Tobacco Regulation

[Crabbensmasher]

I live in Canada, and the cigarette/tobacco industry is heavily regulated here. As such, we have warning labels and graphic depictions on our cigarette containers. You've probably seen them before. It's pictures of people in hospital beds dying from cancer or hooked up to respirators. Sometimes they have pictures of blackened lungs, damaged hearts, people in wheelchairs etc. It's usually accompanied with a text saying something like "It feels like I'm breathing through a straw". Basically, It's meant to show you the harsh reality of smoking.

Now, in my opinion, I'm starting to think more and more that this is a bad practice. I know a lot of people who smoke, my parents smoke, friends, relatives etc. All of them know fully well what the effects of smoking are, and many have tried to quit themselves, but for whatever reason are stuck in the cycle. Whether it be stress, socioeconomic conditions, or lack of will, they all still smoke.
Now I see these graphic depictions, and it all seems to accomplish nothing but depress the smoker. Most smokers I know would quit if they had the power to do so.

On top of that, we have "progressive" taxes aimed at discouraging people from smoking. These taxes make buying cigarettes into a very expensive habit. Where I live, a pack of cigarettes costs anywhere between $12 and $15 CND, and if you're making minimum wage buying a pack a day, it really eats a big chunk of your money.

I will give these regulations credit for something very important, and that is preventing new people from picking up the habit themselves. They are probably part of the reason I don't smoke personally.

But here's my question: Are these methods worth it, or is there a better way to discourage people from smoking?

[Orange Juche]

As a former smoker, I think cigarette taxes are nothing more than a poor tax. If you look at who smokes, it's disproportionately poor people - probably because being poor is extremely stressful, and cigarettes either help or give the illusion of helping with that.

And quitting is insanely difficult. Some do quit with higher taxes, yes, but some just can't. It took me like 30 tries. The way it looks to me - it's just a way for entitled middle class liberals to either feel like they're accomplishing something by "forcing people to quit smoking", or this smug, self satisfied "punishment" of smokers by non-smokers.

Either way, it's mostly poor people, getting heavily taxed on an addiction - which is morally really messed up.

[The Intransigent Faction]

As a former smoker, I think cigarette taxes are nothing more than a poor tax. If you look at who smokes, it's disproportionately poor people - probably because being poor is extremely stressful, and cigarettes either help or give the illusion of helping with that.

And quitting is insanely difficult. Some do quit with higher taxes, yes, but some just can't. It took me like 30 tries. The way it looks to me - it's just a way for entitled middle class liberals to either feel like they're accomplishing something by "forcing people to quit smoking", or this smug, self satisfied "punishment" of smokers by non-smokers.

Either way, it's mostly poor people, getting heavily taxed on an addiction - which is morally really messed up.

Congrats on quitting! I agree that addiction should not be a revenue source, and if our penal system has taught us anything its that punishment is not the way to bring changes in people's behavior.

If anything I think a mix of education/warnings, which has already shown tremendous effects for the rate of smoking, and dealing with underlying economic triggers for a need for that kind of "relief", would be far more effective than a tax.

I suppose that also it sometimes just takes a push by someone close to you. All I had to do was speak up as a kid and my grandpa managed to quit after years of smoking. I know a friend of mine struggles partly because her family also smokes.

[Jimmie Higgins]

As a former smoker, I think cigarette taxes are nothing more than a poor tax. If you look at who smokes, it's disproportionately poor people - probably because being poor is extremely stressful, and cigarettes either help or give the illusion of helping with that.

And quitting is insanely difficult. Some do quit with higher taxes, yes, but some just can't. It took me like 30 tries. The way it looks to me - it's just a way for entitled middle class liberals to either feel like they're accomplishing something by "forcing people to quit smoking", or this smug, self satisfied "punishment" of smokers by non-smokers.

Either way, it's mostly poor people, getting heavily taxed on an addiction - which is morally really messed up.

As an ex-(and sometimes an Obama-style secret) smoker, I agree.

However, I think there's also an ideological part of it too - at least in the US. The dangers of smoking and the effects of disease can be blamed on the induvidual, the consumer of cigarettes, which fits nicely into capitalist, and specifically neoliberal, logic. All the right-wingers who were against Obama's health plan (let alone real socialized healthcare) at some point made the argument: "why should I pay taxes so you can smoke cigarettes and get cancer and I have to pay for it!". Healtcare is a real issue, the effects of smoking and bad diet are real issues - even for capital. But they have no real way of dealing with the problem - at least not in a neoliberal context and so it becomes about blaming the suffering for their own suffering.

In the 1990s a lot of big companies offered incentives for their workers to quit (as a way to save on health costs). Maybe this is a little conspiratorial because I don't have any facts to back this up, but I have a hunch that bosses also just didn't like that workers had mandated breaks (where they could get together and complain - or socialize). In the neoliberal era where capital demands labor be flexible and not mandate breaks and the pace of work, it would be hard to go after those breaks without workers on nic-fits sparking off a revolution :D.

For middle class snobs, well they always ideologically tend to want to control the behavior of the masses because from their perspective they are "self reliant" and "self made" but this is within the context of capitalism where they have some means of production or have skills that allow them to have some induvidual power in negotiating their position in the system. So they think "I play by the rules, why can't those slobs?"... this comes in the right-wing version of just hating poor people as well as the liberal version who hates poor people because they don't make the same lifestyle and moral choices of the upwardly moble.

What I think the pettite bourgoise doesn't get though is that at their job they can create some sense of satisfaction - work hard at their own shop and get a little ahead, work hard in a profession and get rewarded in terms of position or even just at "doing a noble job" well. But if you're a worker you can't get no satisfaction on the job. You can try and play little mind-games with yourself but they only go so far. So if you can't get satisfaction because of alienation, you can at least get high before work or smoke during breaks or eat junk food and get some chemical satisfaction.

[Os Cangaceiros]

I smoked from about age 17 to age 22, and I actually didn't think it was that hard to quit...I guess it's different for different people, though.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

I support the taxation of cigarettes and alcohol, in conjunction with programmes that help people to quit.

Cigarettes and alcohol should in the first instance (along with other drugs) not be supplied by private means, but should be heavily regulated and their distribution controlled. Probably cigarettes more than alcohol, since alcohol can be diluted into beer-strength drinks which, in moderation, do not really pose much of a health risk.

Cigarettes cannot be 'diluted' - smoking is always accompanied by negative health consequences and thus negative externalities when masses of people smoke over a long period. They really should be a much more tightly controlled substance.

[Orange Juche]

I suppose that also it sometimes just takes a push by someone close to you.

That's what happened with me - I've wanted to quit for a while, but I wasn't in "the zone" enough of wanting to quit and be successful, and I knew that, I liked smoking too much. But someone I'm close with had someone they're close with die a few years back due to lung cancer (from smoking), and we were talking, and it just hit me.

Oh and thanks for the congrats earlier in the post. :lol:

[Pleb]

As a former smoker, I think cigarette taxes are nothing more than a poor tax. If you look at who smokes, it's disproportionately poor people - probably because being poor is extremely stressful, and cigarettes either help or give the illusion of helping with that.

And quitting is insanely difficult. Some do quit with higher taxes, yes, but some just can't. It took me like 30 tries. The way it looks to me - it's just a way for entitled middle class liberals to either feel like they're accomplishing something by "forcing people to quit smoking", or this smug, self satisfied "punishment" of smokers by non-smokers.

Either way, it's mostly poor people, getting heavily taxed on an addiction - which is morally really messed up.


Exactly, another attack on the poor. Same as the proposed minimum drink prices.

Non smokers are smug bastards.

[Orange Juche]

Non smokers are smug bastards.

It's really bizarre the amount of actual vitriol people have toward smokers, like they're on a lower level of a caste system or something.

[Jimmie Higgins]

It's really bizarre the amount of actual vitriol people have toward smokers, like they're on a lower level of a caste system or something.Yeah I actually kept smoking for a year or so out of spite because of people like that. I kept weighing the pros and cons: pro - better health, con - I might turn into a self-reightious anti-smoking asshole that all these fuckers over here.