Could the world be smoke free by 2040? Campaign to ban tobacco to save 1B lives

They can't stop stupid people from killing themselves from their weakness of will!
It's their choice to pollute more than others while killing themselves.

Leave people their free will!

a reply to: Martin75

As a recent ex smoker and new to the vaping style, i find this actually kind of funny that people are all against the e cig or vape pen. in 10 years since vaping became a "thing" last i knew no one had died from it. meanwhile millions of smokers have passed due to smoking related issues. i dont think the governments will do anything to ban smoking it is taxed too high and they make too much money off of it. this is probably just a smoke and mirrors type thing to cause a ruckus over here while they try and sneak something past over there.

ultimately i feel its your lungs, your body, do what you want to it. I personally enjoyed smoking even though i knew what it was doing to myself and those around me. and now that i am vaping exclusively i can actually tell a difference in my health and those around me. it just urks me to no end when people and governments like a town close to where i am at say you cannot smoke, vape or chew tobacco within 25 feet of our building.


TL ; DR let us do what we want to do to our bodies. stop regulating everything. what is next canned air (insert spaceballs canned air joke here)

a reply to: greencmp

So what you are saying is that everything inspires pushback. I think I see your point. So what do you think? Do you think it is a bad thing to discourage use of cigarettes? How are people going to know the dangers if no one tells them? Do you think that they will go out and just look them up themselves?

So if what you say is true. Then why is cigarette use at an all time low? There have to be further reasons getting people to quit. Here's an article that not only addresses your point but goes further and addresses what works.

Why Smoking Rates Are at New Lows

School education programs, for example, don’t appear to be very effective, most likely because schools are difficult places to change social norms and it is hard to do the programs well given all the other demands in the school day, he says. But educating people about the tobacco industry’s marketing efforts can have a big impact. “We now have empirical evidence that people who don’t like the tobacco industry are about five times as likely to quit, and a third to a fifth as likely to start,” he says.

Dr. Richard Hurt, a professor of medicine at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., where he directs the Nicotine Dependence Center, says that two public policies have had significant effects on smoking cessation: increasing the price of cigarettes and creating smoke-free workplaces. “They reduce the number of cigarettes that people are smoking, usually between three and five cigarettes less per day for heavier smokers,” he says, and “increase the chances of a smoker stopping smoking.” Since children can’t as easily afford cigarettes and don’t see smoking as the norm when it is banned in so many public places, these policies also “decrease the chances of your child or grandchild ever starting to smoke,” he says.

“People smoking less is a really important part of the story,” says Dr. Glantz. “The overall pattern we’re seeing, both nationally and in places like California,” where the prevalence of smoking is now down to 12 percent, “is as smoking goes down, the remaining smokers are becoming lighter smokers, intermittent smokers, or not even smoking every day. And as you smoke less and less, it becomes easier to quit.”

Looks like the restrictions on where you can smoke cigarettes is the most effective. This is promising. It shows that the compromise between outright banning and freedom of usage is the best solution. By restricting where it can be imbibed, people aren't as likely to start and it makes it easier to quit. However, by not banning it, you still allow the freedom of choice for someone to imbibe something that may not be healthy for them.

originally posted by: Asktheanimals


Odd how tobacco companies are denied freedom of speech yet alcohol companies have their ads everywhere and Congress gets all the money they want because it's "protected speech". FFS there is no consistency in their overbearing ways

Alcohol is probably the most destructive recreational drug you can take (yes, it even edges out heroin). It TOTALLY should be banned from being advertised on tv. Those stupid "Please Drink Responsibly" commercials that alcohol commercials air is just a cop out. Especially when the message appears right after a commercial showing a group of guys acting irresponsibly with alcohol in their hands.

Just imagine the social implications if alcohol was viewed like cigarettes/tobacco. Imagine all the domestic violence that would go bye-bye and DUI's/car accidents. Imagine how much lost productivity would be regained from employees not calling in sick with "Scotch flu".

It baffles me that alcohol is such a potent drug, yet we're practically encouraged at every turn to drink it -- from commercials to placement in television and movies. Fifty years ago cigarettes were like this, but slowly over the decades people have dropped the habit.

I wonder if we can do the same with booze? It's not like we live in the middle ages and the water isn't safe to drink in our industrialized countries. We don't need to worry about dying of dysentery -- which was a big reason people drank beverages with alcohol in them.

If I'm still alive in 2040 then I can tell you, without a doubt, that the world will not be smoke free.\
End of discussion.

a reply to: theMediator

???

"It's their choice to pollute more than others while killing themselves. "

Fact is the first 40 or so years of my life I walked just about everywhere I went. Most of what I own including my clothing are second or third hand! And I am sensitive to chemicals so I avoid slapping a bunch of crap on my face or wearing those pretty smells! Photographs have never been that big of a thing with me so I really had no part with all those kids getting brain cancer in Rochester because of the pollution their manufacturing plants produced. I'm wearing a coat at the moment instead of turning up the heater and enjoying the warmth that it produces!

Are you sure I pollute more than you??

and in another 40 years people will be hosting "legalise tobacco!" marches and all that stuff

a reply to: Anyafaj

As long as they legalize Marijuana, who cares?

All people die. Banning cigarettes is not going to save lives. Tobacco is a medicine, if some people do not smoke, they need Pharma drugs. Telling us that cigarettes are bad for everyone is a lie. Smoking a natural tobacco, less than a pack a day, can keep some people off of some medicines which have worse side effects than smoking.

But a lot of people benefit from not smoking, way more than those that benefit from smoking. If they force everyone to quit, one third of people will need to be put on meds for one condition or another.

A lot of medicines out there are designed with chemistry similar to the effect of chemistry in cigarettes.

originally posted by: Krazysh0t
a reply to: greencmp

So what you are saying is that everything inspires pushback. I think I see your point. So what do you think? Do you think it is a bad thing to discourage use of cigarettes? How are people going to know the dangers if no one tells them? Do you think that they will go out and just look them up themselves?

So if what you say is true. Then why is cigarette use at an all time low? There have to be further reasons getting people to quit. Here's an article that not only addresses your point but goes further and addresses what works.

Well, you can cut children's dangerous outdoor playing significantly by scaring parents into keeping their children indoors all of the time.

It is undoubtedly safer for them to not go outdoors.

You can prevent rape by insisting that women do not interact with men.

It is undeniable that that would be the safe decision.

You can make people be less obese by preventing them from acquiring food beyond a predetermined caloric content.

That is unquestionably effective at lowering obesity.

I think you get where I am going with this.

Do you have the power to enact these solutions? If you do, do you have the right to?

Whose decision is it anyway?

Is it yours?

originally posted by: MystikMushroom
Just imagine the social implications if alcohol was viewed like cigarettes/tobacco. Imagine all the domestic violence that would go bye-bye and DUI's/car accidents. Imagine how much lost productivity would be regained from employees not calling in sick with "Scotch flu".

It baffles me that alcohol is such a potent drug, yet we're practically encouraged at every turn to drink it -- from commercials to placement in television and movies. Fifty years ago cigarettes were like this, but slowly over the decades people have dropped the habit.

I wonder if we can do the same with booze? It's not like we live in the middle ages and the water isn't safe to drink in our industrialized countries. We don't need to worry about dying of dysentery -- which was a big reason people drank beverages with alcohol in them.

That was the argument that got us prohibition.

Did we repeal that amendment in error? Should we have expanded it to include fatty foods and over exercise?

a reply to: greencmp

Those aren't the same thing that I'm talking about here. Educating people to the dangers of smoking isn't forcing them not to smoke so your comparisons really don't make sense here. Even with all the education in the world, someone can still ignore it and go smoke. The only restrictions in place for smoking are where you can smoke, but you will never get me to change my mind that those restrictions are a good idea. I've felt like bar and night life has improved IMMENSELY now that you can't smoke indoors anymore.

a reply to: Krazysh0t

You can keep imagining that coercion is OK if it doesn't immediately rise to the threat of state violence.

All such illusory justifications eventually must culminate in some mechanism of force since you are talking about social engineering.

By the time you realize it, it will be too late.

The only circumstance where one may insist upon certain behavior or the preclusion to certain behavior is when visitors are on your property. In those circumstances, you may do as you please shy of committing crimes yourself.

If it does not occur on your property and you still wish to force your ideologically acceptable behavior, you must use the threat of coercive violence to achieve it which requires the intervention of the state.

To get back to the point, if you are saying that you aren't forcing behavior but, only advertising your preferred behavior, I submit that your efforts will be rewarded with an increase in the precluded behavior.

If you recognize that outcome is the likely one but continue your propaganda campaign, I would have to assume that you are intentionally promoting the opposite of your stated concern (knowingly utilizing reverse psychology).

a reply to: greencmp

I see nothing wrong with knowledge. It is up the person whether he wants to use it or not once acquired. By educating the masses to the dangers of smoking and because of that, a portion of the populace starts smoking because of resistance to being educated, that is their problem. They will have to live with that decision when they get older and don't want to smoke anymore but can't get themselves to quit (I can't count the number of people who I've met that started smoking as teenagers and by their 20's want to quit but can't). Free choice and all.

I am ALWAYS on the side of more education though. Knowledge is power and the more people informed, the better.

a reply to: Krazysh0t

As long as you are comfortable with using your own money to run the ads and for the result to be against your stated goal, by all means, go for it.

Education is something that everybody is always doing, what you are describing is more appropriately called indoctrination.

Raise the age for buying cigarettes 1 year every year,
2015 = 18
2016 =19
2017= 20
ect
ECT

By 2040 the age for buying cigarettes would be 73.

a reply to: greencmp

No, telling someone that smoking is bad for you is education. It is true. It has been confirmed by study after study after study. It isn't a random quote pulled from a hat. It is a VALID claim. You aren't lying to someone by telling them that. There is no indoctrination about it. That is unless you consider educating someone on other valid claims like evolution or tectonic plates as indoctrination as well.

a reply to: Krazysh0t

I am telling you that government is bad for you. I really believe it and I want you to agree.

Am I "educating" you?

a reply to: greencmp

Prohibition doesn't work.

Have we levied prohibition on cigarettes? Nope, but people have quit in droves -- due to how it's viewed by society now.

Just imagine if the same treatment were given to booze -- imagine how much crime would drop and how much money would be saved in health care costs.

People are going to ultimately do what they want, but if the social programming doesn't encourage them ...