Article here. Of course, they could give out free vape thingies, which can sharply curtail future smoking.
There’s some incisive journalistic commentary in that article.
Yup, it takes talent to spot unforeseen consequences like that.
If you take the long view, cigarettes themselves curtail future smoking.
I kind of like this as a serious idea, but it should be extended to much more illegal stuff. I think our attitude to risk is all backwards, we do crazy dangerous stuff when we are teenagers, and then get more and more conservative as we age. I plan to start basejumping if I make it to 90, and I’d like to be able to supplement that with a wide selection of currently illegal drugs.
Smart idea–you can use your skin as a wingsuit!
Why set the age at 100, rather than just banning the things entirely? I get that the bill would increase the age limit over a period of years, but why not make the final step a complete ban? Some kind of legal weirdness about not actually banning them entirely even if that’s the practical effect?
Democrat Richard Creagan should include marijuana smoking in HB 1509. Inhaling smoke is inhaling smoke. I wonder if that would insure, or delay, the passage of this groundbreaking bill?
Good news for organized crime now that the state’s giving them a potential new revenue stream.
Clearly burning wood in fires and burning gasoline in cars is also creating smoke for people to inhale, so it would be no false equivalence to say those things should be banned as well.
The local news today has been carrying a story about a proposed bill to lower the voting age to 16. (The local NPR affiliate doesn’t think it has legs.) I guess we like legislation that sets rules by age?
I predicted that some jurisdiction would try making smoking illegal. Won’t they ever learn? I’m sure the mobs are licking their lips. Prison industry too.
Maybe just a tongue-in-cheek publicity stunt, although by now it’s hardly a secret that they aren’t good for your health. Still, it’s pretty funny.
Works for me. Not likely to happen any time soon, but we’d all be a bit healthier if there was less smoke in the air.
It is really short sighted. You start smoking at 100, by age 105 you are drinking and at age 110 you are freebasing cocaine. It’s a damned gateway drug.
Exactly. Did they learn NOTHING from Prohibition and the “War on Drugs”? Will they make it illegal to grow your own tobacco too? If people want to smoke, they will. I’ll never understand this need that some people have to legislate what other people do to themselves.
People will be lining up to shit on Dr Creagan’s lawn. he’ll think he’s in San Francisco.
Banned? Why do you think HB 1509 is banning anything?
Vermont just passed a law taxing e-cigs at 92%. Has anything ever in history ever been taxed at a higher rate? Anyways, it’s supposed to stop kids from vaping and getting addicted to nicotine and then moving on to cigarettes. Which are legal and taxed at a much lower rate. Vermont is a narrow state, and the border of New York or New Hampshire is never far away, and NH has no sales tax at all. And then there’s the internet thingie. Yup, this plan should work not at all.
I agree that prohibition has been shown by history to be a losing idea, particularly if it is localized. But Hawaii is a small island state, and has very controlled borders, so they might could make it work. Having lived there, you come to realize that it’s like a really big small town. Everybody knows everybody and knows what they’re up to.
Regarding the legislation of what people do to themselves? That’s because there are hard dollar costs that we all bear for providing healthcare through insurance and taxes, and lost productivity due to illness and shortened lifespans. Like it or not, the intent of these kinds of laws is to mitigate costs.
Well, shootings over meth, shootings over cigarettes, it’s all the same.