The whole point is that neither the people making this law nor anyone who voted for them will ever be subject to it. That makes it much easier to do.
You grow it, cut it, hang it out to dry. It’s not rocket science.
I wonder what effect the fact that NZ is an (two) islands will have on the potential proliferation of black market tobacco.
I do realize that as a part of the modern world, neither NZ nor other island nations proved impervious to COVID, but it’s probably dramatically easier to control the inflow of large quantities of tobacco products than to identify and control a virus whose constituent particles are ≈0.1 μm in diameter.
And I know little enough about NZ culture to know what the likelihood of transgression would/will be among their citizens relative to a country like the US’s.
Will this work ? It sure depends on the definition of success, but it’ll be a fascinating experiment to watch.
And it’s worth mentioning that NZ is still one of two countries that allows Direct To Consumer advertising of prescription drugs. Kind of an interesting juxtaposition.
I suspect NZ will see a gradual rise in the ubiquity of ads for smoking cessation drugs.
Heroin doesn’t have the second hand harm that smoking does, so justifying a ban on it is a bit trickier.
But, yes, if people were on board with trying something like this to stop heroin, then I would be okay with that, too. Again, it’s better to try what is politically possible than constantly point out the flaws and never get anything done.
I actually suspect some of what you are describing is the point. I suspect this is a “foot in the door” type of legislation. Since the dual laws won’t make sense, the hope is that they’ll decide to outlaw smoking entirely.
The main downside would be the one that happened during (alcohol) Prohibition in the US: the rise of organized crime. But that would be severely weakened by the fact that you can still legally buy nicotine and people can legally buy tobacco. It would be easier for someone to either buy some vapes, or get their smokes from a proxy or by using a fake ID.
It is outlawing it completely that gives organized crime a monopoly on the substance.
No disrespect, but what?!? No secondary harm from heroin?
Also, I think we are mixing things here. Bans on smoking in public buildings are the tool used to blunt the effects of second hand smoke. A ban on smoking entirely, when alone and in your own house, only harms the person smoking and has no effect on others. We aren’t even in same league if we are starting from the proposition that banning smoking is a no-brainer but “justifying a ban” on heroin is “a bit trickier.”
I tend to agree, but as with everything else, I wish that people would just be honest up front instead of lying to people with a band aid solution that will make things worse and then make people beg to have what was theretofore not politically palatable. It is insulting to democracy.
True, very true but the marketing and branding campaigns are a real bitch
We’ve been binge watching old Perry Mason TV shows, and it is flabbergasting to see how much smoking goes on in the shows. It’s probably the single most noticeable thing that’s obviously different then (late 50s-late 60s) from now – well, that and the giNORmous cars. The other thing is how dorky the smokers look. It just doesn’t read the same to my eyes as it must have done to people back then.
IOW, I agree smoking is no longer socially acceptable or cool.
That’s sort of apples and oranges. The overwhelming majority of people drink recreationally and can take it or leave it. I’m not discounting alcoholism or its personal and societal effects, but the “average” user has no real issue from drinking. Tobacco, on the other hand, is highly addictive and almost everyone who starts using it will become a habitual user and it will take a real effort to quit.
So to say X% of use alcohol and Y% of people use tobacco is misleading because “use” in context means two different things.
While marketing and product placement in media added greatly to the coolness of it there’s still the Rebel Without a Clue coolness for kids.
It was also easier to get pot as a teenager than cigarettes.
Nobody is making cigarettes with pure tobacco. Lots of additives to make it taste better, burn evenly, etc.
They still promote NZ as being fresh, clean, active, healthy, nuclear free, etc. It is all those things, and the NZ people do embrace that image, despite maybe not living up to it themselves. I think it could make an impact, but it is just an experiment, and it may fail.
What are you basing that on? Here’s the first video I grabbed on making your own cigarettes. No additives involved.
I’ve never grown tobacco, but it’s my understanding that the drying/curing process is a bit more involved for any kind of quality end product.
If tobacco is anything like cannabis, curing really affects taste.
I smoked like, a million years ago, in high school and college. I feel like the process of getting addicted involved smoking daily for an extended period of time. I just don’t think it would have happened if smoking had been much of a bother, or if the intervals between cigarettes had been weeks instead of hours.
Wasn’t all that smoking in the shows of that time due to the tobacco companies advertising the shows and requiring not only the product be displayed in the show but actually used by the main characters?
I agree. I would think that people already addicted would be far more invested in growing their own then someone who isn’t. So creating a cutoff date for the purchase seems like a good strategy.
I tried to smoke as a teenager but inhaling it into my lungs was the opposite of fun. They made me deathly ill. I doubt I made it through an entire carton over the space of a year.
Cigars were a different matter. As an adult I liked them from day 1.
Could be, but none of the brands are shown. So it might be just Big Tobacco pushing it. It’s not any specific tobacco company.
You didn’t need to show brands in show when you had a commercial every ten minutes, often with the stars of the show, telling you the show was brought to you by the X tobacco company.
No cites.
OK then. I’ll just take your word for it.