Hand-rolled cigarettes are probably slightly more harmful than factory-made (because not everyone bothers with a filter, and even when they do, the filters are smaller and probably less effective due to the poor fit that arises from hand-rolling as a method of manufacture.
So therefore by the argument in the OP, we should retain the safer delivery devices (factory-made cigarettes), and ban rollies instead.
(I mean, I don’t really think that - I just think the proposal is absurd)
Just to add, in case it matters: I’m not a smoker and I don’t like smoking in general, so I don’t have any agenda to try to support the availability of tobacco products - it just seems like a ban would be quite a heavy-handed measure in controlling something that is, ultimately, a personal choice.
I don’t know what’s happening in other countries, but here in the UK, tobacco legislation means:
[ul]
[li]Smoking is prohibited in pretty much any indoor place that is accessible to people who don’t own the place. (so smokers now often stand in the open doorway and smoke there instead - better, but not perfect)[/li][li]Tobacco packaging cannot include any distinctive branding or coloration (it’s all uniform plain boxes and wrappers) and must be emblazoned with warnings about the dangers of the product[/li][li]Tobacco cannot be advertised on TV, radio, billboards, or in printed media[/li][li]Tobacco products cannot be openly displayed in shops - so they are typically concealed behind a curtain or sliding door - the customer has to know what they want and ask for it specifically.[/li][/ul]
All of this already seems pretty heavy-handed to me, but also, I don’t care all that much.
I’m an ex-smoker and I look forward to the day that cigarettes are banned. Care to throw any insults my way?
You want to cripple an industry but are unable to show how it will actually lead to a reduction in smoking. You’ll leave the feeding of one’s habit to the unsafe practice of rolling your own cigarettes. People smoke between 10 and 40 cigarettes per day typically, some nerd rolling his cigarettes in a basement isn’t going to cover that habit. It’s almost like you are a lobbyist for organized crime.
This is so arrogant and sick. I imagine cigarette shops in Chinatown will not want to be caught and will run their cigarette factories without concerns over things like the minimum wage or OSHA. Brilliant plan to have workers abused and people murdered. Bravo sir!
Considering there are no serious impediments to getting cocaine or heroin, yes that’s just about right.
Why is it always the people who do not care about the pain and suffering of America’s minorities and foreigners who want to ban addictive substances? How’s that?
The health aspect of tobacco is unique in that the delivery mechanism for the drug is probably more harmful than the drug itself. With most other drugs–such as cocaine, heroin, meth, and alcohol–the greatest health risk comes from the drug itself rather than how it gets into the body. It’s true that someone injecting may get infected, but by far the greatest negative effect is from the drug itself.
If tobacco was made illegal but nicotine was still available, I don’t see people trying to get tobacco in any significant amount. People may do it occasionally, but I don’t think they’d care all that much. If they could get legal nicotine, they would just do that.
If THC oil and dabs could be sold legally (but not leaves), how many people would seek out marijuana illegally? Why go through that effort and risk when you could get legal THC from the store down the street?
I do agree that if nicotine were made illegal, people would turn to the black market to get it. They want their drug and will get it by whatever means necessary. But I don’t think people are all that dedicated to getting it from a tobacco leaf.
Oh, I certainly do. Not sure about cigarettes, but cigar and pipe smokers smoke because they like the delivery system, not just the drug effects. Just like some people drink a fine wine or premium spirit (aged Scotch whiskey, reposado/anejo tequila, etc) for the taste, not just to get drunk.
I think this is where you are conflating cigarettes with other types of drugs and their delivery system. Taking any drug is as much the ritual as it is the euphoric effect and avoiding withdrawal, but cigarettes don’t really have much of a euphoric effect so it’s more about avoiding withdrawal and the main positive reinforcement is the ritual. On the other hand, smoking marijuana is about the ritual, the euphoric effect, and avoiding withdrawal. If I can get the euphoric effect of smoking marijuana in a vape, then I might switch because of the 3, the euphoria dominates. I can’t switch delivery mechanisms for nicotine and still get the best part of it, the ritual.
Your analogies are terrible. Cocaine and heroin are illegal, unlike tobacco. Any change in use in your hypothetical would be almost certainly be due to the change in it’s legality, and thus is irrelevant.
It wasn’t an insult, it was a factual observation based on the OP and my life experiences. I posted it because I was curious if anyone else had the same observation. Did I hit a nerve?
I would. I’m not a huge fan of concentrates, I prefer the green both for the flavor and the resulting high. I think you are overstating the effort and risk required.
What you posted was an ad hominem that the OP’s argument is an act of hypocrisy. I think it’s a cheap shot.
Why? Does it bother you that others are enjoying something you’ve chosen to avoid?
Sure, in the same way that I think methamphetamine use or huffing paint are problems.
I think about if I wanted to get marijuana. I have no clue where I would get in. In my middle-class neighborhood and tech employment, I’m unaware of anyone in my circle of friends and acquaintances who uses marijuana. That doesn’t mean they don’t use it, but if they do, they aren’t making it well known. Even though I would really enjoy using it, I don’t make any effort to get it. Certainly in some circles it would be much easier to get, but I’m not in those circles. And I’m reluctant to start asking around since I’d be concerned about any blowback.
So I relate that tobacco. If tobacco was made illegal, how many current smokers really go looking for dealers? I’m sure some would, but are the smokers I see outside my building going to start looking for dealers to illegally purchase tobacco rather than legally buying vaping fluid? I don’t think so. Just like I don’t go looking for marijuana, I don’t see many people seeing out illegal tobacco if they can get their nicotine legally.
I’m not sure how your marijuana to tobacco examples relate to each other. Even though you wouldn’t mind getting high and you have a funny feeling if you asked enough if your friends, you leave it alone because you’d rather all your friends (that don’t use marijuana) not know that you’re looking. I get that, it makes sense.
But it only applies to you and other people in your situation.
All those people that do smoke marijuana are getting it from somewhere.
If tobacco is banned but vaping isn’t, some people will quit and be done with it. Some people will switch to vaping. Some people will find black market cigarettes and it’s foolish to think they won’t just because there’s alternatives that you would choose. That’s no different than saying “I choose to do _____ and therefore everyone else will to”.
A more relatable example, IMO: A lot of people can get sex legally, but prostitution isn’t showing any signs of slowing down.
Here’s another issue. Once cigarettes are illegal, we can make it illegal to smoke them in public. Since most smoker adults (and kids) must smoke outside, since the smell is unmistakable, we can start fining people if they are caught smoking outside with a cigarette. Maybe encourage landlords to evict them and employers to terminate them after a warning.
That would reduce usage of cigarettes to near zero. Everyone would be forced to vape. You have to have a job to afford cigarettes, whether black market or not. If you are addicted to nicotine, you need your dose every hour or you start to go into withdrawal. So nearly all smokers everywhere would be forced to start vaping for most of their hits of nicotine. This would be an enormous harm reduction.
If a pack a day smoker is forced to cut back to just 1/3 of a pack of hand rolled cigarettes, smoked in secret at his own home, with the rest of the nicotine hits coming from vaping, that’s already a massive reduction in exposure to the toxic smoke.
In addition, if someone is forced to vape 2/3 of the time…and forced to really learn the ins and outs of the various vaping devices and vape fluid brands, that person will probably eventually find a pretty satisfactory brand/fluid combo. They would probably stop smoking entirely, since vaping is so convenient, except maybe for special occasions where they light one up. Still a huge reduction in harm.
Doctors measure the danger of smoking to a specific patient in “pack years”. A small number of pack years is probably not going to be the cause of that patient’s death. (not that it’s safe, just that the risk per pack-year is only modest. It’s when someone accumulates pack-decades that they are probably going to die)
It’s not an ad hominem, because I didn’t say or imply that his argument was faulty because of his personal characteristics. Had I claimed that his argument was stupid because he had problems quitting junk food or caffeine, that would be an ad hominem. I did not do that, I attacked his arguments directly.
I also didn’t call the OP a hypocrite, because from what I’ve seen in this thread, they are not. I haven’t seen them suggesting any rules that would apply to others and not themselves. I could make a case for the OP moving goalposts and making terrible comparisons, but I don’t see any hypocrisy here.
As for cheap shots, I’ll leave finding those as an exercise for the reader.
Chew & dip do not cause deaths due to second hand smoke, and all three have extremely low rate of deadly lung cancer.
Somewwere around 70% of American drank before Prohibition. In 2017 is appears that only about 15% of Americans smoke.
Allowing Vaping and smokeless tobacco products (for now) and banning cigs would be doable. Large switch to vaping, of course. But no Second hand smoke vaping deaths.
About 50000 Americans die from second hand smoke. Many are kids or seniors. Cigs must be banned.
But they kil**l 50000 **Americans a year, Murder is not allowed in a “free country”.
Killing themselves- fine. Everyone should be able to pick out which handbasket they want to go to Hell in.
As long as they do’t ban vaping, why go illegal and go to all that trouble?
So which fucking one is it? First they were banned, then just pre-rolled were banned, now we’re back to them all being banned again. Pick a fucking set of goal posts and stick to it, because this flipity-flopity bullshit argument is getting old.
Are we taking away the property rights from smokers? Even if you could get these laws passed (which you won’t) they would still have the right to smoke on their own property, and I assume could grant that right to others. There goes your near zero usage.
Also, there’s a huge big city bias here. Outside the large cities, this would be impossible to enforce. In the cities, it would fuel racial discrimination by the police, because you know that the white guys aren’t going to get hit with this hypothetical
shit near as much as the minorities. Personally, I’d buy a parking lot in a nice central location, and make a mint selling paranoid smokers a place to legally smoke while everyone else continues to ignore this law and smoke wherever.
Make no mistake, even if you could get this law passed, it would probably result in more non-smokers being exposed to smoke. If it’s just as illegal to smoke outside 20 feet away from the door as in the bathroom at a gas station, people will smoke in that gas station bathroom. With no incentive to do the right thing, people will do the easy thing.
Wrong. I was homeless and unemployed for almost a year. I still managed to smoke. Not as much as I’d liked, but I still managed. If you are desperate and willing to sell your pride, there are (mostly illegal) ways other than a job to get money, a subject on which I have nothing further to say on this board.
I’ve tried that back when I was living in a non-smoking house. I never found one. Given we had a brutal winter that year with average temps being 40 below, I was strongly motivated to find one, and I still couldn’t manage. It turns out that I’m sensitive to propylene glycol. So you see, vaping is not an option for some people, myself included.