New Zealand to ban smoking for next generation in bid to outlaw habit by 2025

[Bijan]

4 minutes ago, TheGipper said:

Do you think if the answer is as low "one", that it would be a sufficiently small number?

Do you think the supposed index case zero in the Wuhan wet market (i.e., a single transmission from a bat or pangolin to human) was a sufficiently small number to prevent a pandemic?

You're rationalizing irrational government policies.

 

This depends on the efficacy of the vaccines, the vaccination rate and the contagiousness of the disease.

Those same factors are also what matter in terms of human to human transmission.

I don't see how the math would allow the vaccine to eliminate human to human COVID but that the small number of animal to human COVID cases would make a difference.

But yes playing devil's advocate if everyone in the world had been vaccinated before that first case in the wet market and given the transmission rate of that initial variant we wouldn't have had a pandemic.

[BrightonCorgi]

30 minutes ago, Nino said:

... Make that "coming into the country officially/legally" ....

There will be a big black market and prices will go up while quality will go down ( non-tested stuff will flood NZ ).

As for drugs into S'pore - I read ALL the time about drug smugglers being sentenced to death in S'pore and it has most def NOT ended the drug trade.

Not there - not anywhere.

Narcotics are available in all countries where it is illegal, even by death.  That doesn't mean the government should give confiscation and punishment. 

 

At some point in the future, government may consider compulsory blood tests to see if you are evading policy or doing as they command. 

We are already compelling Covid tests, regardless of vaccination status. 

Segregating or isolating those with low social credit scores is the ultimate goal. 

[El Presidente]

It's New Zealand people. 

 

 

[Bijan]

On the plus side, none of us are getting any younger 

And who's to stop an old-timer from giving a smoke to a youngin.

And maybe the world will be less insane in the future 🤔

[Ites]

This is great! History has proven time after time that banning things makes people less interested in using said things.. It's a flawless approach

[TheGipper]

42 minutes ago, Bijan said:

I don't see how the math would allow the vaccine to eliminate human to human COVID

There's your hint.  It wouldn't.  We see how common COVID-19 reinfection is already.  Smallpox, measles, polio reinfection was extraordinarily rare.

Governments have sold you on the fantasy of eradication.  They do it as a justification to blame the Kulaks for their broken promises.  "If only those bad people we hate would get vaccinated, this whole thing would be over. It's all their fault!"

[Bijan]

14 minutes ago, TheGipper said:

There's your hint.  It wouldn't.  We see how common COVID-19 reinfection is already.  Smallpox, measles, polio reinfection was extraordinarily rare.

Oh ok, then I think we're agreed. At present covid is unlikely to be eradicated, in my opinion due to the nature of the disease.

I just don't think the animal cases are very relevant to the issue.

Edit: Also due to the fact that we're not likely to hit universal vaccination either, even if the vaccines are/were effective enough.

[Bijan]

As Homer Simpson once said:

"Prohibition? They tried that in the movies and it didn't work."

[Chibearsv]

3 hours ago, Bijan said:

Socialism rightly or wrongly is about making all people equal. Which can mean cutting down the rich so everyone is equally poor.

We can object to that obviously. But preventing people from doing things that are bad for them or that we think are bad for them is just nanny state busybody behavior.

Exactly. 

[gustavehenne]

Disclaimer, I work in the tobacco industry so any views are solely my own and not those of the company I work for 

There are around 1,5 billion cigarette smokers in the world today and the WHO estimates that in ten years there will still be around 1,5 billion cigarette smokers. Taking away folks' access to things such as cigarettes, booze, cigars etc. doesn't mean they won't consume, it means they will get it from other places. My worry with a blanket ban is that people will start to procure their smokes from less than genuine people - I remember hearing of people finding small shards of glass in cigarettes they had procured from a black market vendor.

Governments need to balance the need for public health (and improving this) with sensible policies that also allow people to make reasonable choices about their own lifestyle and destiny. I think that this policy is designed to be a crowd pleaser for a country that has a very low population that smokes and frankly, it goes too far given that cigarettes will be available, just not to certain demographics. As somebody said before, if you are going to ban tobacco, ban everything, not just a small portion.

Vapes, heat-not-burn and other products that aren't totally safe but safer than smoking cigarettes have been an amazing help for people to get off the smokes. In my view, the NZ government should invest more into trying alternative tobacco/vape strategies rather than trying to penalise folk that want to continue smoking. I don't think it will work, I think it's populist nonsense and is a dangerous step towards a nanny state - what next, alcohol? sugar? cars that drive over certain speeds? etc. etc.

The other paradigm would be drugs which I appreciate is a sensitive topic. Portugal is a wonderful example of where the government went the opposite way and regulated the market and broadly decriminalised usage and the data speaks for itself. Prior to that they had a full ban on drug usage and whilst that didn't drive the number up it certainly didn't help tackle the root cause of the problem. Happy to be challenged on that as I'm not as well versed on that as others but it just strikes me that penalising people and telling them what to do rarely ends with an outcome that is sought.

Utter nonsense. It will drive people into the black market and the hands of folk that really shouldn't be trusted.

[cigaraholic]

Al Capone is dancing in his grave🕺

[WLC]

Sounds a bit like the US trying to get rid of alcohol use in the early 20th century. That didnt work so well...

[Chibearsv]

They tried to ban me from buying weed and beer while I was in high school. That didn’t work either 😎

[Kaptain Karl]

6 hours ago, Greenhorn2 said:

My dad used to farm tobacco. One day he told me that I  will see fields of marijuana growing everywhere and people will be sneaking around in the woods planting tobacco if I live long enough.  I'm beginning to think he hit the nail on the head. 

LOL I love paying zero taxes on CC's here in the states. Illegal and cheap! 

[Nevrknow]

@Kaptain Karl ! First rule of cigar club? !!! 🤷

 

🤣🤣🤣

[Kaptain Karl]

10 minutes ago, Nevrknow said:

@Kaptain Karl ! First rule of cigar club? !!! 🤷

 

🤣🤣🤣

Punch the person who says NC's are better than CC's? 😁

[Nevrknow]

Just now, Kaptain Karl said:

Punch the person who says NC's are better than CC's? 😁

Nailed it! 🤣🤣🤣😎

[Fuzz]

Uhhh.... guys, the Covid vax thread is three nodes over. This is about tobacco bans.

[anacostiakat]

With Nino on this.    Also, the Libertarian in me decries these types of things.    

[mprach024]

This will make smugglers rich!  Rob should be excited!  @Elpresidente will have to change his name to El Padron

[BrightonCorgi]

One can only imagine how expensive a box of cigars will be in 10 years.  Tobacco is public enemy number one.

[djrey]

This is a fine example of what happens when a government has too much power. Sadly people continue to give up more and more freedoms every year. Governments sugar coat it by claiming its for the common good. We now see it with the new "superhero" campaign. To think differently or go against the grain and you are a threat to society. Friendly reminder that they may not be coming after something you care about today, but it certainly will be next on the docket. Many cigar smokers would sleep easy if the ban was against cigarettes, then vapes. But guess what, cigars are next. Its always easy to pick at things one by one until it all collapses. The premise is nobody will notice until its too late; divide and conquer. This applies to everything, especially recently. When you see "mandatory," everyone should be very concerned, regardless of politics. You may be next on the chopping block. 

[Chibearsv]

1 hour ago, Heels82 said:

I bet this was you in high school!  

Put a dorky ginger nerd in that car and you'd have me pegged. 🤣

[riderpride]

18 hours ago, cigaraholic said:

Al Capone is dancing in his grave🕺

Bingo.

Someone is going to get rich off of this one. Just the government losing tax revenue and diverting money to organized crime who now have all of the firearms and tobacco in the country

[porkchop]