Cigarettes: Prevention and Quitting

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@jojobean - what if individuals started having homemade cigarettes? How would they handle that?

as a medical issue not a criminal one.

more detail?

Yes, smoking is bad for an individual's health and probably those around them if they get enough exposure. I grew up on second hand smoke but it appears not to have had much affect that I can tell.

I used to smoke and dip snuff, mostly dipped snuff.
Smokeless tobacco use is more addicting because you get a lot more nicotine from it. I quit cold turkey and thought (sometimes hoped) the withdraw from nicotine wold kill me or make me kill others but I managed. It was hell on me but I managed......somehow.
I don't preach about it, though. When anyone would pester me abut my tobacco use I would tell them to get a life so I can only expect the same response. People that use tobacco can only quit when and if they are good and ready.

Banning tobacco would instantly create a whole new class of criminal to deal with and all the associated trappings.
Even if it was possible to cut off the supply of tobacco I guaranty you that the homicide and suicide rate would soar instantly.

criminalize the dealers and makers of cigarettes but provide addiction recovery for those who are smokers...not everything has to be a big deal. Most people who smoke dont want to smoke anyway. I never heard a smoker say...OHHH smoking made my life better, they all despise their habits, but feel unable to quit. They just need help doing it without branding them but holding the makers and sellers accountable.

raptor: if proper medical attention was given, I dont think it would be that drastic. I agree that addiction is real and I also believe that some smokers need inpatient help on quitting smoking, or dipping.

As an ex-smoker I can tell you. Pleasure. Plain and simple.

I quit back in 1968 and I still consider myself a smoker. I just have not lit up since then.

ruveyn

I've never understood the dichotomy of how the government allows smoking as a legal product and activity, yet on the other hand uses tax dollars to fund anti-smoking campaigns and otherwise tries to stigmatize and restricts smokers. Actually, I do understand, I just think the whole thing is so asinine that I try and convince myself that I don't.
I happen to smoke cigars, and when I got into them it was purely as an epicurean thing, I smoke them for the same reason I drink single malt scotches or seek out exotic food, for the enjoyable flavors. The thing with cigars in particular is that I looked into the health effects when I got interested, and rather than using a government or other medical establishment source for my information, I dug into insurance company's actuarial tables instead, since to my mind they had the greatest incentive to present the worst case within reason because of their financial exposure. What I found was that to even effect my health insurance cost or produce "noticeable health effects", I'd have to smoke at least two cigars a day regularly, which anyone who smokes the things can tell you is a pretty substantial number considering that they usually take over an hour to smoke. To me, this really drove a stake through many of the more outlandish second hand smoke claims, since you'd have to pretty much live in a smoke filled room to breath in two cigars worth of smoke daily.
It just kills me when I light up a cigar outside somewhere, and some guy thirty feet away and up wind starts faking a coughing fit while glaring daggers at me, it's just ridiculous what people think is acceptable treatment of smokers. It really is one of the best modern representations of tyranny of a majority, and it just seems to get worse every day.

It is very easy to explain. Outright prohibition of tobacco will get us into the same cluster-f*ck that prohibition of alcohol and drugs gets us. The Law is scoffed, bribery and corruption abound and people will smoke regardless of what the government does. Government will be brought under even more contempt than it currently suffers.

The people in government know that any further attempts at prohibition are doomed to failure. What I wonder at is why they keep up the so-called war against drugs. It is a very lost cause.

ruveyn

jojobean

Um, yeah, it is a BIG deal. This is not a kingdom or dictatorship so laws can’t just be made up willy-nilly.
The act of “Criminalizing dealers and makers” and then “provide addiction recovery” would cost more than we can afford in money and resources. And then there’s the question of the role of government doing either in the first place.



I can see you’ve never been addicted to nicotine.



As long as there’s a demand, and there will be, then there will be a supply.



And that help is available and may be covered by healthcare insurance, depending.
Me personally I wouldn’t accept help when I went through those hellish times. It can be done cold turkey and without help because I did it. Not everyone likes help.

Learn about the war on drugs in the US and then you can see what this tobacco ban will lead to except it'll be WORSE.

Ok I can see that my point of view might be extreeme, but I have my reasons. I watched my dad drown in his own mucus for 5 years before he died because of smoking. He died a very horrible unnatrual death because of smoking and I really think that makers and sellers should be tried for murder because they put additional additives in cigarettes that make them highly addictive even more so than the niocotine its self.
I dont have my father anymore because of them.

You really don't want to do that. An awful lot of money is made by the tobacco industry - it's no coincidence that a lot of public sector pensions are invested in tobacco companies.

To be honest, the tobacco companies really should be playing hardball with the government at this venture. In Australia they're seriously proposing a law that will take their intellectual property away from them entirely, by making it illegal for them to put brand labelling on the packets. This is very dangerous.

Another reason why you don't want to make smoking illegal is that you'll be handing a massive - and harmless - industry over to organised criminals. You don't need to outright proscribe tobacco for this to happen - it's happening already in the UK with cigarette smuggling. Cigarette smuggling is generally less serious in countries where the taxes on cigarettes aren't so ridiculously high.

If you want to repeat the mistakes of American's Prohibition period, you're insane.

The best way of making something appealing is to ban it. It's been proved down the years on that one. Particularly if that thing harms no-one but the consumer over a protracted period of use.

You'd never enforce a tobacco ban, you'd hand over a once perfectly-legal industry over to organised criminal gangs (who would have no compunction about using extreme violence and intimidation), it would encourage massive rebellions against the new law - legions of people would start smoking because it's illegal and despised by government, plus you'd have the serious social consequences. No, no, no. It's a terrible idea, even if you're an anti-smoker.

My thoughts from another post in PPR:

They weren't happy that people didn't take the horrific pictures of people suffering from their choice to smoke so they to somehow make everyone, regardless of whether they smoked or not, feel a connection to this war, pushed second hand smoke as an equal killer.

I do smoke, occasionally, it tends to be after work or socially when I'm out with family or friends. I don't feel any need to smoke when I'm at home or not doing anything. I get a release, my nerves are relaxed, and I'm happy - or as happy as I would be by myself at a cafe or in my apartment on my laptop posting on WP.

I think the people behind this measure work for Chewlies Gum!

If the government illegalized smoking outright and prevented the sale and manufacture of tobacco products it would lose a lot of tax revenue.

ruveyn

I never thought of it that way, good point,

Jojo

And,a wedge issue to divide people.

Isn't it kinda funny that at the same time smokers are being graphically reminded about the possible outcomes of smoking the Govt. via BLarney Frank and some other dude are proposing to legalize Weed?

Cigarette companies have money, therefore are a target.

Now, what I'd like to see are pictures of a liver suffering from sorosis on every whiskey bottle sold in Mass. Last time I checked, no one has died from a driver having one too many cigarettes.