Alcohol is an even better example. How many lives have been lost, families and lives ruined due to alcohol abuse. Yet it is promoted as a cool thing to do and imo should've been banned a long time ago

Or they could just legalize all drugs and let people choose what they want to get fucked up on as long as they take a class on the drug explaining its dangers beforehand.

Easily solved. All drugs are legalized but and you can’t get social welfare benefits if you take drugs.

Providing for basic needs lowers the requirements to steal to both feed yourself and get the drug. There's going to be a cost somewhere for allowing people to do what they want and either way otgers will be paying.

Id rather that payment come from a flat percentage than the jewelry ive made for my lady be stolen.

or if you eat too much, or dont exercise, or dont drink enough water, or eat meat, or dont eat organic,...

People are going to take drugs regardless of legality. That's been proven already by the utter failure of the war on drugs and the massive stacks of cash cartels have.

Exactly, almost as if he forgot it was banned a long time ago.

Lol they tried that. Prohibition.

And it worked out great and certainly didn't contribute to changing the nature of law enforcement for the worse. No sir. That there Prohibition was a great and noble experiment that was clearly a rousing success.

So much of a success that it was repealed by FDR in 1933, but we all know he only did that because of the alcohol lobby.

When something becomes illegal, a criminal underground market always emerges.

You know it was banned a long time ago right?

Back in the day they didn't think it was bad for you.

So now, it's too late to try banning it outright, all they can do is slowly discourage it.

In this same context we should still be using morphine as they used to give that to "crying restless babies" back in that same ignorant day too...why are they selective in their ways to slow a slow suicide?

Was morphine use widespread for this purpose?

I don't think they're comparable in scale and influence.

It was used for toothaches headaches insomnia you name it! They literally put ANY USE on it as it was clearly not understood to be the scourge that it has become (Thanks Perdue Pharma for making that comeback happen vis a vie your replicas)

Compare tobacco use, from teens to grandparents - To medical morphine use.

Not even remotely close.

Oh I m not arguing that. If Bayer made a heroin comeback tomorrow and I knew that withdrawl wasnt going to be a thing in my future I would MOST CERTAINLY be a MVP of team Smack. However.. I dont see my government being that nice everrrr. On that same token if Philip Morris started giving away free ciggys tomorrow I would still not be a custy. NEVER EVER stinky ass cancer laden earth polluting little bastards. A TRUE SCOURGE ON THIS EARTH!!

It's the slippery slope argument: what about alcohol?; Diet Coke is bad for you, so is sugar, salt, even red meat. The argument over where to draw the line would be endless, just like it has been over drugs.

None of those things are bad in moderation, whereas cigarettes offer no nutrition and are inherently bad for our bodies.

To paraphrase Paracelsus: depending on the dosage, anything can be poison. One can live without any of those things, so they are not necessary, and as you say, in small enough dosages won't hurt. To stretch the point, I doubt that smoking, say, one cigarette a year will do much damage either.

I agree that's why I said in moderation, the things listed are also nowhere near as addictive as cigarettes are, I just don't think it really is a slippery slope.

Tell a freedom hawking, gun toting american he cant kill himself slowly with drugs and alcohol because you made up a new rule.

Lemme know how that goes.

I've lost count of how many times over the years that I've been smoking a fatty with someone in a group--and they'll say they still think it should be illegal just because! While they're smoking it.

Sola dosis facit venenum/the dose makes the poison

Everything in moderation, unless it bioaccumulates, like dimethyl mercury and lead. There are no safe amounts of either substance. Also, according to a study in the Lancet31310-2/fulltext), alcohol use should be reconsidered. I am of the opinion that if my kid can buy a gallon of gasoline that they can then huff in private until they die, why do we the people allow the War on Drugs? Prohibition should not be applied so arbitrarily.

Metallic mercury and lead do accumulate; go easy on the canned tuna! Dimethyl mercury, as far as I know, gets flushed in about a week. We baby boomers grew up with Mercurochrome and Merthiolate on our booboos.

We're stuck with the alcohol and tobacco demons because they're grandfathered into acceptability. Weed became illegal when Prohibition ended and its enforcers, Harry Anslinger in particular, found themselves out of work. The widespread use of "hard" drugs, IMHO, comes from people medicating their despair and won't abate until self-respect becomes attainable for most.

Dimethylmercury ((CH3)2Hg) is an organomercury compound. A highly reactive, flammable, and colorless liquid, dimethylmercury is one of the strongest known neurotoxins, with a quantity of less than 0.1 mL capable of inducing severe mercury poisoning, and is easily absorbed through the skin. Dimethylmercury is capable of permeating many materials, including plastic and rubber compounds.

Death of Karen Wetterhahn

Yeah, Anslinger had to do something! That department was circling the drain. What a corrupt, racist, hypocritical jackass he was. He employed Col. George Hunter White (the agent in charge of MKULTRA sub project Operation Midnight Climax) to frame and kill Billie Holiday.

Anslinger also supplied dope to one Joseph McCarthy, , on the low. Some sources say heroin, some say morphine. Heroin is diacetyl morphine -- just another form of ordinary hospital morphine. The only difference is that heroin is three times stronger by weight. One grain of heroin equals three grains of morphine. They are both converted to the same form of morphine when they enter the body, so they are medically interchangeable. Now, if you want to know why the drugs are equivalent but one is legal while the other is banned entirely, you can find the answer to that in Chapter 9 of the Consumers Union Report on Licit and Illicit Drugs.

If someone is addicted to morphine/heroin and they are not getting it from a legal source, then they are getting heroin, because the only form of the drug regularly available on the black market is heroin. Therefore, it is correct to say that someone who is addicted to one is addicted to the other -- particularly if they are not getting it from a legal source. The word "heroin" may be viewed as more inflammatory -- but only if you don't understand that the two drugs are really the same.

People are self medicating or getting high. Coping or partying. Sometimes both. They shouldn't be made criminals over it, and they shouldn't be made to believe they have a disease they are helpless against without total abstinence and higher powers.

Non-Mobile link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_Wetterhahn?wprov=sfla1

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The word "heroin" may be viewed as more inflammatory -- but only if you don't understand that the two drugs are really the same.

the two drugs aren't the same when administered intravenously, as heroin administration produces other active metabolites besides morphine, the most relevant of which is 6-MAM

quoting from the link:

Heroin is considered to be one of the most addicting drugs of abuse (Anthony et al., 1994). It does however have a low-binding affinity (Inturrisi et al., 1983; Gianutsos et al., 1986) and efficacy (Selley et al., 2001) at the μ-opioid receptors (MORs), and is believed to act mainly as a prodrug (Inturrisi et al., 1983; Gianutsos et al., 1986). Heroin is highly lipophilic and has a high apparent permeability through the blood–brain barrier (BBB) (Oldendorf et al., 1972). Thus an effective delivery of active metabolites to the brain has been used as an explanation for the highly addictive properties of heroin, where morphine customarily has been considered to be the most relevant active compound mediating heroin euphoria and reward. However, other metabolites, like 6-monoacetylmorphine (6-MAM) and morphine-6-glucuronide (M6G), also possess pharmacological activity (Way et al., 1960; Inturrisi et al., 1983; Pasternak et al., 1987; Strandberg et al., 2006) and are therefore likely to contribute to the heroin effects. The pharmacological contribution of 6-MAM after acute or chronic administration of heroin has however only to a limited extent been studied.

Andersen et al. (2009) have shown that 6-MAM reached much higher concentrations than heroin or morphine in both blood and brain after s.c. administration of heroin to mice. Moreover, the acute behavioural effects observed after heroin administration were more closely related to brain concentrations of 6-MAM than to heroin and morphine, indicating that 6-MAM was the compound mainly responsible for these effects. Subsequent pharmacokinetic analysis of these data showed that the transfer rate for heroin from blood to brain was much lower than its conversion rate to 6-MAM in blood. These results would imply that heroin was rapidly metabolized to 6-MAM and only a small fraction of the heroin dose was able to reach the brain, while the high 6-MAM concentrations in brain were merely reflecting transfer of 6-MAM formed in blood (Boix et al., 2013). Together, these observations challenge the view that morphine, formed in the brain from rapidly entering heroin, is the compound mainly responsible for the effects of heroin (Oldendorf et al., 1972; National Institute on Drug Abuse, 2005). Accordingly, they also question the generalization of numerous neurobiological studies using morphine, to also account for mechanisms involved in heroin-related effects.

Thank you for updating my information. I didn't know that. However, like the study you cited says, that's not conclusive. Not everyone injects their drugs. Heroin is often smoked and snorted. Morphine eaten by tablets. Not every opiate user graduates to heroin, and not everyone who uses graduates to a needle. I was on morphine for six years and knew heroin addicts. The IV users are still in the gutter. I'm clean for about six years and quit cold turkey.

The route of administration seems to matter some. I also wonder if the same problem when interpreting data from mouse to human has the same issue as with amphetamines. Lab mice are given large bolus doses of amphetamines, which isn't how people use recreational drugs. People build a tolerance after days of increasing the doses. Lab mice don't.

Weed became illegal when Prohibition ended and its enforcers, Harry Anslinger in particular, found themselves out of work.

This³

You don't let a suppression force like that go in the middle of a Depression, when the Bonus March military crackdown and rumblings of a 'business plot to overthrow the government' were fresh in everyone's minds. Just add a little bureaucratic inertia, boosters from Nixon, Reagan, Clinton and Jeff Sessions, and here we are!

Can you say standing army? I knew you could!

Nicotine actually has some medicinal uses. It can improve brain function and help memory retention. Cigs are full of poison but pure nicotine isn’t always bad

Nicotine patches would probably be the better option if the goals are to achieve the benefits you describe.

Have you ever used them? They suck. Smoking is way cooler and easier.

I've always found cigarette smoke repellent, but I did go through a phase of occasionally smoking cigars; relaxing, delicious, perfect for porch or fireside conversation.

Yeah I used them for about two weeks to help me quit smoking I haven't smoked since so I guess they worked.

How is smoking cigarettes easier then putting on a nicotine patch?

Soon vaping will take over. I hope they dont poison that aswell.

Bbbutt... It’s Toasted

Cigarettes have given me my quality of life back, even if it shortens it (maybe) in the long run. I have severe ulcerative colitis that no drug or course of medicine was helping with. I started smoking a few cigarettes a day and 90% of my symptoms disappeared. If you’ve never had irritable bowel disease (different and much worse than regular colitis), you wouldn’t understand what this means to a person. Cigarettes have given my life back to me. Maybe there will be another way some day but until then I am ever so grateful they exist and are legal.

Can you explain how? I’m very curious

Cigarettes are a diuretic and a vasoconstrictor. They help you poop and reduce the risk of ulcers

Somehow the cigarettes seemed to slow down my digestive system and regulated it. I see someone talks about them being diuretic, but I had the opposite problem of being in the bathroom 30 times a day with diarrhea. I tested my theory by stopping cigarettes for 2 weeks, which wasn’t hard for me to do. But the ulcerative colitis came back with a vengeance. After suffering with this for 25 years, I decided I’d risk the potential problems associated with cigarettes in exchange for a chance to live a normal life. I do understand I may experience problems, even life threatening ones, down the road as a result of cigarettes but to have even a decade of normalcy regarding the bathroom issues is well worth it to me.

I used to smoke too and that first morning cig would induce diarrhea. Even after I quit smoking I would get ibs. Going on the keto diet and removing gluten from my diet has cured me.

Have you tried the gum?

I'm glad they help you feel better absolutely, and I know you didn't say this, but their negative side effects out weigh any positive ones by a ton, in regards to the general population. I don't know your medical history obviously, but I'd assume there are medicines you could take that would give you the same benefits without the shortening of your life bit. I smoked cigarettes for about a year, quit near the beginning of this year with the help of a vape and low nicotine juice, I feel much better overall since stopping both.

Yes, I agree with your statement that for the general population, cigarettes are more dangerous than helpful by a large margin.

That's not good enough a reason to ban em

You can argue it's a slippery slope, but realistically tobacco is and always has been a medicine. What happens when we abuse opiates or amphetamines? There's a reason these forms of medication are not freely available over the counter.

Why isnt weed? It was used as a medicine for like 5k years before beung made illegal

Why isn't weed what?

Available OTC. Because the tree industry was already established.

It is available over the counter in the UK, in cbd form. Which, I think, is the most important form. It may be an unpopular opinion on the internet, but if you wish to self-medicate using psychoactives then you should continue using the black market.

The uses where thc should be freely available should be catered for as freely as possible, I.e. MS or dementia. But the majority of people who are using weed in my experience, use it as a crutch rather than a medicine.

That's pretty cool. What I mean is it was outlawed because of the tree industry. Hemo and marijuana has endless benefits.

Hemp- Clothing Fire Fuel Rope Paper Grows in 1 year.

It was a threat to so many industries the corporations lobbied the politicians to make it illegal

Marijuana can help so many diseases and syndromes. It's a huge threat to the pharmasietical companies now these studies are public. That's why it remains illegal in the USA and other countries because these companies lobby the politicians once again.

Its fucked up how it works. The 1% of the 1%control everything. Its completely wrong. They figured out the cheat code to economics and they spam it. Making them seemingly invulnerable to new ideas, and products. Or old ones in this case.

You are totally right though I've seen tons of people use it as a crutch. I wouldn't be surprised to see a statistic saying 1/3 of semi chronic/chronic users would be at the very least distressed to give it up. Psychological dependence is very real. But what medicine wouldn't be like that? I'd say most chronic users use it for those reasons. That's why i dont use it as much. It made me dull to my emotions, and more unable to control myself in stressful situations. Everyone is different though.

Because hemp can be used for things like making clothing, paper, efficient fuel for burning. It takes 1 year to grow as opposed to 50-150 for trees. But the tree industry was already established, and they wanted to protect their market. Lobbyist paid the politicians... and it was made illegal.

Also prohibition put a huge stigma around marijuana causing people to go into psychotic breaks and killing people. It was referd to as reefer madness. They also called it things like the devils lettuce.

It remains schedule 1 (highly abuseable no beneficial value) on a federal level, because it threatens the pharmaceutical companys net gain. Even meth is schedule 2, and sometimes prescribed for narcolepsy or ADHD. Why pay for this drug or that drug when weed can help with some 400 diseases, ailments, and syndromes. That's only what's been proven. They lobby politicians even today. Some 4 people out of Congress dont get money from large corporations.

So if you haven't gotten the idea... dont trust the government.

Pharma drugs are even worse for you, but easily obtainable. I've been to many groups to talk about my depression, and I'm constantly offered antidepressants.

Here I am talking about my coping methods, and they want to give me a drug. It's like going to AA to talk about sobriety, and getting offered a sixpack of beer at the end of the meeting. Wtf!

Isn't depression thought to have at least some physiological origins? If so, then the right pill might help. I ask because my knowledge of any of this is superficial. I hope you can find relief.

Thought to have. There's definitely no consensus on this. Nobody is drilling into skulls to measure neuro chemicals. Most psych meds today are prescribed by a primary care physician and not a psychiatrist.

What do the patients say?

I developed tardive akathisia, increased suicidal ideation, hair loss and weight gain from the atypical antipsychotics, antidepressants and mood stabilizer.

As a minor in school, the cocktail was different. The tricyclics killed my academic abilities and my ambition. I'm very bitter over it. I was made to take them.

Read a book called Lost Connections by Johann Hari.

Joe Rogan interviews him on his JRE podcast. There's two interviews, the most recent is the relevant one. He also interviewed a psychiatrist, Kelly Brogan. She talks about akathisia.

Watch The Emperor's New Drugs on YouTube. Its about a meta-analysis on placebos versus antidepressants and the suppression of negative studies about antidepressants.

I find relief in many things. Today I dressed in bright colors and went to a fair. Got a simple pinwheel and attached it to my backpack. It's silly, but it makes me smile.

Even if depression is biological, I can still use other things to help. Taking a drug to supposedly fix the problem seems overkill.

Congratulations! I wish you continued success.

RJ Reynolds Tobacco allegedly gave the Swedish government a presentation arguing that they should encourage, not oppose smoking because by killing people early, smoking would save the national health service the expense of treating so many citizens in their old age.

If we look at government as an agent of the people, managing group purchases with the people's money, then government has a duty to spend for the benefit of its citizens as well as to warn about various dangers. Government has no money of its own to hoard.

Population control my friend. Our world’s resources and general infrastructure cannot keep pace with our population growth.

bingo, this is the correct answer, governments 'win' by not having hordes of aged poor peoples.

poor and smoker/drinker and generally male, dead around 65.

I've read similar arguments, but actually made by serious economists/actuaries. Smokers die earlier than non-smokers, saving pensions years if not decades in pension payments. People who paid into a pension for 30 years have grown a nest egg that in many cases has no death beneficiary, and goes back into the pension pool.

And there are other add-on costs, people who live longer are just statistically more likely to get age-related chronic illnesses which are expensive to treat. Lung cancer, emphysema, heart disease are expensive to treat, but they often kill quickly. "Healthy" people with other chronic illnesses can require decades of expensive treatment.

A lot of pension plans have collapsed in the last 20 years, and much of the blame is laid on under-investment, shady accounting, "borrowing", etc, but it'd be interesting to know what effects are the byproduct of declining smoking breaking the actuarial models on lifespan which had built-in estimates on premature death which were influenced by smoking.

If smoking is so bad for you and it costs the government so much in health care, then why is it not banned?

Because smokers die younger than they otherwise would, and require less "end of life" care, they save the taxpayers money.

LONDON — Preventing obesity and smoking can save lives, but it does not save money, according to a new report.

It costs more to care for healthy people who live years longer, according to a Dutch study that counters the common perception that preventing obesity would save governments millions of dollars.

"It was a small surprise," said Pieter van Baal, an economist at the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment in the Netherlands, who led the study. "But it also makes sense. If you live longer, then you cost the health system more."

https://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/05/health/05iht-obese.1.9748884.html

In the US we have the Master Tobacco Settlement Agreement.

In 1996 46 states settled all of their Medicare cases that were cigarette caused with the major players in tobacco. In return, the tobacco industry disbanded most of their trade groupes and lobby groups, and created the "truth campaign" to push a non smoking retorect on the people.

The states receive a minimum of 26 million over 25 years, along with a percentage of the profits on every cigarette sold, above and beyond state and federal tax.

Many states, California being the best example, used that incoming windfall to bond and use the money in advance for road work, and other basic needs they didn't have a budget for.

So the states are literally towed to tobacco sales for their own income and financial good.

The truth campaign is run by big tobacco. Note they are focused on anti vape and anti juul ads nowdays.

This isn't a conspiracy it's out there if you search the master tobacco settlement agreement.

ive been skeptical about that truth campaign

the vibes it projects definitely fall into the uncanny valley for "youth centric anti-smoking campaign"

Funny thing about the subconscious, it doesn't really get negatives. So when you say, "don't smoke tobacco", it focuses on the act and hears, " smoke tobacco"

So anti tobacco ads, are a sneaky way to advertise their product.

I was always more struck my how they try so hard to be cool. Trying to hard to be cool is the antithesis of cool. This reinforces smoking being rebellious and cool.

Rebellious because we know it kills us, thus it's cool because we're doing what we're told not to do.

I meant the truth anti smoking ads are often trying too hard to be cool. Though there is an element of that on Tide pods too. The tide pod trend was tiny and declining until the media started an anti tide pod challenge campaign.

the conspiracy is that the pharmaceutical companies are lobbying against vaping because of the 95% harm reduction versus traditional tobacco products. the fda did a power grab to regulate vaping and now the pharma bros are trying to regulate the industry our of business. Over 1,000,000 jobs in the US will be lost as the result of this action.

Lobbies. The tobacco lobby, let alone the industry in general is massive. Lobbyists and corporations make a deals with law makers. "Ill contribute this amount of money to your reelection campaign, if you put this in the bill." Corporations write the laws. This is why we need money out of politics. This is why we need Trump to drain the swamp!

Will do. Thanks

FREEDOM

It amazes me how quickly people will give it up over trivial things.

We are up to about $3.5 trillion a year spent on healthcare in the USA and of that about half is spent on about 5% of the population. Most of the people in that 5% are terminally ill and going to die anyway.

The reason they keep letting people smoke and drink and promote obesity, etc... its because the industry is making a *killing*. The amount of money spent is staggering. They play games with the numbers and tax laws and tax shelters, to make it look like they are barely profitable, or they lose money. It's all lies. And they've got people convinced that if we just let them "lock in" this fantastic system with medicare for all, then it will finally be "free".... far too many people somehow think that trillions of dollars of their own money in the form of taxes is some how "free medical care". SMH.

I mean it does work in all European countries

What do you mean by “work”? The total amount spent may be somewhat less but is money the only thing that matters? They still spend incredible amounts including a ton of waste in Europe

Free healthcare

It’s not free. What makes you think it’s free?

I know but it you des like you said it's a bad System.

What's a bad system? I don't understand what you mean. European countries are not marginally cheaper overall for healthcare expenses compared with the USA by virtue of the fact that they have the government acting as a single healthcare provider proxy for the taxpayers. Its because they just have slightly less corruption. They still have created a monopolistic system where the citizens are getting ripped off and in many cases are not even allowed to make their own healthcare decisions, just stuck with whatever the government decides is best.

In the USA the single biggest difference maker is that we have the FDA granting government sanctioned monopolies for products which puts prices through the roof. That isn't going to change if we merely expand medicare.

and in many cases are not even allowed to make their own healthcare decisions, just stuck with whatever the government decides is best.

I guarantee you that that claim is utter bullshit. Private healthcare exists in those nations the same as it does in the US - if you have the money you can obtain any medical service that US private healthcare providers supply.

You still have a choice - but you get an extra choice - to obtain some form of treatment for "free".

Because of the competition from the public healthcare system, private providers are forced to lower their prices and increase the quality of their services to make choosing them a more attractive option.

That's good for poor people and the people that can afford private healthcare.

It's not good for the profit margins of private healthcare providers, though.

You have misstated the problem here. At its root the problem is corruption and cronyism. You’re talking about a false choice that the vast majority of people will be forced into. Rich people always play by their own rules. In the USA as soon as they make a law that says Medicare is for all it will completely alter the landscape and I don’t think most people realize how bad it will be.

Employers will no longer have to offer healthcare. Almost nobody (percentage wise) will be able to afford private or supplemental insurance. If you thought you saw a bit of outrage over Obamacare just wait til people realize the bill of goods being sold to them now.

My company is self-insured and if you smoke/use tobacco you gotta pay an ADDITIONAL $2400/year for insurance. Seems fair to me- their additional health concerns would otherwise jack up the costs for everyone else. I don't think it should be banned but the people smoking should definitely be footing more of the bill for their poor choices.

All the taxes on tobacco should go to tobacco related diseases.

Remember that meme about saving the bees?
"If we die, we're taking you with us."

THEY are businesses and US and WE are customer

The freedom to choose is more important I would say. In an ideal world yes cigarettes would not exist but then what about other drugs, fast food, not exercising, soda, watching too much porn etc.? Once you take away someone's free choice you're entering into 1984 territory.

Yeah I think the best approach would be education and vice taxes. You're right- that's a fundamental conflict we could go on and on about and likely can't be truly solved.

Don’t try to solve other people’s bad choices.

Because I like smoking. This isn't a conspiracy. If they made it illegal, shit, people should take up arms.

The real question is: Why are any substances banned?
The government will answer that it's because they are harmful.
But because tobacco and alcohol are not banned even though they are much more harmful than many of the banned substances, we know there must be other factors.
Here are some of them:

• The PTB know that the taxcattle (in every country), seek out substances for unwinding, relieving stress or just feeling better, so they allow certain non-mind-expanding substances (like tobacco, alcohol and caffeine) to keep the plebs from turning to mind-expanding substances (like cannabis & psychedelics). The PTB didn't choose tobacco, alcohol & caffeine. Those were already widely popular; they just chose to ban virtually everything else but them.

• Like the pharmaceutical industry and the meat & dairy industry, the tobacco and alcohol industries have weak (or non-existent) ethics, so they have no qualms about bribing judges & politicians, or flat-out planting people in political positions to write (or rewrite) laws in their favor.

• Although alcohol and tobacco are damaging to health, the political system is now so perverted and intertwined with the pharmaceutical & medical industry, that sick people can actually be more valuable to the PTB than healthy people; particularly older people who aren't very productive taxcattle any more, have already had all the kids they're going to have, are resistant to political/societal change and will soon be collecting money from the government coffers.

Why is everyone's solution to ban shit they don't like? Just let people do the shit they want to do, and if it costs the government money maybe don't pay for it.

it's not as bad as it used to be when there were smoking sections in restaurants or airplanes. today tobacco is taxed really high to discourage smoking, not to mention anti-smoking ads etc. smoking is a lot worse in other countries where anti-tobacco is less organized

You want the government to tuck you in at night as well?

smoking is there to keep population numbers low, to keep people sick, and of course the tax duty

Uhhh duh.

Place I work does research into cancer. Turned out they also have shares in cigarette companies.

Only a complete moron needs a government ban on smoking to help them stop smoking. Its not the government not caring about people, its people not caring about themselves. They would be smoking whether it was legal or not.

tobacco is good for you. makes you a man.

it is diabolical what deep soy, the pharma complex and the smoking ban has done to millennials.

they are so weesh.

Since when is banning one's freedoms, even a thought?!!

Probably since the first group of people banded together.

Is your question meant for the US or is it meant for those countries where the government pays the health care bills?

When you ban it, it will shift to illegal production.

the govt takes heaps of money from the tobacco industry + taxing tobacco products like crazy, but is still trying to minimize healthcare costs. we already know workers are replacable with fresh migrants

Relax Timmy. Some people really like smoking, like they're addicted to it or something, and they're very insistent about their right to smoke.

It’s not banned because the tobacco industry in the US is huge. Tobacco is a large reason the US was strong and rich enough to fight for independence; it was a gigantic industry for the US from the beginning. Worldwide, American tobacco is considered the best. In France and Russia they consider American tobacco cigarettes superior.

Because of the age, history, and wealth of the tobacco industry it is intertwined with the American government. The families that own these companies are powerful and vaunted in Washington.

However, their power has been waning. They are trying to diversify their investments as fewer people pick up smoking today. See the Juul.

Prohibition doesn't work. To answer your question about taxes, it doesn't matter how much health care spending is related to cigarettes for those in charge. The spending today is a result of past smoking and can't be avoided with any changes they could make. The spending tomorrow doesn't matter to them because they won't be in power then. Cutting off revenues from tobacco taxes would negatively impact them today (less spending money) with no benefit to themselves in the future, when they're out of power.

Prohibition never works lol

Well the only hard data I know is from holland where there was some research into the exact cost/benefit of this all. The [source](http://www.stoprokenvandaag.nl/tabak-roken-en-tabaksindustrie/wat-kost-roken-de-nederlands-maatsschappij/) is in Dutch but it's from a anti smoking website.

Basic numbers add up to total to a 2.4 billion loss of revenue due to lost productivity. Taxes are higher here but they produce about 2.3 billion. Then there are lower costs in health care because smokers live shorter and when they get ill it's generally terminal saving about 600 million and about 1,2 billion saved in government pensions. The industry itself adds about 230 million to the economy. Adding misc costs etc, smokers generate a net profit of about 1,5 billion for the state.

​

And smoking isn't banned because people are allowed to make bad choices. If we were just working bees the government would dictate our lives, put us in jobs to our competency to maximize productivity for the collective.

There are a lot of things that are bad for you. Look at the food and beverage industry.

This is the dumbest thought I’ve ever read.

or,... smoking, or any action I choose to take that concerns my own body, might fall under the heading of the basic human right that I own my body and isnt something we want any government messing with.

You can carry that line of reasoning to most everything the government does.

If carbon pollution is causing catastrophic global warming, outlaw global oil-powered shipping. Just use sails to move things around. All those bright lights used for adverts like in time square and vegas, get rid of 'em.

Flu kills thousands each year and costs millions in healthcare and worktime lost. So make the flu shot mandatory.

Illegal prostitution results in the trafficking of women and spread of STD's and other disease. It could be curtailed or eliminated with proper oversight and legalization.

Governments are more about control and enforced conformity than anything else; any other effects are incidental.

I like my cigarettes honestly, but there would also be a big outlast from banning it

The healthcare industry is a multi-billion dollar beast and a large chunk of that is spent towards lobbying. There are no government costs, only taxpayer costs and major profits for high-level players within the industry. And at this point damn near a quarter of our entire species is completely chemically addicted to nicotine.

You see the thing is, this whole 'cost' to the public healthcare system is just one big steaming pile of bullshit. Repeated ad fkn nauseam like most lies to drum into a believe false reality. Well that's if what Australian Liberal Democratic senator David Leyonhjelm delivered in a speech found in this link.

https://www.businessinsider.com.au/an-australian-senator-has-just-thanked-smokers-for-their-8-billion-staggering-generosity-to-the-economy-2014-10

Remember how well prohibition worked out? That's why. Ban tobacco and you crash the economy in the south and create huge revenue for organized crime.

Fact of the matter is that there's not much that can be done about lung cancer once it's diagnosed nor many patients that will last more than six months before succumbing to it.

So it's not actually a huge cost or drain at all in comparison to the taxes to be had from the sale of it and driving the price up with those taxes in the guise of discouraging addicts who'll still manage to scrimp and scrape up whatever it costs precisely because they're addicted to it. Drug dealers are drug dealers, addicted to the money to be made off it and the government is no different in that regard no matter what else it says.

While non-smokers like to bitch and complain or suggest that smokers deserve no mercy, if they had to pony up the billions or suffer the cuts if the government ever lost those revenues, they'd all be singing a very different tune.

I smoke unfiltered cigarettes, been smoking about 45 years, I'm quite getting to enjoy it these days. £12 a pack is a bit steep tho.

On the pack it says "Smoking kills". Like Jesus said, quit and eternal life is yours.

Lung cancer victims don't cost the government even a small fraction of the aged care benefits handed out for the 20-40 years that people live on for after retirement.

No one forces you to smoke you idiot. However w can people be this stupid? My god I'm never coming back to this sub. Education of 3rd graders. Wait thats offensive to 3rd graders.

Invest in the 22nd century group (ticker:xxii) <<< FIRST STEP :)

Smokers normally die earlier so cost health systems less.

And it worked out great and certainly didn't contribute to changing the nature of law enforcement for the worse. No sir. That there Prohibition was a great and noble experiment that was clearly a rousing success.

All the taxes on tobacco should go to tobacco related diseases.

Can you explain how? I’m very curious

I'm glad they help you feel better absolutely, and I know you didn't say this, but their negative side effects out weigh any positive ones by a ton, in regards to the general population. I don't know your medical history obviously, but I'd assume there are medicines you could take that would give you the same benefits without the shortening of your life bit. I smoked cigarettes for about a year, quit near the beginning of this year with the help of a vape and low nicotine juice, I feel much better overall since stopping both.

Metallic mercury and lead do accumulate; go easy on the canned tuna! Dimethyl mercury, as far as I know, gets flushed in about a week. We baby boomers grew up with Mercurochrome and Merthiolate on our booboos.

We're stuck with the alcohol and tobacco demons because they're grandfathered into acceptability. Weed became illegal when Prohibition ended and its enforcers, Harry Anslinger in particular, found themselves out of work. The widespread use of "hard" drugs, IMHO, comes from people medicating their despair and won't abate until self-respect becomes attainable for most.

Congratulations! I wish you continued success.

You have misstated the problem here. At its root the problem is corruption and cronyism. You’re talking about a false choice that the vast majority of people will be forced into. Rich people always play by their own rules. In the USA as soon as they make a law that says Medicare is for all it will completely alter the landscape and I don’t think most people realize how bad it will be.

Employers will no longer have to offer healthcare. Almost nobody (percentage wise) will be able to afford private or supplemental insurance. If you thought you saw a bit of outrage over Obamacare just wait til people realize the bill of goods being sold to them now.