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.
The license for motorcycles is no tax, though, it doesn’t offset anything for society. Also fuel is less expensive than for cars, which are less dangerous (for the drivers) ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. Sugar, carbs, meat, basically every food or drinks except for carrots and shit needs to be taxen steeply, because too much is bad for public health.
I personally find it OK for people to ruin their health.
Cars have more emissions though, which is worse for public health, and they’re better at killing pedestrians. The license for motorcycles isn’t a tax in of itself, but 1000€ and having to spend 20 hours in school and then registering for exams where most of the spots for the summer are already gone by march just to have the ability to ride a motorcycle 6-7 months a year is a decent deterrent and the reason most people don’t ride.
I personally find it OK for people to ruin their health.
I mean if you’re in the US, it’s fine. Everyone pays for their own health insurance anyway. Let them all get fat, sick and shoot eachother. In most of Europe, we tax or ban things which have no real benefits, but clear drawbacks. Meat still has protein which you need some of, whether it be from meat or plant sources. Carbs you should still be eating some, just not a ton of sugar. There’s no amount of nicotine that’s good for you though, same with alcohol, so we tax those things. Heroin can easily completely ruin your life after trying it once, at which point you’ll be a burden on social systems for years to come. So we ban it.
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.
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.
The license for motorcycles is no tax, though, it doesn’t offset anything for society. Also fuel is less expensive than for cars, which are less dangerous (for the drivers) ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. Sugar, carbs, meat, basically every food or drinks except for carrots and shit needs to be taxen steeply, because too much is bad for public health.
I personally find it OK for people to ruin their health.
Cars have more emissions though, which is worse for public health, and they’re better at killing pedestrians. The license for motorcycles isn’t a tax in of itself, but 1000€ and having to spend 20 hours in school and then registering for exams where most of the spots for the summer are already gone by march just to have the ability to ride a motorcycle 6-7 months a year is a decent deterrent and the reason most people don’t ride.
I mean if you’re in the US, it’s fine. Everyone pays for their own health insurance anyway. Let them all get fat, sick and shoot eachother. In most of Europe, we tax or ban things which have no real benefits, but clear drawbacks. Meat still has protein which you need some of, whether it be from meat or plant sources. Carbs you should still be eating some, just not a ton of sugar. There’s no amount of nicotine that’s good for you though, same with alcohol, so we tax those things. Heroin can easily completely ruin your life after trying it once, at which point you’ll be a burden on social systems for years to come. So we ban it.
Meat has a lot of emissions as well.
Even in the US, when you’re paying insurance, you pay for stupid decisions of the other customers of your insurance company.
But yeah, I also find it stupid that heroin is banned.
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.