TLDR: Sweden focuses on harm reduction, had “snus” as an alternative, among other things.
The big nicotine business tries so hard to hype snus. Substituting one addiction for another is not a miracle. Fuck them all and their profiting off of this shit in any form.
Duh, smoking kills, snus probably keeps people alive longer so more money
I never understood why so many countries banned snus, it seems to be a better alternative to cigarettes in many cases. However I guess the best way for big nic to retain a monopoly would be to not even allow competitors in. And maybe the mortality rates were good as a “natural” way to replace old and tired workers without losing too much money ¯_(ツ)_/¯
While I do think snus is healthier than cigarettes, I know people who take snus at every oportunity they get, and snus has everywhere from 4 to 50+ mg of nicotiner per pouch and there are some who are even stronger. Combined it is a perfect drug for a high schooler to chain every hour.
I’m not trying to defend cigarettes, just pointing that snus is as bad and to some demographic even worse because its ability to be taken in every ocasion and its strenght in nicotine. Also you can take more than one snus at a time.
First, I agree with you. But you are going to get responses from the “perfect is the enemy of good crowd”, hope it won’t be that bad.
Second
Yeah, but then again, let people use their nicotine, who cares? I completely get the “I don’t want to be bothered by your smoke” crowd, but why care how others see fit to destroy their bodies and financials?
Because I’m paying for their health when they start having issues.
But…that’s just how it works anyway?! Like, you pay for their nicotine addiction, they pay for the next person’s alcohol addiction who pay for the weight lifter’s accident, they pay for the other guy’s important message, which he just had to read while driving…socialized healthcare and emergency services are a synonym for “everybody pays for everyones shitty decisions”
Yes, and that’s why we’ve taxed alcohol and tobacco products, some places tax added sugars, and we’ve also banned most recreational drugs (admittedly, some of those aren’t even that unhealthy and should be reconsidered). Because the system stops making sense when everyone’s making shitty decisions. Snus lets you ingest ridiculous amounts of nicotine, it should at the very least be taxed significantly more heavily. Right now it doesn’t really matter how strong the pads, they cost the same (and are WAY cheaper per gram of nicotine than smoking at the high end).
Depending on jurisdiction alcohol is also not taxed by alcohol content, but by class of drink.
But yeah, taxing is a whole other bag than outright outlaw it. But, to stay within the bounds, then we somehow should also tax, idk, sports according to the danger they pose. Like, freeskiing should be taxed way higher than playing chess. Or driving motorcycles should be taxed more heavily than walking.
I think for outlawing, the cat’s already out of the bag. Too many people are addicted, especially young people and teenagers, and the tobacco companies would sue every single EU nation with the public opinion support of the addicts if we tried that. Much better off increasing the taxation steeply (also for cigarettes of course).
Motorcycles are already taxed by fuel and the necessity of a somewhat expensive extra license that you only use for motorcycles (though that mostly goes to a private company) to discourage large-scale adoption, plus they are lower impact (pollution and traffic) way of getting around than cars. You pay tax on the fuel, tax on the motorcycle, tax on all the work you did to earn the money to pay for those things. Etc.
Skiing - I see a small tax on mountain passes as a completely reasonable solution. Small enough that it doesn’t encourage people to go find their own quiet mountains with no local medical assistance, but big enough to at least partially offset the injuries sustained by the sport. Of course every country can decide on their own taxation here, mine doesn’t have mountains so not much to worry about.
And that is where the question becomes, would you rather pay more, or pay less? “None” is optimal, but also a fairytale. And where do you draw the line? Cycling every time you travel less than 3km is healthier than going by car and would bring health care costs down. So ban cars, I guess?
Cycling every time I travel 3km is encouraged by the the excise tax on fuel, which accounted for half of its cost before Trump went crazy and nearly doubled our diesel prices here in Estonia. Just like drinking less is encouraged by excise tax on alcohol and of course nicotine products have their own excise tax, but it doesn’t appear to affect snus as much, since at least the ridiculously strong pouches are actually super affordable since they contain so much nicotine that just one an hour is equivalent to chain-smoking cigarettes.
You also need to be 18 to drive a car without an adult present and you have PE classes as a teenager, whereas you can easily get started with snus at 14 or hell probably 7 or 8 because nobody checks if you’ve got a pouch in, unlike driving a car where they check your driver’s license. I smoked in 6th grade (and then gave it up and later picked it back up again), but that was a whole ordeal and you could sneak in a couple of cigarettes a day, with snus you can go all day every day in school without getting caught. It’s just so easy to start ruining your health from a much earlier age, making the tail end of your life more expensive to the people who actually have to work for a living while you’re retired already.
Like, I’m pro socialized healthcare because absolutely nobody should be bankrupted by medical bills, but that implies people being responsible and since people can’t be trusted to be responsible with health things, laws have to be used to force it.
Huh? I’m pretty sure the reason why some countries hesitate on banning smoking is that the taxes on cigarettes are fra larger than the cost of healthcare for smokers.
The smokers die before non-smokers, so they’re actually pretty cheap in the long run and more than self-financing.
Taxes on cigarettes are higher than taxes on pouches and the pouch users will likely live longer than cigarette users, but are quite likely to develop cardiovascular issues down the line because they’re getting way more nicotine than smokers.
Autonomy over your own body is one thing and you’re right that it’s your own body that you’re destroying but ‘why should you care’ isn’t always in society’s best interests.
The subsequent ramifications on healthcare are a lot deeper and longer lasting than just their body. One more healthy body is one less burden on the healthcare system which in a lot of societies are under a lot of strain, and it’s one more able body contributing to economical / societal advancement. So it is actually a double positive.
But that’s just how socialised health care works anyway? Everybody pays for the shitty decisions of everybody else? You pay for someones nicote addiction, he pays for someones sport accident, they pay for the next one who eats too much sugar and burgers, they pay for the other’s driving fast and crashing addiction…so, a ‘just’ health care system is around the corner, when nobody does anything anymore?
It’s all about perspective. Yes, switching from cigarettes to snus is a win (Sweden’s line) but on the other hand having a non-smoking teenager start with snus because it’s the hot new thing is a loss (France’s line). In the latter philosophy you don’t want to give a product like snus a chance to become the new mass addiction for the next generation.
Oh and Philip Morris (the big tobacco guys) acquired Swedish Match (the main snus producer) 2022, so I don’t think they care either way.
Snus is a tobacco product and, just like vapes, is owned by ‘big nic’ (aka ‘big tobacco’).
Also, while snus is banned, “nicotine pouches” (which are just the synthetic nicotine equivalent of snus) are very much legal, and in fact can even get around laws that ban smoking and vaping products from being advertised (here in the UK, for example, they advertise these nicotine pouches on the back of buses, which is banned for cigarettes or nicotine vapes).
Aren’t there better alternatives to both snus and cigarettes? Seems like a fine reason.
Perfect shouldn’t be the enemy of good, but no need to let mediocre be the enemy of good either.
I mean the best option is to simply not use nicotine, thats the harmful part. I use nicotine pouches (essentially snus but its just nicotine without any tobacco) IIRC thats the healthiest option thats still functionally the same as snus.
If you do need your nicotine I would recommend nicotine pouches of regular strength (some contain stupidly high nicotine levels, like 50-100+ mg per pouch).
If you smoke a cigarette in class, that’s pretty noticeable. If you put in a pouch, most teachers won’t notice. That’s why snus got hella popular here to the point kids were having their friends import it from the Tallinn-Stockholm cruises, where it was legal and cheaper - before it started being sold legally here. Go see Stockholm, get a bunch of snus, sell it to your friends so everyone can have their nicotine feed all day in school rather than having to wait for breaks.
