Anti-Smoking - what's in it for the ruling class?

[AK]

Obviously, the ruling class is divided when it comes to the question of cigarettes. Some factions require them to make a profit (tobacco companies and those companies which manufacture products to help you quit but ironically depend on the existence of cigarette addicts to make a profit) and other factions have some strange anti-smoking vaguely populist agenda. What's in it for the latter? If I were bourgeois, of course I'd let people buy cigarettes. I don't get it :confused:

[Thirsty Crow]

In countries which provide a form of public healthcare, smoking may be perceived as a phenomenon which significantly increases health risks, which amounts to handing out mopre money for "irresponsible people who get themselves ill".

And as far as the ban on smoking in public avenues is concerned...
The immediate economic factor that first comes to mind are the air conditioning systems and terraces.
For example, the government where I live recently passed a ban on smoking in pubs, caffes etc. What happened is that quite a few bar owners were forced to loan money from banks in order that they could buy the air conditioning which is necessary so that they could legally have people smoking in their space. Some of them were also forced to expand their external terrace, and voila - the municipality gets more funds (here, they are obliged to "buy off" the space from the local government).

However, I'm not really sure if such policies and attitude are directly linked to the economic ends.

[Wanted Man]

Simple: http://www.thebigmoney.com/articles/judgments/2009/06/08/cool-refreshing-legislation-philip-morris?page=full

[Jimmie Higgins]

In countries which provide a form of public healthcare, smoking may be perceived as a phenomenon which significantly increases health risks, which amounts to handing out mopre money for "irresponsible people who get themselves ill".
Ha. They still use this as an argument against a hypothetical public health system in the US. "Why should I pay for someone's hospital bills if they smoked 2 packs a day for 40 years?"

I don't think the anti-smoking push is because of pure caluclated economic reasons, I think it's mostly ideological. The modern industrial bourgeois always loves its temperance campaigns. In the US, anti-smoking has been used to blame individual bad choices for health problems in the US. People get sick and are financially ruined in this country and so blaming the sick is a neat little way for the bourgeois to distract people from thinking about systemic problems and the need for a national health program (something that a large portion of the US working class population has wanted at least since WWII).

But there is possibly an economic side too. Many employers (since they often are the ones providing health plans) require their workers to give up smoking to get full health benefits - or to pay a lower premium or co-pay. Also it's really hard to get smokers to give up breaks throughout the day, so making a workplace "smoker unfriendly" means it's easier to force people to take a few breaks instead of many quick breaks every couple of hours (or more).

The new US temperance movement is to blame the obesity epidemic on people being too lazy to do anything but go to McDonald's (as if 1/2 hour lunch breaks and fast-food chains displacing all other delis and small shops in many areas have nothing to do with it - people choose to only eat crap!).

[Thirsty Crow]

Simple: http://www.thebigmoney.com/articles/judgments/2009/06/08/cool-refreshing-legislation-philip-morris?page=full
Nice. The object of regulation becomes the subject of the regulation-making process. And suddenly north became south and I feel like I'm living in Oz (not the prison).