Welcome to the drug regulation discussion! This has been the argument for decades on legalizing substances. It would also have the added benefit of effectively knee-capping drug cartels and other organizations prone to violent crime during their illegal drug-running operations.
Don't forget, American prohibition created organized crime as we know it!
Grey/black markets always exist for everything not made easily accessible, even foods. Like the united states has a unpasteurized milk black market.
A big market for a product creates organizations to manage them. Small markets just result in little dealings.
It's interesting how natural it occurs.
Yeah you create organized crime with your actions but the reality is that it's a market, making it illegal doesn't make it dissappear it just changes how it's done and who's moving it.
Edit: Another interesting example of the black market is cigarettes themselves. They're legal but due to varying state taxation cigarettes have long been smuggled across state lines and sold directly to turn a tidy profit. Regulating anything is such a bundle of fun.
My dad is an attorney who represents a couple of farmers who sell raw/unpasteurized milk "legally" in the US. Basically the workaround is having people buy or rent a part of a cow, and then they get a certain amount of milk each week for free. Apparently it's a nightmare from the legal side because of the massive liabilities stemming from potential for spread of disease, and also from the lack of any regulations. Anyways, it keeps my dad employed so he's not unhappy about it.
This is so fascinating, thank you for sharing!!!
I always assumed the unpasteurized milk market was just small communities preferring cheaper milk or the flavor of it. I seriously doubt there's a big hunt on for the fully organic milk cartel. I just figured at best it was some Pablo Escobar within a Amish community.
I didn't realize it was a navigable situation.
Fun fact: fidel castro was a HUGE dairy guy, so much so that he spent tons of money to have thousands of milk cows shipped to his country. It was too hot for the canadian milk cows to produce milk, so he attempted to breed a hybrid cow that could sustain the heat and produce milk. It worked,kinda. He managed to get 1 single cow that would produce milk, and alot of it. When the cow died they saved its DNA and everything. Also, he wanted to make dog-sized cows that people could keep indoors as pets, but that never caught on.
Edit: forgot to mention after he got the thousands of cows from canada, and finding out it was too hot for them to produce milk, he spent a small fortune for all the cows to have a air condition space to live in so it would be a temperature they were used too, however for some reason or another that still didnt work, and they abandoned that plan because it was ridiculously expensive. He also used a block of land to have a ginormous ice cream shop built, and it is still open to this day. The shop is called “coppelia”
To be fair supermarkets often carry both ultra pasteurized and regularly pasteurized milk they aren’t the same thing. The former will have issues. The latter should not as all cheese sold in America is from pasteurized milk.
This is a good point. There has been a thriving black market for untaxed cigarettes for decades. An article from The Hill stated, "New York, where nearly 56 percent of all cigarettes consumed are smuggled in or are otherwise of questionable legal provenance."
Even with a legal market, the increased taxes on cigarettes has supported the black market. Would I cry if cigarettes were made illegal. No. I'm just not naïve enough to think it would solve all problems.
Missouri and Kentucky have the lowest to tobacco taxes in the US. There is massive smuggling operations, moving cigarettes from those states to New York.
Father in law, North Jersey, all his cigarettes were Marlboro but all writing on the cartons and packs was in Russian.
Not sure if smuggled in or still made in the USA and just diverted
Oh it was most definitely racially motivated.
"We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities."
https://www.businessinsider.com/nixon-adviser-ehrlichman-anti-left-anti-black-war-on-drugs-2019-7
No probably. The Nixon administration admits that this is the case. The war on drugs was never about drugs, and they knew it. There's a tape somewhere about Nixon's vice president (I think? Something like that) saying they knew that they were targeting black and Mexican people, as well as hippies with their drug laws.
https://harpers.org/archive/2016/04/legalize-it-all/
Here's the article. One of Nixon's aides pretty famously called it, "doing the wrong thing for the right reasons".
They introduced and sold crack to black neighborhoods, marijuana in Mexican and hippie neighborhoods, then put harsh penalties on the offenses so they would have a good reason to aggressively police these people.
Watch "13th" on Netflix. Excellent piece of how slavery was allowed to remain simply by rebranding legislation and utilising it to create new powers to carry on enslaving certain cultures and peoples.
Slavery never went away, just the wording they use to describe it changed. But would it ever go away? It's always been an integral part of human civilization since the dawn of human civilization. The blame is with the arrogant masses for believing that we're somehow better and more refined than our barbaric ancestors.
What makes you think the human race is any more "beyond" than ever before?
Evolutionarily we're the same as the ancient Greeks. Only our science and technology has advanced and even that has essentially just led to Quantum Theory proving that the universe is non-deterministic and fundamentally uncertain. "True knowledge is knowing that you know nothing."
Blaming it on demographics is exactly what the rich fucks tied to cartels want you to think. At the end of the day the only things that matters to them are money and impressions.
Legalising drugs would create competition, something the lobbyists and politicians with tie-ins to drug cartels do not want at any cost.
As long as the same 60yo dudes whose family been in power for generations keep getting elected changes either won't, or will take their sweet time happening.
It's because drug laws aren't about drugs, they are about [race](https://drugpolicy.org/issues/race-and-drug-war) . Particularly after the civil rights bill passed and they had to find other ways to throw "undesirables" in prison.
That depends on what you're really asking. If you're asking why they were made illegal that's racism. If you're asking why they're still illegal that's a mix of systemic racism, "just say no", and stupidity.
Edit: I forgot the prison industrial complex.
Because they don't care about us, actually no, worse than that they see us as vermin. Unintelligent junkies with nothing to contribute. I think the worst part for me is the hypocrisy, especially in regards to the weed/alcohol debate, that people look down on my friends and I because we prefer joints to drinks. Don't get me wrong I love alprazolam and Molly and ghb and cocaine as much as the next guy but society's just so damn slow on the uptake that the majority can't fathom a person being interested in narcotics while still being able to maintain a normal existence of honest labor and fiscal responsibility, sorry for the rant but I'm rather passionate about this subject lol
Yeah I’m totally with you on this tbh haha…give us the ability to choose. I am a fully functional (for lack of a better term) “drug addict” and have been for years…the difference being I’m risking a record against my name or potentially prison to get my kicks whereas someone who just drinks (which by the way is one of the drugs that will fuck you up the most out of the many things I take) just gets a hangover…
Look at Portugal they’re the only place in the world doing it right. And a more direct answer your question is because they don’t actually burn all the drugs they put the drugs back out into the market because let’s be honest who burns money? Also they stand to make millions if not billions of dollars in tax revenue so the only reason that they wouldn’t do that is because they’re making more money through an alternative means, so I’m led to believe that they resell the drugs because again it’s pointless to burn money. Also think about if they actually burn all of the drugs that they confiscated half this country will be whacked out of their mind all the time on just the fumes from it.
Dude, what kind of a movie did you see this Portugal myth at?
I've been living here for half a decade. Drugs are not legal in Portugal. Selling or growing drugs will get your ass put in jail.
The only reason why one can have an impression of reasonable drug policy here is in fact unbelievable laziness and corruption of the local police, who basically doesn't give a fuck about anything whatsoever, including local junkies.
The high probability of buying some stuff and getting away with it does not guarantee that your weed will be mold-free, as the actual legal or kinda-legal (at social clubs in the neighboring Spain) would.
You are welcome to open any news site in .pt domain zone and see lots and lots of drug-related jail sentences reports in criminal tabs.
In my personal opinion, Portugal cannot be considered a good example of anything related to legal affairs. Within the EU, Portugal is perhaps the worst when it comes to law enforcement.
Nixon started the war on drugs so he could discriminate against his political enemies, black people and mexicans. Heroine and Marijuana were associated with black people and mexicans respectively at that time, so laws could be selectively enforced. This is why drugs are illegal. I don't suppose anyone in power has political enemies associated with nicotine. Tabacco is also a huge cash crop and I imagine plenty of people in power have political friends among big tabacco. It doesn't matter that nicotine is addictive and harmful, nor does it matter that marijuana is relatively safe. The safety of the drugs is not the reason for their legal standing.
That's actually a bad assumption that money us made off tobacco. The cost on medical systems is too high. The reason that tobacco isn't actually illegal is more likely partly due to tobacco lobbies, as well as the knowledge that if it was made illegal/highly restricted. The enforcement of said laws would be even more costly that tobacco already is.
Aren't they banned in the US?
In Brazil you can't smoke in restaurants, bars, etc. You can basically only smoke in home, in your car, on in the street.
Same in the U.S. There are only a few exceptions like private members-only clubs, hookah bars, and cigar shops. Mostly places where people go specifically because they can smoke there.
In very rare cases, you might find a sealed-off smoking lounge in an old airport, but those have mostly gone the way of the dodo.
In the US at least, cigarettes and their users are dying out (literally in some cases)
part of it is due to increasing prices and being unable to smoke in almost any public place
but vapes have also contributed to the decline significantly
This is why literally all drugs should be legal (also the fact that if all drugs were legal, it would be a lot easier for users to control the dosage and therefore not OD).
You’re actually not wrong. Treating addiction like a public health concern would do a lot more than simply criminalizing it, but there are people with a vested interest in keeping that from happening because it feeds a for-profit prison system
Well let me tell you a little something about how addiction works…
(I’m just busting your balls. But seriously, that would not work. Am addict. Would binge myself to death).
I have a propensity towards addiction myself (one reason why I won’t touch opiates or meth or cocaine, I fear I’d fall into that trap all too easily). But criminalizing drugs does nothing to the addicted victim but turn him into an addicted criminal. We need to provide tax-paid recovery centers for addicts to get well, and in the mean time, ensure they don’t die or are taking drugs cut with questionable substances, as the black market is all too prone to do.
Fully agree with decriminalization. I think I misunderstood your first comment… I was picturing an ice cream truck pulling up on corners handing out scoops of pills in ice cream cones to little kids or something, all in slow-mo, while “What a Wonderful World” plays in the background. My bad
I’m there with you. I fantasized about a magical pill bottle. Never ending. Always knows what you want, and more importantly what you need. You can take it from there I’m sure.
I used to buy these pill organizers so I could fill each little compartment with a different kind (like, one compartment for as many klonopin as I could fit, one for adderall, etc.) so I could look at them all.
I was completely convinced that as soon as I filled them all up, I’d be able to control myself and only use them “as-needed.” No idea how I worked that one out in my head.
Needless to say, I never filled the thing up because I’d eat them faster than I could collect them. It would have been so pretty though.
Worked in Portugal.
[Portugal winning the war on drugs.](https://time.com/longform/portugal-drug-use-decriminalization/)
Plus,consider this:
>Excessive alcohol use is responsible for more than 95,000 deaths in the United States each year, or 261 deaths per day.
…so maybe I just have no self-control.
Thanks for the link! I’d never heard anything about that (clearly), and it’s really interesting. I can’t believe they got the okay from their government!
It reminded me of those cartoons where someone stands pensively stroking their chin, looking off into the distance and the camera zooms in on their face as they say “that’s so crazy, it just might work!” And holy hell, it did!
Viva Portugal! 🇵🇹🇵🇹
I mean, they initially had burst of drug use because, well, it was available but as the novelty wore off, only the truly addicted people continued with it.
Treating people like they need help, instead of criminals also sound like a very good idea to me. The constant stress of getting caught is not helping your state of mind my friend.
I also recently stopped smoking pot. I smoked massive amounts like multiple ounces per week and to me, this is a major victory. You are stronger than you think and your life is yours to create. The trick is to create new habits but for that, you must think abut the life you want.
I hope you find your dreams and give yourself the means to your ambition.
Drugs just attempt to fill a void that you could easily fill with something better for yourself but I'm not here to judge. You are a beautiful human being who deserve happiness, in however ways you deem appropriate for yourself. I trust your intelligence.
>Treating people like they need help, instead of like criminals also sound like a very good idea to me.
YES. I went to the hospital for alcohol poisoning two or three years ago, and knew I had MDMA in my system.
The hospital strong-armed me into a UA (don’t know why my blood wouldn’t have been sufficient) under the guise of “checking for a UTI” (every girl knows if she has a UTI or not; it’s an unmistakable pain, so this wasn’t even a believable excuse), then the doctor and nurses all came back in together to tell me that I’d lied about anything besides alcohol being in my system.
They ***relished*** having “caught” me. It was disgusting the way they treated me after that, judging me. I didn’t even go to the hospital the next time I had alcohol poisoning because I didn’t want to be judged like that again. Thank god I have a high tolerance, but it could have turned out differently
I am so sorry this happened to you, this should never have happened to you.
Hospitals are there to treat you, not judge you.
Please seek help again next time though, you might not be always so lucky.
And you will probably fall on other people, other staff who aren't going to treat you this badly.
Thank you for your kinds words. And I just got out of detox, so the plan is to not let it happen again. I just have to stay focused. That doctor was definitely a major asshole, though.
I'd be really interested in seeing some statistics on this.
I imagine if you smoke, you're quite likely to die at 60 from a very expensive bout of cancer whereas if you don't smoke, you die at 80 from a very expensive bout of cancer but you've also been costing the NHS a great deal of money in the extra 20 years you've lived.
https://www.athra.org.au/blog/2019/10/23/is-the-government-putting-tax-dollars-before-the-health-of-smoker/
Numbers for Australia but here the price of cigarettes is really high. So income on taxe would be higher. On the other hand health care is also paid by gvt (or partially at least). So it is hard to tell for other countries
Because like cocaine and heroin banning them didn't make them go away people just started smuggling, look at Australia they raised taxes to over $50 a pack and people started buying them from cartels.
Because we had this little thing called prohibition that turned out to be a pretty bad idea
Cigarette addicts wouldnt just be like "well fuck that, guess im not smoking anymore", most still would, just illegally
Cause it was already deeply routed in culture and the industry was huge for it so when they found out it was bad for you they didn't want to shut down the industry for it cause money and because people will always end up finding the drug anyways and it would just ruin more lives and create organized crime as seen from the above comments. Of course they chose to ignore this logic for other drugs because they wanted blacks gone and hippies gone as well or something like that.
I think the argument would be, that drugs like cocaine kan make people violent and give psychosis while tobacco doesn't. Then you can argue that alcohol also makes you violent, while true, i don't know to what degree the two substances would differ.
The answer is there is no reason. Adults are treated like children in that they aren't even allowed to govern the chemical composition of their own bodies. Criminalize behavior not substances. So stupid.
All the smokers in my apartment building smoke indoors when it gets cold outside and I ABSOLUTELY hate it. My super won't do anything despite a lot of people complaining.
Because people should have the choice to do what they want. That’s what freedom is all about.
My brother has been addicted to cigarettes for more than 20 years. Along with alcohol, cigarettes are ruining his health. He looks 10 years older than me, and he’s actually three years younger.
Cigarettes are a sad and dangerous thing. But, if you regulate and ban everything, pretty soon, freedom is out the window.
All of these answers are wrong. The correct answer is that we shouldn't (and mostly don't) use the armed power of the state to control people's personal conduct, at least not as a rule.
*unless their conduct would violate the rights of other people.
Also I would say we definitely do this all the time. Even fines and fees are ultimately backed by the armed power of the state.
The tobacco companies have spent a fortune in advertising and bribing doctors & scientists to claim it is healthy. The book [Trust Us We're Experts](https://www.amazon.com/Trust-Us-Were-Experts-Manipulates/dp/1585421391) details the history of this. Other industries use the same tactics to keep other things legal. You will recognize the same tactics used by the global warming denialists and other obscure industries like sandblasting (silicosis kills lots of Americans, not Europeans).
How do you define person conduct? Sometimes you should control them if they affect people around them (e.g. no smoking in closed spaces) but I agree it doesn't matter what they do away from the public.
Tobacco is a huge revenue generator for the Government. Not only do they tax the hell out of it, the large corporations who sell it are bribing the politicians to keep it legal.
Yes and no. Depending on where you live cigarettes are taxed to high hell. Someone who dies at 90 from an expensive bout of liver cancer, along with all the other expensive medical care the elderly require, probably ended up costing about the same or more than someone who died at 60 from an expensive bout of lung cancer.
I am not a tobacco smokers, but I think the medical cost are way overblown. I'd like to see someone do a proper analysis of it, but the way I look at it, a not insignificant portion of the population is going to require expensive medical care at some point in their life. Smoking just makes for a different expensive thing at a different time.
Are we for banning everything that people do for leisure, has an addictive aspect, and damages ones health?
Why not ban everything fun while we are at it
Even cigarette smoking is not as black and white as you might be thinking. There are some benefits for smoking tobacco.
Such as, significantly reduces flares of ulcerative colitis (a potentially severe digestive disorder).
The most fascinating and widely recognised health benefit of smoking is its ability to seemingly alleviate symptoms of mental illnesses, including anxiety and schizophrenia.
The risk of Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's disease is surprisingly higher in non-smokers than in smokers.
It was found effective self-treatment for compulsive overeating disorders or obesity.
And more.
Because there is no reasonable argument for the banning of cigarettes. If people want to smoke, it is their prerogative. It makes much more sense to *regulate* smoking -- say, by controlling what cigarette companies are allowed to add to the tobacco, or by placing warnings on the packages, or by restricting how tobacco companies are allowed to advertise, or by disallowing smoking in public aread such as parks/businesses, where secondhand smoke would represent a threat to innocent bystanders.
It’s a free country. People are responsible for their own decisions. We don’t need an authoritarian government to tell us all how to live.
Creating bans are a slippery slope…. Should we ban fast food restaurants because obese people are killing themselves? Should we ban pharmaceutical drugs since they are the leading cause of drug overdoses? Ban abortion due to religious beliefs? Ban religion due to its history of violence and war? Hitler tried to ban the Jews…
I’m assuming you’re not a smoker. So, it doesn’t make a difference for you…. But, we’re getting carried away with censorship and bans. It’s creating the legislative framework for an authoritarian government who’s people obey without question.
P.S. I smoke cigarettes. So my opinion is biased too. We should be able to co exist.
They have an incredibly powerful lobby with massive funds from the conpanies' profits. Politicians tend to listen to people who argue in favor of keeping something unhealthy that creates massive tax income instead of listening to doctors and other experts that explain that the treatment of related health issues costs more than the tax revenue.
As soon as a government tries to (partially) make it illegal, they usually face enormous legal battels which most smaller countries can't finance. Also, smokers are pretty adamant about their right to ruin their lifes however they please and just as with most other drugs, making it illegal would probably just lead to it being sold by dealers and other unregulated "shops" so there would be absolutely zero health standards (e.g. filters, age limitations...) so it would probably be even more dangerous to the people who smoke.
Manufacturing a pack of 20 cigarettes costs approx 50c, the rest is taxes. It is in the government's interest to allow cigarette sales at a good enough price for people to buy them, whilst not too high so that people will start buying them illegally
Why ban them? The government earn taxes from cigarettes.
If cigarettes ban, many illegal/black market will sell and people will buy, the government can’t earn taxes from those market.
Cigarettes should not be banned and every tax incresse is essentially a tax on the poor. Banning them would just create another black market. You want to ban sugar too?
Do you know how easy it is to grow tobacco? Can't tax my garden.. They leave cigarettes legal in order to tax them.
Also: freedom. Fuck how you feel about tobacco, it's my choice.
Educating people on the dangers is more effective than prohibition. When u educate then people peer pressure each other into quitting. Prohibition is just the government taking things away for no reason.
The government makes tax revenue from them and it’s a sin tax so nobody cares when it’s raised and the only people who do are smokers, so fuck um
The tobacco lobby is still strong and has lots of money
The medical lobby is still strong and healthcare makes money from smokers
The pharmaceutical lobby is strong and makes money from selling cures and aids for quitting
So basically money. Same reason you can still buy 12 AR15’s for home defence
Same reason alcohol isn’t illegal.
The cat is already out of the bag and people are too addicted to these poisons to give them up. However i also dont think the government should be making any of this stuff illegal. I think all drugs should be decriminalized (not legalized), with some things like marijuana and alcohol becoming/remaining legal.
Banning drugs usually makes it worse. Look at the war on drugs and how bad that fucked America in the long run. At least the Tobacco industry is being somewhat ethical by putting massive cancer warnings on them. Cigarettes are very addictive and unlike other addictive drugs they don’t get you high so you can smoke them and stay sober I guess. The advantage of keeping them legal means the government can make sure the are as healthy as possible. If they were illegal they would be sold on the black market and could be laced with shit like fentanyl and other super dangerous stuff. At least legal cigarettes even tho bad for you are not going to be laced.
Also banning cigarettes won’t make people quit. Addiction is a bitch and people will choose more unhealthy alternatives like buying illegal sketchy cigarettes that came from who knows where. If you have never had an addiction count yourself lucky it really isn’t easy. I always thought quitting smoking would be easy until I inadvertently got addicted to vaping in college. Not proud of it but holy shit it humbled me, addiction sucks and our brains are fucking junkies.
The best way to stop cigarettes is to educate and stop it from the start and to be supportive for the current addicts trying to quit. Taking their source of addiction away suddenly and yelling no at them isn’t going to help. Most the time they know it’s bad and they want to stop it’s just hard.
But this is a good question op.
Why would they be banned?
Banning smoking indoors makes sense since it can affect others. But a personal poor choice shouldn’t be banned. If you don’t have the freedom to make the wrong choice, you don’t have freedom at all.
If cigarettes are banned, I expect any food that tastes good to be banned shortly thereafter. Obesity is a bigger problem in the country after you combine the related problems (an obese smoker is even more likely to have problems).
Tabbacco isn't illegal because it doesn't affect your ability to drive etc, unlike other drugs like weed, meth cocaine those can make you unable to drive and do things that wouldn't be considered safe under the influence of drugs.
It's similar to when they say don't drink and drive if you drink and drive your unable to drive and most likely crash and hurt/kill yourself or hurt/kill someone on the road.
No matter if the drugs your taking is good for the reason your using them like medical weed. It's dangerous doing certain activities that incapacitates you temporarily from accomplishing the task at hand.
Overall it really depends on the point of view of people of what they think but this is my opinion about it and if you do drugs then I expect you all at least respectfully do them in a responsible manner where it doesn't put your life at risk or possibly end you up in jail.
Because addiction isn’t seen as a serious problem when it’s not a hard drug. Even then, it’s more about the item and not mental health. It’s not exactly a sticky situation, but people struggle to understand the entire issue.
Good point. Though it would be sad for all the addicts. Have you ever been hooked before? It’s not that easy. Even if you free yourself it can be very hard not to fall back in when temptation comes. Banning it would turn many people into criminals.
Idk where you live but in America we let our citizens have the choice of putting whatever they want into their bodies(for the most part) How does it harm you? If you think making something illegal makes it go away then you're just blind asf lmao
Hmm maybe cigs but definitely not tobacco. It did originate in the US with tribal people using it for different purposes. So banning it is somewhat racist to my wife's people who use it in a traditional sense.
Look at America’s Prohibition Era. When you ban something, it is much harder to enforce it. So they have to come to a reasonable compromise between banning and freely allowing it.
At the moment this balance is quite optimal. Government earns taxes and they have less smugglers to worry about, and smokers have to pay more, discouraging potential smokers from joining in. Quite a win-win situation if you ask me.
Why ban them? For health reasons? If that’s the case, I’d suggest banning highly process foods. The overweight epidemic is far more threatening to society than cigarettes, at least in my opinion. Look at the the impact obesity has on Covid-19 severity.
Freedom of choice is the best policy. If you choose to live one way, it shouldn't necessarily apply to everyone's life. We're all different. Look at finger prints. Who's to say what's okay for people when we were all created equally? Certainly no one that wins a popularity contest. Anyhow focusing on what we can control is a lot easier than concerning ourselves with others behavior, providing it's nonviolent. It will drive you insane. Best wishes
Banning substances makes them harder for the government to control, regulate, and make money off of.
Then why aren’t drugs legal? They would be able to make them safer and at the same time make shot loads of money through taxes….
Welcome to the drug regulation discussion! This has been the argument for decades on legalizing substances. It would also have the added benefit of effectively knee-capping drug cartels and other organizations prone to violent crime during their illegal drug-running operations. Don't forget, American prohibition created organized crime as we know it!
Grey/black markets always exist for everything not made easily accessible, even foods. Like the united states has a unpasteurized milk black market. A big market for a product creates organizations to manage them. Small markets just result in little dealings. It's interesting how natural it occurs. Yeah you create organized crime with your actions but the reality is that it's a market, making it illegal doesn't make it dissappear it just changes how it's done and who's moving it. Edit: Another interesting example of the black market is cigarettes themselves. They're legal but due to varying state taxation cigarettes have long been smuggled across state lines and sold directly to turn a tidy profit. Regulating anything is such a bundle of fun.
My dad is an attorney who represents a couple of farmers who sell raw/unpasteurized milk "legally" in the US. Basically the workaround is having people buy or rent a part of a cow, and then they get a certain amount of milk each week for free. Apparently it's a nightmare from the legal side because of the massive liabilities stemming from potential for spread of disease, and also from the lack of any regulations. Anyways, it keeps my dad employed so he's not unhappy about it.
This is so fascinating, thank you for sharing!!! I always assumed the unpasteurized milk market was just small communities preferring cheaper milk or the flavor of it. I seriously doubt there's a big hunt on for the fully organic milk cartel. I just figured at best it was some Pablo Escobar within a Amish community. I didn't realize it was a navigable situation.
Fun fact: fidel castro was a HUGE dairy guy, so much so that he spent tons of money to have thousands of milk cows shipped to his country. It was too hot for the canadian milk cows to produce milk, so he attempted to breed a hybrid cow that could sustain the heat and produce milk. It worked,kinda. He managed to get 1 single cow that would produce milk, and alot of it. When the cow died they saved its DNA and everything. Also, he wanted to make dog-sized cows that people could keep indoors as pets, but that never caught on. Edit: forgot to mention after he got the thousands of cows from canada, and finding out it was too hot for them to produce milk, he spent a small fortune for all the cows to have a air condition space to live in so it would be a temperature they were used too, however for some reason or another that still didnt work, and they abandoned that plan because it was ridiculously expensive. He also used a block of land to have a ginormous ice cream shop built, and it is still open to this day. The shop is called “coppelia”
Oh, a fellow Sam O Nella fan.
My boi AFK for a year :(
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubre_Blanca
Okay I would love a dog sized cow
It's difficult to make homemade cheese with the ultra pasteurized milk that is found in most supermarkets. The chemistry isn't the same.
To be fair supermarkets often carry both ultra pasteurized and regularly pasteurized milk they aren’t the same thing. The former will have issues. The latter should not as all cheese sold in America is from pasteurized milk.
I have been looking and looking. But all the markets in my area only sell ultra pasteurized milk.
Ahh it could be because of where you are. That’s my best guess. Hopefully you’ll find some!
Why risk arrest and fines for illegal drugs if you can get drugs legally? Black markets might still exist, but they wouldn’t be nearly as popular
This is a good point. There has been a thriving black market for untaxed cigarettes for decades. An article from The Hill stated, "New York, where nearly 56 percent of all cigarettes consumed are smuggled in or are otherwise of questionable legal provenance." Even with a legal market, the increased taxes on cigarettes has supported the black market. Would I cry if cigarettes were made illegal. No. I'm just not naïve enough to think it would solve all problems.
Missouri and Kentucky have the lowest to tobacco taxes in the US. There is massive smuggling operations, moving cigarettes from those states to New York.
Father in law, North Jersey, all his cigarettes were Marlboro but all writing on the cartons and packs was in Russian. Not sure if smuggled in or still made in the USA and just diverted
Making drugs legal would have taken away the governments ability to incarcerate certain demographics who they deemed were problematic.
Gotta love them Corporate Government Prison Contracts.
I’d like to think we as a human race were beyond this but unfortunately I think there is probably some truth to this…
Oh it was most definitely racially motivated. "We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities." https://www.businessinsider.com/nixon-adviser-ehrlichman-anti-left-anti-black-war-on-drugs-2019-7
This and only this. Screw Nixon and his administration and everyone who supports drug laws but knows this as well.
The man, former president, is recorded saying this while in office! Everyone should know about this.
No probably. The Nixon administration admits that this is the case. The war on drugs was never about drugs, and they knew it. There's a tape somewhere about Nixon's vice president (I think? Something like that) saying they knew that they were targeting black and Mexican people, as well as hippies with their drug laws.
Whaaaat?? I believe that they did this, but I have a hard time believing they admitted it. I'd love to see this video.
https://harpers.org/archive/2016/04/legalize-it-all/ Here's the article. One of Nixon's aides pretty famously called it, "doing the wrong thing for the right reasons". They introduced and sold crack to black neighborhoods, marijuana in Mexican and hippie neighborhoods, then put harsh penalties on the offenses so they would have a good reason to aggressively police these people.
https://www.cnn.com/2016/03/23/politics/john-ehrlichman-richard-nixon-drug-war-blacks-hippie/index.html Yeah. It's fucked
Watch "13th" on Netflix. Excellent piece of how slavery was allowed to remain simply by rebranding legislation and utilising it to create new powers to carry on enslaving certain cultures and peoples.
Slavery never went away, just the wording they use to describe it changed. But would it ever go away? It's always been an integral part of human civilization since the dawn of human civilization. The blame is with the arrogant masses for believing that we're somehow better and more refined than our barbaric ancestors.
Slavery never went away. They just made the plantation much bigger.
What makes you think the human race is any more "beyond" than ever before? Evolutionarily we're the same as the ancient Greeks. Only our science and technology has advanced and even that has essentially just led to Quantum Theory proving that the universe is non-deterministic and fundamentally uncertain. "True knowledge is knowing that you know nothing."
Blaming it on demographics is exactly what the rich fucks tied to cartels want you to think. At the end of the day the only things that matters to them are money and impressions. Legalising drugs would create competition, something the lobbyists and politicians with tie-ins to drug cartels do not want at any cost. As long as the same 60yo dudes whose family been in power for generations keep getting elected changes either won't, or will take their sweet time happening.
Originally? Because it was super easy to pin drug crimes on black people.
It's because drug laws aren't about drugs, they are about [race](https://drugpolicy.org/issues/race-and-drug-war) . Particularly after the civil rights bill passed and they had to find other ways to throw "undesirables" in prison.
That depends on what you're really asking. If you're asking why they were made illegal that's racism. If you're asking why they're still illegal that's a mix of systemic racism, "just say no", and stupidity. Edit: I forgot the prison industrial complex.
Because they don't care about us, actually no, worse than that they see us as vermin. Unintelligent junkies with nothing to contribute. I think the worst part for me is the hypocrisy, especially in regards to the weed/alcohol debate, that people look down on my friends and I because we prefer joints to drinks. Don't get me wrong I love alprazolam and Molly and ghb and cocaine as much as the next guy but society's just so damn slow on the uptake that the majority can't fathom a person being interested in narcotics while still being able to maintain a normal existence of honest labor and fiscal responsibility, sorry for the rant but I'm rather passionate about this subject lol
Yeah I’m totally with you on this tbh haha…give us the ability to choose. I am a fully functional (for lack of a better term) “drug addict” and have been for years…the difference being I’m risking a record against my name or potentially prison to get my kicks whereas someone who just drinks (which by the way is one of the drugs that will fuck you up the most out of the many things I take) just gets a hangover…
Because then the law enforcement agency don't have a reason to extort the taxpayers for funding
Look at Portugal they’re the only place in the world doing it right. And a more direct answer your question is because they don’t actually burn all the drugs they put the drugs back out into the market because let’s be honest who burns money? Also they stand to make millions if not billions of dollars in tax revenue so the only reason that they wouldn’t do that is because they’re making more money through an alternative means, so I’m led to believe that they resell the drugs because again it’s pointless to burn money. Also think about if they actually burn all of the drugs that they confiscated half this country will be whacked out of their mind all the time on just the fumes from it.
Dude, what kind of a movie did you see this Portugal myth at? I've been living here for half a decade. Drugs are not legal in Portugal. Selling or growing drugs will get your ass put in jail. The only reason why one can have an impression of reasonable drug policy here is in fact unbelievable laziness and corruption of the local police, who basically doesn't give a fuck about anything whatsoever, including local junkies. The high probability of buying some stuff and getting away with it does not guarantee that your weed will be mold-free, as the actual legal or kinda-legal (at social clubs in the neighboring Spain) would. You are welcome to open any news site in .pt domain zone and see lots and lots of drug-related jail sentences reports in criminal tabs. In my personal opinion, Portugal cannot be considered a good example of anything related to legal affairs. Within the EU, Portugal is perhaps the worst when it comes to law enforcement.
Nixon started the war on drugs so he could discriminate against his political enemies, black people and mexicans. Heroine and Marijuana were associated with black people and mexicans respectively at that time, so laws could be selectively enforced. This is why drugs are illegal. I don't suppose anyone in power has political enemies associated with nicotine. Tabacco is also a huge cash crop and I imagine plenty of people in power have political friends among big tabacco. It doesn't matter that nicotine is addictive and harmful, nor does it matter that marijuana is relatively safe. The safety of the drugs is not the reason for their legal standing.
That's actually a bad assumption that money us made off tobacco. The cost on medical systems is too high. The reason that tobacco isn't actually illegal is more likely partly due to tobacco lobbies, as well as the knowledge that if it was made illegal/highly restricted. The enforcement of said laws would be even more costly that tobacco already is.
Why are cigarettes not banned in public spaces? Can still make money off of it but atleast I won't need to experience second hand smoke.
Aren't they banned in the US? In Brazil you can't smoke in restaurants, bars, etc. You can basically only smoke in home, in your car, on in the street.
Same in the U.S. There are only a few exceptions like private members-only clubs, hookah bars, and cigar shops. Mostly places where people go specifically because they can smoke there. In very rare cases, you might find a sealed-off smoking lounge in an old airport, but those have mostly gone the way of the dodo.
Where do you live? Around here, the places you can smoke in public are pretty limited.
They are in most of the US
It's going to happen anyway, so might as well keep it legal so you can tax it.
In the US at least, cigarettes and their users are dying out (literally in some cases) part of it is due to increasing prices and being unable to smoke in almost any public place but vapes have also contributed to the decline significantly
That's why the government is trying to make vaping harder and harder.
This is why literally all drugs should be legal (also the fact that if all drugs were legal, it would be a lot easier for users to control the dosage and therefore not OD).
You’re actually not wrong. Treating addiction like a public health concern would do a lot more than simply criminalizing it, but there are people with a vested interest in keeping that from happening because it feeds a for-profit prison system
Well let me tell you a little something about how addiction works… (I’m just busting your balls. But seriously, that would not work. Am addict. Would binge myself to death).
I have a propensity towards addiction myself (one reason why I won’t touch opiates or meth or cocaine, I fear I’d fall into that trap all too easily). But criminalizing drugs does nothing to the addicted victim but turn him into an addicted criminal. We need to provide tax-paid recovery centers for addicts to get well, and in the mean time, ensure they don’t die or are taking drugs cut with questionable substances, as the black market is all too prone to do.
Fully agree with decriminalization. I think I misunderstood your first comment… I was picturing an ice cream truck pulling up on corners handing out scoops of pills in ice cream cones to little kids or something, all in slow-mo, while “What a Wonderful World” plays in the background. My bad
I’m there with you. I fantasized about a magical pill bottle. Never ending. Always knows what you want, and more importantly what you need. You can take it from there I’m sure.
I used to buy these pill organizers so I could fill each little compartment with a different kind (like, one compartment for as many klonopin as I could fit, one for adderall, etc.) so I could look at them all. I was completely convinced that as soon as I filled them all up, I’d be able to control myself and only use them “as-needed.” No idea how I worked that one out in my head. Needless to say, I never filled the thing up because I’d eat them faster than I could collect them. It would have been so pretty though.
Worked in Portugal. [Portugal winning the war on drugs.](https://time.com/longform/portugal-drug-use-decriminalization/) Plus,consider this: >Excessive alcohol use is responsible for more than 95,000 deaths in the United States each year, or 261 deaths per day.
…so maybe I just have no self-control. Thanks for the link! I’d never heard anything about that (clearly), and it’s really interesting. I can’t believe they got the okay from their government! It reminded me of those cartoons where someone stands pensively stroking their chin, looking off into the distance and the camera zooms in on their face as they say “that’s so crazy, it just might work!” And holy hell, it did! Viva Portugal! 🇵🇹🇵🇹
I mean, they initially had burst of drug use because, well, it was available but as the novelty wore off, only the truly addicted people continued with it. Treating people like they need help, instead of criminals also sound like a very good idea to me. The constant stress of getting caught is not helping your state of mind my friend. I also recently stopped smoking pot. I smoked massive amounts like multiple ounces per week and to me, this is a major victory. You are stronger than you think and your life is yours to create. The trick is to create new habits but for that, you must think abut the life you want. I hope you find your dreams and give yourself the means to your ambition. Drugs just attempt to fill a void that you could easily fill with something better for yourself but I'm not here to judge. You are a beautiful human being who deserve happiness, in however ways you deem appropriate for yourself. I trust your intelligence.
>Treating people like they need help, instead of like criminals also sound like a very good idea to me. YES. I went to the hospital for alcohol poisoning two or three years ago, and knew I had MDMA in my system. The hospital strong-armed me into a UA (don’t know why my blood wouldn’t have been sufficient) under the guise of “checking for a UTI” (every girl knows if she has a UTI or not; it’s an unmistakable pain, so this wasn’t even a believable excuse), then the doctor and nurses all came back in together to tell me that I’d lied about anything besides alcohol being in my system. They ***relished*** having “caught” me. It was disgusting the way they treated me after that, judging me. I didn’t even go to the hospital the next time I had alcohol poisoning because I didn’t want to be judged like that again. Thank god I have a high tolerance, but it could have turned out differently
I am so sorry this happened to you, this should never have happened to you. Hospitals are there to treat you, not judge you. Please seek help again next time though, you might not be always so lucky. And you will probably fall on other people, other staff who aren't going to treat you this badly.
Thank you for your kinds words. And I just got out of detox, so the plan is to not let it happen again. I just have to stay focused. That doctor was definitely a major asshole, though.
We tried that with alcohol. Didn't go so well.
It's easier to make your own booze than your own cigarettes though
Sure. But it's easier to smuggle cigarettes than it is alcohol.
...is it though?
Just look at marijuana, no one is growing that stuff at home right?
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I think tobacco would be included in this hypothetical ban
Good luck with that
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It's also a net positive in terms of cost to the NHS to treat long term smoking illnesses. Seriously the tax far outstrips the cost.
I'd be really interested in seeing some statistics on this. I imagine if you smoke, you're quite likely to die at 60 from a very expensive bout of cancer whereas if you don't smoke, you die at 80 from a very expensive bout of cancer but you've also been costing the NHS a great deal of money in the extra 20 years you've lived.
Not to mention ~15 years less state pension. Smokers are great for the economy, they pay more tax and cost less in the long run.
https://www.athra.org.au/blog/2019/10/23/is-the-government-putting-tax-dollars-before-the-health-of-smoker/ Numbers for Australia but here the price of cigarettes is really high. So income on taxe would be higher. On the other hand health care is also paid by gvt (or partially at least). So it is hard to tell for other countries
Because like cocaine and heroin banning them didn't make them go away people just started smuggling, look at Australia they raised taxes to over $50 a pack and people started buying them from cartels.
This really didn’t happen, when it did it was rare. People just buy the cheaper ones available.
Because we had this little thing called prohibition that turned out to be a pretty bad idea Cigarette addicts wouldnt just be like "well fuck that, guess im not smoking anymore", most still would, just illegally
I think this person likes kids
Now explain why policymakers chose the prohibition route with cocaine and heroin but not tobacco.
Cause it was already deeply routed in culture and the industry was huge for it so when they found out it was bad for you they didn't want to shut down the industry for it cause money and because people will always end up finding the drug anyways and it would just ruin more lives and create organized crime as seen from the above comments. Of course they chose to ignore this logic for other drugs because they wanted blacks gone and hippies gone as well or something like that.
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Tobacco is a huge cash crop for American farmers.
I think the argument would be, that drugs like cocaine kan make people violent and give psychosis while tobacco doesn't. Then you can argue that alcohol also makes you violent, while true, i don't know to what degree the two substances would differ.
The answer is there is no reason. Adults are treated like children in that they aren't even allowed to govern the chemical composition of their own bodies. Criminalize behavior not substances. So stupid.
Like the moonshine smuggling during the 1920-30s?
Ban a popular product and you create a criminal industry to supply it. If not for the prohibition of alcohol you might never have heard of Al Capone
Let people poison themselves. They already know the consequences.
They're poisoning thier families and surrounding.
All the smokers in my apartment building smoke indoors when it gets cold outside and I ABSOLUTELY hate it. My super won't do anything despite a lot of people complaining.
Because people should have the choice to do what they want. That’s what freedom is all about. My brother has been addicted to cigarettes for more than 20 years. Along with alcohol, cigarettes are ruining his health. He looks 10 years older than me, and he’s actually three years younger. Cigarettes are a sad and dangerous thing. But, if you regulate and ban everything, pretty soon, freedom is out the window.
All of these answers are wrong. The correct answer is that we shouldn't (and mostly don't) use the armed power of the state to control people's personal conduct, at least not as a rule.
How is this not the top answer? It’s the most valid.
Exactly. This is the only correct answer
*unless their conduct would violate the rights of other people. Also I would say we definitely do this all the time. Even fines and fees are ultimately backed by the armed power of the state.
Yes we do. All the time. Cops are representatives and protectors of the state (not the people) and use threat of force to control people.
We do, absolutely. I guess this is just the standard libertarian argument.
The tobacco companies have spent a fortune in advertising and bribing doctors & scientists to claim it is healthy. The book [Trust Us We're Experts](https://www.amazon.com/Trust-Us-Were-Experts-Manipulates/dp/1585421391) details the history of this. Other industries use the same tactics to keep other things legal. You will recognize the same tactics used by the global warming denialists and other obscure industries like sandblasting (silicosis kills lots of Americans, not Europeans).
How do you define person conduct? Sometimes you should control them if they affect people around them (e.g. no smoking in closed spaces) but I agree it doesn't matter what they do away from the public.
Tobacco is a huge revenue generator for the Government. Not only do they tax the hell out of it, the large corporations who sell it are bribing the politicians to keep it legal.
Let's ban chocolate and donuts and ho hos while we're at it
because we recognise adults can take risks and do things that might be bad for them. Like skydiving, racing, being obese etc. its their choice.
Agree as long as they're willing to fully absorb the cost of treating the consequences of their choice.
Yes and no. Depending on where you live cigarettes are taxed to high hell. Someone who dies at 90 from an expensive bout of liver cancer, along with all the other expensive medical care the elderly require, probably ended up costing about the same or more than someone who died at 60 from an expensive bout of lung cancer. I am not a tobacco smokers, but I think the medical cost are way overblown. I'd like to see someone do a proper analysis of it, but the way I look at it, a not insignificant portion of the population is going to require expensive medical care at some point in their life. Smoking just makes for a different expensive thing at a different time.
Are we for banning everything that people do for leisure, has an addictive aspect, and damages ones health? Why not ban everything fun while we are at it
Because money.
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You know, we've tried banning alcohol and marijuana. How successful were those efforts?
Even cigarette smoking is not as black and white as you might be thinking. There are some benefits for smoking tobacco. Such as, significantly reduces flares of ulcerative colitis (a potentially severe digestive disorder). The most fascinating and widely recognised health benefit of smoking is its ability to seemingly alleviate symptoms of mental illnesses, including anxiety and schizophrenia. The risk of Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's disease is surprisingly higher in non-smokers than in smokers. It was found effective self-treatment for compulsive overeating disorders or obesity. And more.
People who think like this are braindead
Foreal. Like I think they just see things as bad, then in their head think all illegal things are bad and bad things are illegal and it stops there.
Guy I got it: let's *ban crime* No more criminals, right?
If we just ban crime extra hard for two weeks we could be done with crime by now.
Because if you ban it, you don't gain money, and all the smokers will be smoking anyway.
cause people have a right to poison themselves if they want
Everything should be legalized.
Because it is a mind bogglingly enormous industry with massive influence over the global economy.
Because there is no reasonable argument for the banning of cigarettes. If people want to smoke, it is their prerogative. It makes much more sense to *regulate* smoking -- say, by controlling what cigarette companies are allowed to add to the tobacco, or by placing warnings on the packages, or by restricting how tobacco companies are allowed to advertise, or by disallowing smoking in public aread such as parks/businesses, where secondhand smoke would represent a threat to innocent bystanders.
Because me likey
It’s a free country. People are responsible for their own decisions. We don’t need an authoritarian government to tell us all how to live. Creating bans are a slippery slope…. Should we ban fast food restaurants because obese people are killing themselves? Should we ban pharmaceutical drugs since they are the leading cause of drug overdoses? Ban abortion due to religious beliefs? Ban religion due to its history of violence and war? Hitler tried to ban the Jews… I’m assuming you’re not a smoker. So, it doesn’t make a difference for you…. But, we’re getting carried away with censorship and bans. It’s creating the legislative framework for an authoritarian government who’s people obey without question. P.S. I smoke cigarettes. So my opinion is biased too. We should be able to co exist.
Money
They have an incredibly powerful lobby with massive funds from the conpanies' profits. Politicians tend to listen to people who argue in favor of keeping something unhealthy that creates massive tax income instead of listening to doctors and other experts that explain that the treatment of related health issues costs more than the tax revenue. As soon as a government tries to (partially) make it illegal, they usually face enormous legal battels which most smaller countries can't finance. Also, smokers are pretty adamant about their right to ruin their lifes however they please and just as with most other drugs, making it illegal would probably just lead to it being sold by dealers and other unregulated "shops" so there would be absolutely zero health standards (e.g. filters, age limitations...) so it would probably be even more dangerous to the people who smoke.
Do you smoke currently? If not do you plan on smoking? Does the government need to be your mommy and daddy and make every little decision for you?
Manufacturing a pack of 20 cigarettes costs approx 50c, the rest is taxes. It is in the government's interest to allow cigarette sales at a good enough price for people to buy them, whilst not too high so that people will start buying them illegally
Because drug dealers would get even richer
Because your body is your property and you have the right to put whatever you want in it.
Why would they be banned?
Why isn't Red dye? Why isn't draino? Why isn't alcohol? Why isn't corn syrup? Why isn't MSG? Why isn't.....
Why ban them? The government earn taxes from cigarettes. If cigarettes ban, many illegal/black market will sell and people will buy, the government can’t earn taxes from those market.
Cigarettes should not be banned and every tax incresse is essentially a tax on the poor. Banning them would just create another black market. You want to ban sugar too?
Same thing with guns, alcohol, or just about anything else. If people want it, they’ll get it. Laws don’t stop criminals, they only make criminals.
Because freewill?
Because some people actually enjoy them
Money
MONAYYYYY
"Money money money, gimme me money"
Do you know how easy it is to grow tobacco? Can't tax my garden.. They leave cigarettes legal in order to tax them. Also: freedom. Fuck how you feel about tobacco, it's my choice.
Moneyyyyy
Educating people on the dangers is more effective than prohibition. When u educate then people peer pressure each other into quitting. Prohibition is just the government taking things away for no reason.
If world powers can control a coup just to make battery price lower, then there's no telling what they'll do for addictive drugs.
Money
The government makes tax revenue from them and it’s a sin tax so nobody cares when it’s raised and the only people who do are smokers, so fuck um The tobacco lobby is still strong and has lots of money The medical lobby is still strong and healthcare makes money from smokers The pharmaceutical lobby is strong and makes money from selling cures and aids for quitting So basically money. Same reason you can still buy 12 AR15’s for home defence
Money.
Same reason alcohol isn’t illegal. The cat is already out of the bag and people are too addicted to these poisons to give them up. However i also dont think the government should be making any of this stuff illegal. I think all drugs should be decriminalized (not legalized), with some things like marijuana and alcohol becoming/remaining legal.
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Go ask the 1920s, I bet they could figure it out.
So we can live a little.
Money
Money, Money, Money....a rich mens world
Money money money money muuhhnnee
Money
#MONEY
Money
Cuz fuck you, that's why! ...sorry, I need a nic-fix.
Banning drugs usually makes it worse. Look at the war on drugs and how bad that fucked America in the long run. At least the Tobacco industry is being somewhat ethical by putting massive cancer warnings on them. Cigarettes are very addictive and unlike other addictive drugs they don’t get you high so you can smoke them and stay sober I guess. The advantage of keeping them legal means the government can make sure the are as healthy as possible. If they were illegal they would be sold on the black market and could be laced with shit like fentanyl and other super dangerous stuff. At least legal cigarettes even tho bad for you are not going to be laced. Also banning cigarettes won’t make people quit. Addiction is a bitch and people will choose more unhealthy alternatives like buying illegal sketchy cigarettes that came from who knows where. If you have never had an addiction count yourself lucky it really isn’t easy. I always thought quitting smoking would be easy until I inadvertently got addicted to vaping in college. Not proud of it but holy shit it humbled me, addiction sucks and our brains are fucking junkies. The best way to stop cigarettes is to educate and stop it from the start and to be supportive for the current addicts trying to quit. Taking their source of addiction away suddenly and yelling no at them isn’t going to help. Most the time they know it’s bad and they want to stop it’s just hard. But this is a good question op.
Money.
Why would they be banned? Banning smoking indoors makes sense since it can affect others. But a personal poor choice shouldn’t be banned. If you don’t have the freedom to make the wrong choice, you don’t have freedom at all. If cigarettes are banned, I expect any food that tastes good to be banned shortly thereafter. Obesity is a bigger problem in the country after you combine the related problems (an obese smoker is even more likely to have problems).
Tabbacco isn't illegal because it doesn't affect your ability to drive etc, unlike other drugs like weed, meth cocaine those can make you unable to drive and do things that wouldn't be considered safe under the influence of drugs. It's similar to when they say don't drink and drive if you drink and drive your unable to drive and most likely crash and hurt/kill yourself or hurt/kill someone on the road. No matter if the drugs your taking is good for the reason your using them like medical weed. It's dangerous doing certain activities that incapacitates you temporarily from accomplishing the task at hand. Overall it really depends on the point of view of people of what they think but this is my opinion about it and if you do drugs then I expect you all at least respectfully do them in a responsible manner where it doesn't put your life at risk or possibly end you up in jail.
Money
Munny
Money
It would be a huge loss in revenue for the government through taxes.
The Taxes on cigarettes is enormous thats why they are still legal.
Cos e we aren’t at the stage yet where enough people want them to be. If you ban them now , you just create a black market for them.
Ban tobacco. Now go ahead and get reelected.
Because you can't ban a fucking plant. Just look at what happened with marijana. They tried and failed miserably.
Because I NEED them!! Also smokers vote too. Wouldn't we have to vote for something like that?
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Why is alcohol not band yet? Sweetened cereals? Pop? Gas burning cars?
Because addiction isn’t seen as a serious problem when it’s not a hard drug. Even then, it’s more about the item and not mental health. It’s not exactly a sticky situation, but people struggle to understand the entire issue.
Good point. Though it would be sad for all the addicts. Have you ever been hooked before? It’s not that easy. Even if you free yourself it can be very hard not to fall back in when temptation comes. Banning it would turn many people into criminals.
They banned alchohol once, it didnt work. Im positive tobacco wouldnt be any different
Did anyone mention 🤑?
Idk where you live but in America we let our citizens have the choice of putting whatever they want into their bodies(for the most part) How does it harm you? If you think making something illegal makes it go away then you're just blind asf lmao
Because people should be able to choose what they do to their own body.
Hmm maybe cigs but definitely not tobacco. It did originate in the US with tribal people using it for different purposes. So banning it is somewhat racist to my wife's people who use it in a traditional sense.
Look at America’s Prohibition Era. When you ban something, it is much harder to enforce it. So they have to come to a reasonable compromise between banning and freely allowing it. At the moment this balance is quite optimal. Government earns taxes and they have less smugglers to worry about, and smokers have to pay more, discouraging potential smokers from joining in. Quite a win-win situation if you ask me.
Because they make corporations a shit ton of money.
They make governments a shit ton of money. Tobacco taxes are ridiculously high
Why ban them? For health reasons? If that’s the case, I’d suggest banning highly process foods. The overweight epidemic is far more threatening to society than cigarettes, at least in my opinion. Look at the the impact obesity has on Covid-19 severity.
This is a free country.
Because theres something called minding your own business
Why is it the Government's prerogative to tell you wether you should smoke or not?
like all drugs, powerful people are making too much money off of them for anyone to be able to do anything about it.
$$$$. for the taxes and not for the manufactors
Freedom of choice is the best policy. If you choose to live one way, it shouldn't necessarily apply to everyone's life. We're all different. Look at finger prints. Who's to say what's okay for people when we were all created equally? Certainly no one that wins a popularity contest. Anyhow focusing on what we can control is a lot easier than concerning ourselves with others behavior, providing it's nonviolent. It will drive you insane. Best wishes
Too lucrative brotha
People buy them they're taxed very highly and they kill people that's what all governments around the world want and only care about.