this post was submitted on 05 Oct 2023
837 points (96.6% liked)

World News

39143 readers
3208 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.


Lemmy World Partners

News [email protected]

Politics [email protected]

World Politics [email protected]


Recommendations

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] DigitalFrank 52 points 1 year ago (2 children)

So we would eliminate smoking the same way we eliminated drug use...by making it illegal.

/S if necessary

[–] wolfpack86 37 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I'm generally pro legalization of drugs, but will say this is likely to be much more effective than the war on drugs ever was.

You don't outlaw possession, just the sales age. You'll see significantly fewer new starters as time goes because after 20 years 40 year olds that can buy wont be bothered to support fresh 18 year olds looking to start a new habit or whatever. The ones that really want to start can buy from abroad without any form of punishment.

I think it's different because I don't think anyone turns to their first cigarette looking to try and attain some new feeling. It's usually one of those things like... My friends were so I grabbed one from them and blah blah.

I would say I'm for the progressive increase in age, and I wrestle with my own hypocrisy seeing that I support legalizing other drugs. But maybe that's rooted in the basis that I've never had a pothead or dude on shrooms negatively impact me. Cigarettes however--littered everywhere, get smoke in your face, etc

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago (2 children)

people could easily say they hate the smell of weed - is that a good reason to outlaw?

I keep thinking of the rat experiments where rats in cages took drugs until they died but happy rats in rat societies turned away from drugs.

I think people take drugs, including cigarettes, to cope. If they didn't need to cope with terrible conditions, they wouldn't use the drugs (except a few outliers). To me, taking away people's cope is punching down.

We can't get rid of tobacco like we can quaaludes or some synthetic drug. It's going to be available to people. The question is do you want to create a huge black market for it (where people can easily lace cigarettes with fentanal, bonus? ), or do you want to address the reasons that people chain smoke?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

It's worth noting that even the happy rats would go get the occasional hit, they just weren't dependent on the drugs. They did it for fun once in a while, not frequently as an escape from reality. This is how healthy people enjoy drugs.

That doesn't change the end result though. Addiction is the result of profound despair, not the cause of it. Giving people hope and support keeps them from needing to escape.

[–] MonkRome 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I think people want to do things they are not allowed to. They will go through the effort to find a way. In a lot of states that legalized Marijuana, its use went down after legalization. Once it was normalized, some people lost interest. I think the opposite happens when you make it illegal, you're basically making it cool again. This isn't just drug use, it's with a lot of things, if you forbid it, people will suddenly want that thing more than they did before. Religion comes to mind. Authoritarian countries that want to stamp out a religion or all religion often cause a religious resurgence. There's nothing quite like being told you can't do something to make you want to do it or visa versa. People are naturally oppositional.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

Yeah, lots of bad faith comparisons to drug legalization. People outright against age-gated laws. So I guess that means it's ok for 4 year olds to drive around?