t believe in universal healthcare an insurance provider is entitled to vet their customer and a smoker as a higher risk attracts a higher premium.

 

[Chucktshoes]

That’s fair on all counts. I only meant that “paternalism” seems to imply, to me, that it’s a decision made for the smokers’ good, and for their good only, and I just don’t think that covers the extent of the overall perceived benefit.

The reason I term it paternalistic is that it appears to be made for the benefit of folks who are for one reason or another are perceived incapable of making their own decisions. Regardless of whether it may or may not have larger societal benefit, the approach that certain folks can’t make the “right” choice so the choice must be made for them is where it rubs me wrong.

 

[Joe Mac]

The reason I term it paternalistic is that it appears to be made for the benefit of folks who are for one reason or another are perceived incapable of making their own decisions. Regardless of whether it may or may not have larger societal benefit, the approach that certain folks can’t make the “right” choice so the choice must be made for them is where it rubs me wrong.

I agree. I think we need to look more at whether you are causing someone else harm. For example I’d be unequivocal in my support for a ban on indoor smoking as I’d consider forcing someone to repeatedly inhale your carcengenic smoke in an enclosed area where it’s slower to disperse as a form of assault. If you want to go outside and cause yourself harm, knock yourself out.

 

[Joe Mac]

...which results in more people declining to, or unable to, carry any coverage at all, relying on things like emergency services when they have to, and otherwise deferring all healthcare until they’re in a crisis. HCPs providing care to these folks must then also defray their expenses by increasing costs to people who do carry coverage, meaning that the insured are not only subsidizing the uninsured, but are doing so at astronomically higher rates than would be necessary if those people had access to affordable, regular healthcare in the first place.

That’s what I was trying to get at with my original response to Chuck. Non-smokers have a vested interest in reducing smoking rates because we don’t want them in our risk pools, but we also don’t want them to be completely uninsured either.

For the record having grown up in the U.K. I’m enormously in favour of universal healthcare free at the point of access. But smokers and drinkers pay huge amounts in alcohol and cigarette tax and duties to help fund it.

 

[Chucktshoes]

I agree. I think we need to look more at whether you are causing someone else harm. For example I’d be unequivocal in my support for a ban on indoor smoking as I’d consider forcing someone to repeatedly inhale your carcengenic smoke in an enclosed area where it’s slower to disperse as a form of assault. If you want to go outside and cause yourself harm, knock yourself out.

Most places in the US ban smoking indoors. In my home state only limited venues may have indoor smoking and only if they are age restricted to over 21. Very few that can offer it do. So you have to absolutely choose to patronize those venues.

 

[Chucktshoes]

This discussion easily spirals out into one about how all kinds of laws are paternalistic under that rubric, which I don’t think you’d disagree with, but many of them I think would be more popular with most of us because they’re already codified into the fabric of what we think of as the background for the general welfare. This one is only different in that it’s new, not in its sort of philosophical underpinnings.

I mostly agree with that assessment. Where I think this subject differs somewhat is how targeted it is in its framing and application. I’m still puzzled a bit by it considering the lower smoking rates amongst the targeted demo. Apparently the ACLU is as well as they are coming out against the proposed menthol cig ban being proposed by the Biden administration.

 

[jaycee]

Bloomington borders Minneapolis to the south and is home to the airport and mall of america, which is an important source of all kinds of tax revenue. It was 74% white as of the 2010 census and is likely to be less white when the 2020 census #s are fully published. There are wealthier and more white suburbs to the west. Tobacco shops in minnesota are almost exclusively associated with lower income neighborhoods. these are essentially bodegas in most of the twin cities (an anecdotal observation on my part).

There are likely a few things going on here. A perceived changing of community demographics and stereotyped clientele associated with vaping retailers, legit smoking health concerns, and suburban culture war fears being put into policy at the city level. The Bloomington city council, as has been the case in several communities, have been taking steps to address inequity (including inequitable health outcomes) after facing increasing pressure to do so. I suspect this is all part of that (likely) box-checking exercise. In the same city council meeting they also banned conversion therapy practices but the tobacco thing is getting all of the press. A mosque in bloomington has been attacked multiple times including a bombing plot, the TCs are at the epicenter of racial and economic inequity that's fueling media and culture warriors, and the protests and white supremacist attacks over the past year have led to gov't types feeling the need to "do something."

Whether or not this is all pointless, virtue signaling, government overreach, or whatever label that's being applied to it the 4 council members who voted for it (out of 6) almost certainly did so because their constituents supported the idea. These people are not willy-nilly making these choices and they're too small and insignificant to be part of some major lobbying campaign on conspiracy. These are people who likely believe they are doing something positive or useful that their suburban "won't somebody think of the children constituents" want. Is everybody involved here stupid or short-sighted - maybe, but if the people don't want these things they'll replace the council members and change the ordinances. Minnesotans vote at a higher rate than the rest of the country and voting is the perfect exercise to meet the demands of their passive aggressive, MN nice, Lutheran shunning culture.

 

[Chucktshoes]

Bloomington borders Minneapolis to the south and is home to the airport and mall of america, which is an important source of all kinds of tax revenue. It was 74% white as of the 2010 census and is likely to be less white when the 2020 census #s are fully published. There are wealthier and more white suburbs to the west. Tobacco shops in minnesota are almost exclusively associated with lower income neighborhoods. these are essentially bodegas in most of the twin cities (an anecdotal observation on my part).

There are likely a few things going on here. A perceived changing of community demographics and stereotyped clientele associated with vaping retailers, legit smoking health concerns, and suburban culture war fears being put into policy at the city level. The Bloomington city council, as has been the case in several communities, have been taking steps to address inequity (including inequitable health outcomes) after facing increasing pressure to do so. I suspect this is all part of that (likely) box-checking exercise. In the same city council meeting they also banned conversion therapy practices but the tobacco thing is getting all of the press. A mosque in bloomington has been attacked multiple times including a bombing plot, the TCs are at the epicenter of racial and economic inequity that's fueling media and culture warriors, and the protests and white supremacist attacks over the past year have led to gov't types feeling the need to "do something."

Whether or not this is all pointless, virtue signaling, government overreach, or whatever label that's being applied to it the 4 council members who voted for it (out of 6) almost certainly did so because their constituents supported the idea. These people are not willy-nilly making these choices and they're too small and insignificant to be part of some major lobbying campaign on conspiracy. These are people who likely believe they are doing something positive or useful that their suburban "won't somebody think of the children constituents" want. Is everybody involved here stupid or short-sighted - maybe, but if the people don't want these things they'll replace the council members and change the ordinances. Minnesotans vote at a higher rate than the rest of the country and voting is the perfect exercise to meet the demands of their passive aggressive, MN nice, Lutheran shunning culture.

Appreciate the local perspective. It helps separate things a little for me as I realize I was bundling it in with what’s also coming out of the federal government at the moment as well.