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.
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.