Health experts say axing plan to block sales of tobacco products to next generation will cost thousands of lives

      • XbSuper@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Seatbelts save significant medical costs that the government has to pay for. Cigarettes do not, as the medical cost has already been paid by said smoker 10 times over due to outrageous taxes.

        Smoking bans are a severe government overreach, and I will celebrate every time one gets slapped down.

        • Quokka@quokk.auOP
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          1 year ago

          Seatbelts have saved millions of lives globally since their introduction, but fuck that when there’s the great injustice of them being mandatory!

          Seriously mate, get some perspective.

        • Aurenkin@sh.itjust.works
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          1 year ago

          Yeah good idea, just let them go flying out the windscreen then waste a valuable ambulance and ICU bed because, you know, they should be able to choose or some shit no matter the cost.

    • maynarkh@feddit.nl
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      1 year ago

      I’d say that I’m okay with that sentiment as long as there is a ban in public places.

    • idiomaddict@feddit.de
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      1 year ago

      But the government picks up the payment costs, and the other costs include reduced hospital spaces, which directly impacts other people.

      I understand your perspective if people are truly independent of one another, but we’re not. We rely on one another and impact each other. That means a reduction in freedom for an increase in security.

      I do wish there were a way to opt out, so that people could do whatever they want with their own bodies without harming others, but we’re not there now, so we shouldn’t just accept a reduction in our ability to receive treatment we’re entitled to, to enable freedoms that don’t fit our actual system.

      • Dran@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Would you support a law that said public healthcare is unavailable to those who choose to smoke? That would seem to be a reasonable compromise.

        • idiomaddict@feddit.de
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          1 year ago

          I would want to support that, but with a lot of caveats. If there were no chance of a shortage of hospital beds, and people were grandfathered in and given plenty of warning. There’s also the fact that it’s basically impossible to enforce. It would be easy and strongly incentivized to lie about and very difficult and expensive to investigate.

          It’s also morally difficult, because one cigarette doesn’t cause cancer. I can absolutely see people who aren’t regular smokers and who aren’t increasing their chances of illness bumming a cigarette once a decade- should they lose access to healthcare? I don’t really think so (because the goal isn’t to punish smokers, but to protect non smokers), but I don’t know how you could write a law that would protect them.

    • Akasazh@feddit.nl
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      1 year ago

      I used to think so too. But the fault her is the governments dependance on the tax revenue. They will keep raising taxes, putting those choosing to smoke up with ever slightly increasing cost of living, boiling them like a frog.

      As a smoker of twenty years who stopped over a year ago. Thank fuck I beat that addiction, they aren’t getting my money anymore.