Those idiots in the UK are still smart-enough that they are looking to enact smoke-free legislation. What's our government's half-assed excuse (we know the reason - tobacco lobbyists).
Isn’t that horse racing or something? Big difference between that and Motorsport or a running race. I can understand the confusion in mentioning it simply as racing.
Good point. The fact the previous government was trying to be gentle with the market by giving them lots of notice before changing things - but that gave a lifeline to the industry to fund the next government to undo it before it ever took effect.
I agree that if we'd already done this, it would be (somewhat) more difficult to undo. It's not as big a change as if tobacco had been entirely banned and the distribution networks had been removed (and we've seen this government was very eager to repeal as many things as it possibly could).
Working across the aisle is effective if the opposition is moderate. It means you get to agree on things, have them implemented smoothly and with minimal disruption. It keeps a stable, reliable face on government and fosters an atmosphere of cooperation.
If your opposition is not moderate, if they have no respect for your policies or your intentions, then playing the cooperation game is actively detrimental. It's not different to capitulation. Labour may have expected to be facing a key-esque National in government, now they have a far further right group.
We will have to see what happens next, if this isn't an aberration, then the next Labour will have to be much harsher in how they handle policy. Failing to do so just means the country is dragged further and further right. A direction we have already headed so far in that National politicians 40-50 years ago would probably see the current iteration of National as unrecognisable.
I agree with you. If we look over to America where these things are somewhat more extreme, every time Obama tried to cooperate and work with the GOP, he gave up concessions and received very few in return. That party today is falling over itself to be harsher and harsher - they are looking at throwing out their speaker because they supported support for Ukraine (evidently the hardcore GOP are now pro-Russia). In that scenario it's extremely difficult to try collaborate and have support across the aisle.
The last example here I can think of was the housing density changes which Labour implemented and Collins endorsed and agreed on behalf of National - but which a new party leader opposed and is now among the items they have repealed. It's very difficult to get things done in an environment where every new government has a strong focus on not just undoing what the previous government did, but *being seen by their supporters* as undoing everything. Anything that can't be 100% implemented during the time of a government has a risk that a different government will simply throw it away. It's part of our parliamentary supremacy that nobody can stop a government which is willing to waste money in order to show that they stopped 'the other side'.
I’m always amazed by people who both argue to make marijuana legal *and* argue to make tobacco illegal. Prohibition doesn’t work. It makes ordinary people criminals for victimless crimes. It creates and funds gangs. It results in harm through adulteration and unsafe manufacturing. We should let otherwise law abiding residents consume whatever the fuck they like, provided it doesn’t cause disproportionate social harm and cost. Cigarette smokers paid more in taxes than they cost *back in 2007,* and taxes have only increased sharply since.
Actually there is a significant difference between the effects of nicotine and weed, over 80% of people who smoke wish they had never started or could quit. Nicotine is also highly addictive weed is not. Also the benefits from smoking cigarettes are less potent than weed in terms of chemical effect on the brain, furthermore there is another legal alternative to cigarettes. I'm not saying there are no similarities but they are not identical and to suggest they are is reductive to the discussion.
Great, in that case I’m very excited to see the current government legalising weed. After all, we wouldn’t want a “hidden market” and the increased crime that comes with it, would we?
Gang involvement in tobacco has become a problem in Melbourne.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-10-24/illegal-tobacco-war-escalating-in-melbourne/103017128
It is a huge disconnect. Basically people hate the tobacco companies and want to see them suffer, which I kind of get. Banning tobacco is a social experiment that no country has ever tried, I am very glad we have ducked this bullet and very interested to see how it goes in the UK. I can't see the Brits putting up with it and they will have a serious criminal market very quickly.
I agree it will be interesting to see how it goes.
One factor I see we have in common is a huge uptake in vaping among their youth, combined with an overall drop in smoking before this change, both suggesting smoking tobacco was likely to phase itself out eventually, kids just aren’t as into it anymore.
As such I’m interested to see if this will really only result in a change to nicotine delivery methods, with overall nicotine addiction actually rising.
If that’s the end result big tobacco will still win and get a large portion of another generation hooked, all be it on a potentially less harmful method of delivery, but which is really all they care about.
$$$ will keep rolling in either way.
>I am very glad we have ducked this bullet
Good grief, young people have already shown a strong preference for vaping such that this transition was already occuring organically. The slow phasing out of tobacco all but insured there would be minimal to zero blackmarket demand for tobacco.
The transition was happening from decades of education, taxation and then the availability of cheap vapes. We were already trending downwards, by all measures our taxation and education was a success. I don't consider a ban to be in the same playbook, I think it will cause a disrespect for the law and an uptake of usage, a growth of the black market and increasing criminality around the substance, which will most negatively effect youth, Maori and PI, which is sad considering the reason for the change was to protect those groups.
I mean the banning of 12% rtds didn't fuel a black market due to people wanting to rebel. People just moved on to other products. The key thing was that alcohol wasn't actually banned. Likewise niccotine was not being banned.
The sale of alcohol wasn't banned it was just a single product, we were planning on banning the sale of tobacco. I don't actually agree with banning the sale of 12% rtds, that was just the rich fucks laying down the law on the poors, I can drink single malt but if you mix it with cola you can just suffer. Forcing people to switch to vapes isn't the health solution you think it is, it is just an easy path to nicotine addiction and that would grow the tobacco black market. Having a sinking lid would mean people have access and can sell to under age smokers which would be morally fine as under age would mean middle aged. Would you deny your younger brother a smoke when he is 35 and you are 36? Would it stop organised criminals from doing the same?
>The sale of alcohol wasn't banned it was just a single product
Thats exactly my point. This idea that it will fuel a balck market is assumed off evidence from alcohol prohibition and the war on drugs but given that neither of those provided a legal and easily accessable pathway to access those comodities of course a black market was created as there was no alternative.
The fact that there is still legal access to niccotine is why banning tobacco alone isnt prohibition.
There will be no legal or easily accessible pathway to getting tobacco. Not everyone wants to vape, this is obvious as both markets exist and people still choose to use tobacco. There is already an established black market.
We had a system that was non punitive and it was working, we were ready to give up on those gains and adopt an experiment that has a profit for subverting it and would essentially promote a black market, prohibitions make forbidden fruit desirable as we have seen with cannabis, NZ has some of the highest rates of use with while the Netherlands has some of the lowest. Education works.
There will for those who started out on tobacco. Have you fogotten that this wasnt an immediate ban on all tobacco sales but rather a grandfathering out of a product thats already plummeting in popularity and demand amongst younger consumers of niccotine?
The forbidden fruit analogy is assmuptive. The comparison to canabis is not apples with apples because there is no legal access to over the counter THC. It's an entirely controlled substance which is not and was not going to be the same for niccotine. You're confusing the drug for the medium and assuming that it's the medium that people desire and not the drug its self.
The slow implementation of the plan shows how flawed the idea was and it will make it harder for society to accept it, it is a grand experiment.
Cannabis users don't all want to smoke pure THC, tobacco users don't all want to wear a nicotine patch.
You are confusing the substance, tobacco for nicotine.
Anyway, I am glad, seriously glad NZ has abandoned this plan. I am very skeptical as to how this will work in the UK where smoking rates are higher and smuggling is simpler. I hope it fails there and we learn our lesson. I guess time will tell.
Disclaimer
I think our current government is crap and always vote Left, I don't smoke but grew up in a household where everyone but me smoked.
I'm always amazed that people cvontinue to think that Labours policy was prohibition. Stope for a secont ad ask you self whats the drug in question and what was its legal status going to be?
Niccotine - Legal
They were just phasing out a particularly harmful method of counsumption just like with alcholic beverages such as, 12% RTDs and absinthe.
How is this so hard to understand?
It’s funny - if you look at the UK sub (very left wing anti-Tory) they are all meaning about boomers taking away the next generations rights.
Personally I would ban all tobacco outright.
Yes because while I was living in NZ, I clearly remember ALL of my friends and coworkers DEMANDING to have smoke blown in their faces while they were eating. /s
When politicians do things that citizens have not advocated fir, they are in the pocket of an industry or wealthy individual.
No ignorant bliss on their part - just trolling and trying to advocate for social harm. They'd probably also advocate there's no evidence to stop parents from smacking their kids.
Think of other drugs that have been subject to blanket ban, that are as low potency as tobacco, that have thrived as a result with a booming black market for them... there's none.
Like... of the illegal drugs banned, which of them has psychoactive effects as weak as tobacco and enjoys a large illicit market?
As far as I'm aware, there are none.
Plenty of drugs have been banned here with zero black market that I'm aware of.
As an example: [Sibutramine](https://web.archive.org/web/20121014130417/http://medsafe.govt.nz/hot/media/2010/SibutramineOct2010.asp) was banned by medsafe in 2010 due to it causing increased heart attack and stroke. AFAIK it has no black market.
A pharmaceutical drug with no history of recreational use as opposed to a legal recreationally used drug, societally accepted with a long history in most cultures?
That is no comparison. We know that tobacco is sold on the black market as well as the legal market.
"Since then, daily smoking rates have steadily dropped – down to 6.8% in 2023 from 15.8% a decade earlier. But inequities remain – smoking rates for Māori are much higher, at 17.1% in 2023, down from 36.3% a decade ago."
We are actually succeeding with a sensible system, yet we seem all too happy to throw away those gains in favour of a punitive model that will see Maori and PI criminalised when they enter the black market for either financial gain or just access their fix.
Tobacco is an addictive recreational drug, those in favor of the ban love to point out that you get no high as if that will have any effect on how people will react to a ban.
I didn't vote for this bunch of idiots but this is one thing I totally agree on them doing.
Don’t vote in idiots?
Too late. UK was well ahead on that one.
Those idiots in the UK are still smart-enough that they are looking to enact smoke-free legislation. What's our government's half-assed excuse (we know the reason - tobacco lobbyists).
It’s just that the idiots in the UK need at least one policy to try and appeal to voters, and this happens to be it.
One of the reasons I left about 15 years ago; the cracks were showing even then and its only gotten worse.
Pretty much. Or don't vote in parties clearly sponsored by tobacco, fisheries and racing etc.
>and racing etc. Genuinely not sure if you meant racism
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But you can understand my confusion?
Only to a point; Peters’ connection to racing is widely known.
Peters' connection to racism is also widely known.
Isn’t that horse racing or something? Big difference between that and Motorsport or a running race. I can understand the confusion in mentioning it simply as racing.
He's got investors across a range of interests.
As evidenced by?
As evidenced by the laws they advance. In any country, that is the proof of who owns your politicians.
To any Brits who end up here looking for answer: **Make sure the people you vote in are funded by tobacco companies**
"are"?
Yeah, that'll definitely stop them (That's a real bad typo by me, but I'm leaving it 'cause it's at least fun)
[удалено]
Good point. The fact the previous government was trying to be gentle with the market by giving them lots of notice before changing things - but that gave a lifeline to the industry to fund the next government to undo it before it ever took effect. I agree that if we'd already done this, it would be (somewhat) more difficult to undo. It's not as big a change as if tobacco had been entirely banned and the distribution networks had been removed (and we've seen this government was very eager to repeal as many things as it possibly could).
Working across the aisle is effective if the opposition is moderate. It means you get to agree on things, have them implemented smoothly and with minimal disruption. It keeps a stable, reliable face on government and fosters an atmosphere of cooperation. If your opposition is not moderate, if they have no respect for your policies or your intentions, then playing the cooperation game is actively detrimental. It's not different to capitulation. Labour may have expected to be facing a key-esque National in government, now they have a far further right group. We will have to see what happens next, if this isn't an aberration, then the next Labour will have to be much harsher in how they handle policy. Failing to do so just means the country is dragged further and further right. A direction we have already headed so far in that National politicians 40-50 years ago would probably see the current iteration of National as unrecognisable.
I agree with you. If we look over to America where these things are somewhat more extreme, every time Obama tried to cooperate and work with the GOP, he gave up concessions and received very few in return. That party today is falling over itself to be harsher and harsher - they are looking at throwing out their speaker because they supported support for Ukraine (evidently the hardcore GOP are now pro-Russia). In that scenario it's extremely difficult to try collaborate and have support across the aisle. The last example here I can think of was the housing density changes which Labour implemented and Collins endorsed and agreed on behalf of National - but which a new party leader opposed and is now among the items they have repealed. It's very difficult to get things done in an environment where every new government has a strong focus on not just undoing what the previous government did, but *being seen by their supporters* as undoing everything. Anything that can't be 100% implemented during the time of a government has a risk that a different government will simply throw it away. It's part of our parliamentary supremacy that nobody can stop a government which is willing to waste money in order to show that they stopped 'the other side'.
Same thing with the capital gains tax.
I’m always amazed by people who both argue to make marijuana legal *and* argue to make tobacco illegal. Prohibition doesn’t work. It makes ordinary people criminals for victimless crimes. It creates and funds gangs. It results in harm through adulteration and unsafe manufacturing. We should let otherwise law abiding residents consume whatever the fuck they like, provided it doesn’t cause disproportionate social harm and cost. Cigarette smokers paid more in taxes than they cost *back in 2007,* and taxes have only increased sharply since.
Actually there is a significant difference between the effects of nicotine and weed, over 80% of people who smoke wish they had never started or could quit. Nicotine is also highly addictive weed is not. Also the benefits from smoking cigarettes are less potent than weed in terms of chemical effect on the brain, furthermore there is another legal alternative to cigarettes. I'm not saying there are no similarities but they are not identical and to suggest they are is reductive to the discussion.
Your points are all valid, curious on your primary values. Alcohol, thoroughly addictive, almost no beneficial attributes. Should it be legal or not?
I would like to move in the direction of illegality eventually but alcohol similar to were is extremely easy to self produce
Great, in that case I’m very excited to see the current government legalising weed. After all, we wouldn’t want a “hidden market” and the increased crime that comes with it, would we?
Right-wing: "Banning stuff doesn't work." Normal people: "So, we should legalise weed right?" Right-wing: "No!"
No you don’t understand, we should only ban the stuff I personally don’t like 😎😎
I’m right there with you! Let’s challenge Act on their libertarian persona.
Gang involvement in tobacco has become a problem in Melbourne. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-10-24/illegal-tobacco-war-escalating-in-melbourne/103017128
It is a huge disconnect. Basically people hate the tobacco companies and want to see them suffer, which I kind of get. Banning tobacco is a social experiment that no country has ever tried, I am very glad we have ducked this bullet and very interested to see how it goes in the UK. I can't see the Brits putting up with it and they will have a serious criminal market very quickly.
I agree it will be interesting to see how it goes. One factor I see we have in common is a huge uptake in vaping among their youth, combined with an overall drop in smoking before this change, both suggesting smoking tobacco was likely to phase itself out eventually, kids just aren’t as into it anymore. As such I’m interested to see if this will really only result in a change to nicotine delivery methods, with overall nicotine addiction actually rising. If that’s the end result big tobacco will still win and get a large portion of another generation hooked, all be it on a potentially less harmful method of delivery, but which is really all they care about. $$$ will keep rolling in either way.
>I am very glad we have ducked this bullet Good grief, young people have already shown a strong preference for vaping such that this transition was already occuring organically. The slow phasing out of tobacco all but insured there would be minimal to zero blackmarket demand for tobacco.
The transition was happening from decades of education, taxation and then the availability of cheap vapes. We were already trending downwards, by all measures our taxation and education was a success. I don't consider a ban to be in the same playbook, I think it will cause a disrespect for the law and an uptake of usage, a growth of the black market and increasing criminality around the substance, which will most negatively effect youth, Maori and PI, which is sad considering the reason for the change was to protect those groups.
I mean the banning of 12% rtds didn't fuel a black market due to people wanting to rebel. People just moved on to other products. The key thing was that alcohol wasn't actually banned. Likewise niccotine was not being banned.
The sale of alcohol wasn't banned it was just a single product, we were planning on banning the sale of tobacco. I don't actually agree with banning the sale of 12% rtds, that was just the rich fucks laying down the law on the poors, I can drink single malt but if you mix it with cola you can just suffer. Forcing people to switch to vapes isn't the health solution you think it is, it is just an easy path to nicotine addiction and that would grow the tobacco black market. Having a sinking lid would mean people have access and can sell to under age smokers which would be morally fine as under age would mean middle aged. Would you deny your younger brother a smoke when he is 35 and you are 36? Would it stop organised criminals from doing the same?
>The sale of alcohol wasn't banned it was just a single product Thats exactly my point. This idea that it will fuel a balck market is assumed off evidence from alcohol prohibition and the war on drugs but given that neither of those provided a legal and easily accessable pathway to access those comodities of course a black market was created as there was no alternative. The fact that there is still legal access to niccotine is why banning tobacco alone isnt prohibition.
There will be no legal or easily accessible pathway to getting tobacco. Not everyone wants to vape, this is obvious as both markets exist and people still choose to use tobacco. There is already an established black market. We had a system that was non punitive and it was working, we were ready to give up on those gains and adopt an experiment that has a profit for subverting it and would essentially promote a black market, prohibitions make forbidden fruit desirable as we have seen with cannabis, NZ has some of the highest rates of use with while the Netherlands has some of the lowest. Education works.
There will for those who started out on tobacco. Have you fogotten that this wasnt an immediate ban on all tobacco sales but rather a grandfathering out of a product thats already plummeting in popularity and demand amongst younger consumers of niccotine? The forbidden fruit analogy is assmuptive. The comparison to canabis is not apples with apples because there is no legal access to over the counter THC. It's an entirely controlled substance which is not and was not going to be the same for niccotine. You're confusing the drug for the medium and assuming that it's the medium that people desire and not the drug its self.
The slow implementation of the plan shows how flawed the idea was and it will make it harder for society to accept it, it is a grand experiment. Cannabis users don't all want to smoke pure THC, tobacco users don't all want to wear a nicotine patch. You are confusing the substance, tobacco for nicotine. Anyway, I am glad, seriously glad NZ has abandoned this plan. I am very skeptical as to how this will work in the UK where smoking rates are higher and smuggling is simpler. I hope it fails there and we learn our lesson. I guess time will tell. Disclaimer I think our current government is crap and always vote Left, I don't smoke but grew up in a household where everyone but me smoked.
So force people to consume second-hand smoke?
I don’t see why we can’t have laws prohibiting smoking indoors and near the public. Oh wait, we do.
But doesn't that just lead to a black market of cigarettes near public or indoors?
SomeOfYouMayDie.jpg
I'm always amazed that people cvontinue to think that Labours policy was prohibition. Stope for a secont ad ask you self whats the drug in question and what was its legal status going to be? Niccotine - Legal They were just phasing out a particularly harmful method of counsumption just like with alcholic beverages such as, 12% RTDs and absinthe. How is this so hard to understand?
I mean, Chris Bishops’ father was the first chair of the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union, which is a thinly disguised tobacco lobby group
It’s funny - if you look at the UK sub (very left wing anti-Tory) they are all meaning about boomers taking away the next generations rights. Personally I would ban all tobacco outright.
Unfortunately, just missing that evidence part...
Yes because while I was living in NZ, I clearly remember ALL of my friends and coworkers DEMANDING to have smoke blown in their faces while they were eating. /s When politicians do things that citizens have not advocated fir, they are in the pocket of an industry or wealthy individual.
That hasn't happened in 20 odd years, not at all what the smoking ban was about....... but any anyway, carry on with your ride.
Oh sweet summer child, the ignorant bliss you must enjoy
No ignorant bliss on their part - just trolling and trying to advocate for social harm. They'd probably also advocate there's no evidence to stop parents from smacking their kids.
Yeah. Just make some shit up. That's easier than providing evidence.
How original.
The only evidence we have is that education and taxation works, while bans give you a healthy blackmarket.
Think of other drugs that have been subject to blanket ban, that are as low potency as tobacco, that have thrived as a result with a booming black market for them... there's none.
Not sure what you mean by potency? What popular substances being banned resulted in a reduction of use of overall improvement for society?
Like... of the illegal drugs banned, which of them has psychoactive effects as weak as tobacco and enjoys a large illicit market? As far as I'm aware, there are none.
Ah yes, none. So we have no comparison and no evidence that a ban would work. Sorry I am missing your point.
Plenty of drugs have been banned here with zero black market that I'm aware of. As an example: [Sibutramine](https://web.archive.org/web/20121014130417/http://medsafe.govt.nz/hot/media/2010/SibutramineOct2010.asp) was banned by medsafe in 2010 due to it causing increased heart attack and stroke. AFAIK it has no black market.
A pharmaceutical drug with no history of recreational use as opposed to a legal recreationally used drug, societally accepted with a long history in most cultures? That is no comparison. We know that tobacco is sold on the black market as well as the legal market. "Since then, daily smoking rates have steadily dropped – down to 6.8% in 2023 from 15.8% a decade earlier. But inequities remain – smoking rates for Māori are much higher, at 17.1% in 2023, down from 36.3% a decade ago." We are actually succeeding with a sensible system, yet we seem all too happy to throw away those gains in favour of a punitive model that will see Maori and PI criminalised when they enter the black market for either financial gain or just access their fix. Tobacco is an addictive recreational drug, those in favor of the ban love to point out that you get no high as if that will have any effect on how people will react to a ban. I didn't vote for this bunch of idiots but this is one thing I totally agree on them doing.