Current Events > New Zealand to ban young people from ever being able to buy cigarettes

(+) Yeah! (+)

To be fair, it being illegal here hasn't stopped it being something a surprising proportion of the adult population has admitted to using.

Also, the failed legalisation vote was closer than expected. It has been argued that it was set up to fail, and still nearly passed.

bladegash posted...

What about da vape?

Not being restricted (beyond the restrictions already in place, ie: R18, and only specialist vape stores are allowed to sell flavors other than tobacco, mint or menthol) at the moment, but that could change later. Still, rather people be vaping than smoking if they're gonna do one of the two.

Smoking is dumb and obviously bad for your health, but I'm not about banning and making things illegal just because of it.

I've got no issues with banning smoking from bars and other indoor places, but if people wanna smoke it's their right to do so.

I have a weird relationship with the legalization of drugs because I don't like human suffering being a legal way to profit. To me, it's not better to have legitimate businessmen killing you than criminals making the money selling it on street corners. I don't like Big Tobacco being a legitimate industry. I'd be fine with people rolling their own cigs legally, though.

The measures will mean that anyone born after 2008 will not be able to purchase cigarettes or tobacco products in their lifetime, ...

Nani? We are at that special point in human history where we can't stick cancer in our lungs? Way to go New Zealand.

I dont smoke cigs regularly but they are incomparable as a buzz accompaniment.

Im guessing the same people on here cheering this bureaucratic move wouldnt say shit to countries where smoking a hookah for hours is considered a cultural thing.

This is a dumb idea from a dumb country. Why are they banning free money? People who chain smoke all their lives live until they are in their 80s and 90s anyways like both my grandpas.

BigB0ss13 posted...

Why are they banning free money?

not every country is run by capitalistic pigs. some countries have vision

Fuck that, if someone who grew up with all the ads about smoking and still wants to suck down cancer sticks, let 'em. Not my problem when they die an early death from lung cancer.

It would have been easier to just force smokers to pay for their own healthcare.

ReignFury posted...

It would have been easier to just force smokers to pay for their own healthcare.

thats stupid, there's no good reason to exclude them from national healthcare just because they made a poor health decision. its better to prevent them from making that decision to begin with

Kloe_Rinz posted...

thats stupid, there's no good reason to exclude them from national healthcare just because they made a poor health decision. its better to prevent them from making that decision to begin with

That's fascism. You can't stop every stupid people from making stupid choices, but you can make them personally accountable and prevent them from being a drain on society.

Cheater87 posted...

It is still mind boggling how cigs are allowed, yet pot is seen as MUCH worse by world governments.

yeah they should ban cigarettes which is what most of the civilised world is gearing towards at the moment.

ReignFury posted...

You can't stop every stupid people from making stupid choices

we can try, and fine them if they dont stop

ReignFury posted...

but you can make them personally accountable and prevent them from being a drain on society

with a fine, not exclusion from healthcare

Bleuets posted...

Only old people smoke . You never see anyone young light up a cigarette . Its an old person thing.

I know young people who smoke, do you not have friends?

This is a bad idea IMO. Either ban tobacco for everyone or ban it for no one. Even from a practical viewpoint, this will create a black market

I would think the black market for illegal tobacco would be tiny compared to narcotics. After all, it doesnt get you high, it is mostly taken up be teens, and the vast majority of long term users would quit if they could.

I typically feel everything should be legal and regulated so it's as safe and manageable as possible, but banning tobacco is probably fine. It's not like heroin where it has even some redeeming qualities, right?

It probably only works as a legal addiction, like, I just don't see teenagers buying a nickel bag of tobacco and hacking their lungs out for a week to get into it. It's definitely something you have to power through and relies heavily on peer/social pressures to get addicted to.With the right first dose of heroin if you immediately feel the best thing ever of your entire life, so people are always gonna pick it up whether it's legal or not. I can actually see a worldwide ban on tobacco working in like a generation or so though.

Call make snake plisskin

Good, ban fast food next.

Th3HonestTruth posted...

A black market is definitely going to be inevitable.

Lack of public interest in tobacco means it's probably not going to be a very big market, or very profitable.

Good now do the same to Marijuana.

Duncanwii posted...

Good now do the same to Marijuana.

Shut up, Duncan.

Just because your parents don't allow you to do something doesn't mean that everyone else should be prohibited from doing it.

Good move nz

New Zealand is gonna end up having a civil war.

We live in a strange world where marijuana is still mostly illegal and a product known to cause horrible diseases and death has never been outlawed.

Duncanwii posted...

Good now do the same to Marijuana.

Duncan if you read the topic you'd know Marijuana was already banned.

Cheater87 posted...

It is still mind boggling how cigs are allowed, yet pot is seen as MUCH worse by world governments.

Lobbying baby

imagine France

America needs to do this

if anyone can pull this off its them

Market

Always

Prevails

Organized crime will take over the market if the government is bowing out. This is a tale literally as old as time.

my God lol

ReignFury posted...

It would have been easier to just force smokers to pay for their own healthcare.

They already do. The taxes on tobacco in NZ cover the costs of smoking-related healthcare many times over.

good move they pulled because the only people with the political clout to stop it will still get to keep smoking so they wont care

are they gonna ban weed next?