New Zealand scraps world-first smoking ‘generation ban’ to fund tax cuts
New Zealand scraps world-first smoking ‘generation ban’ to fund tax cuts
Health experts say axing plan to block sales of tobacco products to next generation will cost thousands of lives
This headline SCREAMS 'conservative':
But think of the savings. Early death means budget surplus from hospice saved. /s
Can someone that still has a twitter ask Dan Patrick to take one for the economy here?
No surprise that it's from an anti woke virtue signalling bunch of reactionary conservatives, then
You know the tax cuts are for the bottom 3 tax brackets, don't you?
@Amazinghorse that's not really true. It won't affect the bottom tax bracket. National have been pitching it as a tax cut for "middle income earners".
I just went and played around with their tax calculator and low income earners get almost nothing compared to wealthier people.
No they aren't. The poor get SFA
So it's conservative to refuse to ban tobacco? Do you agree with the general consensus that it's also conservative to ban marijuana? How do you square those two attitudes, if so?
Tobacco causes mass amounts of death and warps entire societies and economies from killing so many older people. Also, massive tobacco companies break any law they want virtually and have for the entirety of their existence as massive corporations marketed cigarettes to kids.
So yes, I consider it conservative to refuse to ban tobacco and see no conflict with marijuana because marijuana doesn't cause mass amounts of death and suffering (and before you say it does, give me proof).
@quindraco in the New Zealand context yes it's extremely conservative. This government is a lot more conservative than previous right-wing govts.
The "smokefree" policies were created by the Maori Party, whose constituency is disproportionately harmed by smoking.
If marijuana was killing thousands of Maori they would probably have wanted to but it isn't.
It's conservative to bend over and spread `em for the benefit of the owning class at the expense of everyone else - chiefly the workers those politicians claim to represent.
Others have pointed out the gaping differences in the health outcomes (including the burden that places on the healthcare system), addiction rates, etc.
Makes you wonder how much lobbying Big Tobacco did.
They just had an election and the government flipped from centre-left to centre-right. It could just be the classic conservative “our position is whatever is the opposite of the left!”
Winston Peters (NZ First leader) is a total alcohol, tobacco, and racing (horse, greyhound, whatever) industry shill. I doubt he exactly needed to be bought, but this is certainly part of his price for being part of the coalition government.
ACT (secular libertarian free market folk) probably mildly supported it, and National (general centre right; largest party) is probably much the same.
Big tobacco doesn't really need cigarette sales anymore. They are all in on vape brands, where they can sell the liquid at ink-jet prices to customers for a huge markup at $6500 per liter. That's why you see vape shops on each street corner. The distribution is all streamlined. The website talks to the DHL warehouse about what stock is available, customers can subscribe to weekly delivery plans and the warehouse is filled by some factory in china.
I believe the ban affected vape products as well.
Just out of curiousity have you ever seen liquid sold at $65/10ml? I usually pay 50-100x less than that
Hard to say because they are very sneaky. We do know that Big tobacco ran a fake grassroots campaign with an imaginary dairy owner front man. ("Dairy" is the New Zealand name for corner shops/ drugstores)
Tagging you @AnAngryAlpaca - they may not need it but their greed didn't get the memo.
Their campaign strategist was an "ex" tobacco lobbyist
Lol sounds like this increases tax revenues by increasing the number of addicted smokers buying cigarettes and then taxing the sales.
Really sound government policy there.
They have actually admitted this is going to be revenue gathering. NZ has some of the highest tobacco tax in the world.
Basically their election promise was tax cuts, which they intended to do by allowing more foriegn ownership of real estate and taxing it.
After the election they found out they could only govern with the help of a populist party and a libertarian party.
The populists won't allow more foriegn ownership of real estate. Meanwhile the libertarians' wet dream is stuff like more lung cancer tobacco.
So we get shitty last minute law changes we didn't see coming, like this one.
Wait, they want more foreign ownership of real estate?? Are they high lol. That's going to price out every last young person there from homes that's not already priced out.
Everyone could see that the foriegn buyers tax wasn't going to work. It wasn't going to raise enough revenue and was also illegal. It was obvious that something was going to get cut to pay for taxes. It's not like this wasn't pointed out ad nauseum during the election
The populists won't allow more foriegn ownership of real estate.
I don't see a single problem here. Fuck, I wish Australia would get behind this.
Also good, fuck prohibition laws. Leave them in the fucking past where they belong. If I want to slowly kill myself by inhaling burning plant matter, then that's my decision. The taxes I pay more than cover my eventual cost to the state's healthcare system. The government does not get to dictate what I do with my own body.
It's worse than that as it's short term tax gains now but increased public health spending later from those same taxes when they start getting cancer in a decade or two.
When you elect the clowns of conservative/neoliberal politics, you get what you deserve — a circus.
When you elect the clowns of conservative/neoliberal politics, you get everyone gets what you deserve
Tax revenue that you'll have to plow right back into the health care system to treat expensive lung cancers. But hey, that's only 20 years down the line, so you look good now.
I'm not sure about how accurate it is, but I read something a while back about it being the opposite in canada. You don't spend more on smokers because they don't live long enough to get to the really expensive part.
This is just a foggy memory so I'm definitely open to being corrected.
Yup. It's really effective. I've paid my share of lung ruining tax in my lifetime. And for most of that time I'd be happy to defend my right to soil my airways to something close to the death.
I've been clean for over a year. But that addiction is so fucking emotional that you let them squeeze you dry and you almost applaud it. The perfect capitalist drug.
Yes but actually most western governments do this. The Aus health minister made a comment to the same effect a couple of months back. The US even collateralises loans using payments from tobacco companies that have not yet been made, as compensation for harm to public health that has not yet been done.
Call JG Wentworth 877 Cash Now!
New Zealand is scrapping a whole lot of things right now.
10 years worth of environmental protection laws is another thing being scrapped.
I think it's more that pro-smoking plays better with their right wing voter base than taxes. That and the fact that ciggies can still be bought, so the younger generation will still be able to get them. I mean, it being illegal has never stopped any drug. The best way to get rid of smoking is just to ramp up the tax and wait for everyone to take up something cheaper. Even the most hardened smoker at my work now vape instead. Not amazing for you, but got to be better than inhaling all the crap in cigarettes.
Only the mega rich have a solid reason for caring about tax cuts. Everybody else should be clamouring for better services, as that is what will really be cut to give those billionaires more money to hoard.
I've always supported this approach too but I have to wonder... is there a point where it gets taxed so high that people will just go back to the black market? What would prevent anyone from going black (heh) if it's cheaper than the legal option?
There's already plenty of black market ciggies in both NZ and AU. Just watch one of the border patrol shows and every second person they catch is a suitcase full of cigarettes.
The black market in australia is huge. Almost everyone i see smoking at work or at pubs is smoking black market cigarettes or using illegal vapes. If they crack down on the black market i expect to see a large rise in robberies of shops selling cigarettes. The taxes have gone too far. This is also why they won't ban smoking. Billions in tax revenue.
What the mega rich want is a big return on their tobacco company investments.
The thing I find hilarious is that a few weeks ago, when there was talk of the UK doing the same sort of thing, everyone was pointing to this legislation as an example of how it has worked elsewhere.
It didn't even last a year! All it's done is slightly annoyed a handful of teenagers for a few months.
Funny enough, it was a conservative government pushing it too.
It's not that crazy, considering it won't affect older people. Old Tories can continue to smoke while the young can't, it's basically the Tory way.
Smoking is awful, disgusting, and through the diseases it causes puts a massive burden on the healthcare system... buuuut, educational campaigns to encourage people to stop and limiting it in media/banning advertisements is definitely the way to go over yet another prohibition law.
I think governments should always ban everything they don't like. Next up: alcohol, candy and snacks. Then maybe bars, motor sports and sex for unmarried people.
educational campaigns to encourage people to stop and limiting it in media/banning advertisements is definitely the way to go
I don't really understand why you think New Zealand hasn't already done that. It banned all tobacco advertising decades ago. Including shops have to keep them out of sight and no signs.
Starting from the 1990s tobacco had to have gruesome pictures of diseased lungs, rotting diabetic toes, etc all over it, and health warnings.
Then they banned companies from using their own fonts, colours or logos and standardised it. Then they made the warnings take up all the pack.
Modern tobacco packs in New Zealand look like this and costs two hours' wages for just one packet.
There are gruesome PSAs about it as well.
Unfortunately it's highly addictive and it kills people.
"yet another prohibition"
another American projecting their domestic nonsense onto the rest of the world
Most drugs are prohibited in most countries, throughout most of history.
You're thinking specifically of American alcohol prohibition in the 1920s. It is you who is projecting americanism.
But, but... Tax cuts for the rich!? 😢
Education means doing nothing. It literally is the status quo which we know does not work.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
New Zealand’s new government will scrap the country’s world-leading law to ban smoking for future generations to help pay for tax cuts – a move that public health officials believe will cost thousands of lives and be “catastrophic” for Māori communities.
National has had to find new ways to fund its tax plan, after its coalition partner, New Zealand First, rejected a proposal to let foreign buyers back into the property market.
“Coming back to those extra sources of revenue and other savings areas that will help us to fund the tax reduction, we have to remember that the changes to the smoke-free legislation had a significant impact on the Government books – with about $1bn there.”
But public health experts have expressed shock at the policy reversal, saying it could cost up to 5,000 lives a year, and be particularly detrimental to Māori, who have higher smoking rates.
Te Morenga highlighted recent modelling that showed the regulations would save $1.3bn in health system costs over the next 20 years, if fully implemented, and would reduce mortality rates by 22% for women, and 9% for men.
“This move suggests a disregard for the voices of the communities most affected by tobacco harm – favouring economic interests,” said chief executive Jason Alexander.
The original article contains 601 words, the summary contains 211 words. Saved 65%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Y’know, I gotta admit, I would have never pegged this article as one that would make my notifications go wild. 🤣
Awful reason, but fuck these laws. Declaring a person forever disqualified from what other people will still be allowed to do is obviously not the same thing as 'you must be 18.' It is infuriating how many people pretend there's no difference.
Ban smoking for everyone or don't ban smoking. Trying to be "clever" about equality under the law is just fresh discrimination.
You want money? Tax the companies, not the customers. Take as much as you like. The alternative is, they don't get to exist.
It makes perfect sense. Cigarettes are cancer death machines in an addictive package. They should be banned. However, we've learned from hard experience that making addictive drugs harder to get just leads to addicts trying even harder to get them. So what's a practical solution? Grandfather in the current addicts and try like hell to keep everyone else away from it.
Equality doesn't come in to this. You do not, in fact, need to protect people's right to addictive cancer sticks.
Motivation is irrelevant - this kind of law is intolerable.
You wanna limit it to current users? Say that. Have a national registry of whoever's bought them before, and if they stop for six months, they're off the list. Treat it like a progressive opioid program where the government supplies them directly by mail, if they fill out some preachy postcards.
Age limits are only legitimate because of physiological differences. A 12-year-old cannot be trusted the same way as a 22-year-old. But today's 22-year-olds are no different from next year's 22-year-olds. Or the next, or the next. Declaring some of them unfit is worse than baseless age discrimination. It is creating second-class citizens, forever barred from... whatever.
Allowing bad precedent for good reason would create tremendous problems later. People would propose all kinds of exclusionary bullshit, where old people get to do stuff forever and young people never will, and they'd excuse it by saying 'well you allowed it for smoking.'
If you think that'd never happen - I will remind you this law was defeated by assholes who think more people should smoke. So they can funnel more wealth to the wealthy. Good faith and sensible governance do not need more obstacles.
As a human being with my own rule over my own body I have the right to do with it as I please.
If I want to consume addictive cancer sticks until I die a slow, painful death, I have the natural freedom to do so, and laws, taxes or fines won't stop me until I'm really locked away.
So I support other peoples freedom to smoke. It is just inhaling smoke from burning plant matter, which may be an irrational choice, but is my choice.
Nope. @Landsharkgun is right. Zealand already has some of the highest tobacco taxes in the world. Tobacco is incredibly expensive here.
What happens is the addicts spend all their money on insanely expensive tobacco and their kids go hungry.
These laws came after years and years of rising prices, massive taxation, plain packs with disgusting health warnings, free nicotine patches and free gum for anyone who wants to quit.
It has been working too. Our smoking rates are way down.
I'm really disappointed that we did the hard yards on this and now these turkeys are going to dismantle over a decade's worth of work and bring a whole new generation into lung cancer land.
Banning it for existing addicts is tough and can be cruel. Stopping new addicts is easy and a gift for life
How very evil of them. I personally don't think smoking, or any other substances should be banned. But they just admitted they think they should be banned, but won't ban them because they'd rather have the money. Exchanging people's lives for profit.
Shit really? I somehow completely missed this one when did this happen?
The leading Māori public health organisation, Hāpai te Hauora, said the reversal will be “catastrophic for Māori communities”.
It's not a good idea to tell conservatives how policies would potentially harm the vulnerable, the poor, the excluded.
For these reasons it's important to tell the voters at large when a policy affects this particular constituency.
Why don’t they tell the Maori to not smoke?
There have been more than 10 years of targetted ads telling Maori not to smoke, appealing to specifically Maori concepts like whanau and manaaakitanga.
What the people in this thread don't realise is that this law was part of Smokefree Aotearoa, an initiative invented by The Maori Party (a party whose main voters are Maori) to gradually phase out smoking.
It wasn't an abrupt change.
And drug addicts not to do drugs. Good idea
Why would words help?
This article uncovers an awful cancer of the platform: There are way too many who buy any conservative narrative if you frame it as freedom.
New Zealand, highly conservative about drug use, driving, security and relationships, yet will also go to ridiculous lengths to show how cleaning with a wet mop could be better than with a broom, or using one extra layer of building paper is absolutely essential for the structural integrity of the very work flow process that the entire company follows and is actually part of the new management SIX SIGMA protocol.
Me: "dude, don't do it, the last guy who touched that broom, he got lost, we haven't seen him since, but now the brooms come back"
Lol I need a translation, I feel like I got hit with some strong dissociative before reading this comment
Nah it's my attempt at humour really
LOL. This is funny AF.
I'm surprised Lemmy has this take. Why is it anyone else's right to take your right to smoking away?
Perhaps it's not the right to harm ones self that's the issue. Should you have the right to manufacture, sell, and profit from harm to others? Be it environmental, oral health, lung health, or heart health, cigarettes are a net negative to any citizenry. Seems in a governments best interest to try and greatly reduce and/or eliminate this leech.
I don't mind taking away the right for my son to smoke cancer sticks. Much like I wouldn't mind making Russian roulette illegal.
I don't like it when anyone threatens my son at all.
Why is it anyone else’s right to take your right to smoking away?
I have to breathe your smoke and pay for your healthcare.
Seems like a good thing to me. Let people decide for themselves, it's not the government's job to tell them what they can and can't put in their body.
Agree with this. All the pro weed and pro other drug people need to realize they are making the opposite argument to support banning smoking. All substances carry some intrinsic risk and the externalities must be managed, but its up to consenting adults to make their own choices about what they will consume.
It literally is the government's job. That's the whole point of the FDA.
I think they're making a statement about the proper role of goverment, not what it currently does.
And in NZ it's the Ministry of Health.
FDA's job is to tell corporations what they can and can't put in your body. You're still welcome to seek out those poisons and consume them. Cigarettes should be no different.
Good
Considering that nicotine isn't the harmful part of smoking, the amendment they had about greatly reducing how huch nicotine a cigarette was allowed to have would have been a pretty stupid move, turning people into chain smokers.
People aren't literally addicted to the habit of smoking, they're physically addicted to nicotine. It's pretty much unavoidable. Any smoker who tells you they just like the ritual, has been conditioned to think that by mentally associating the ritual with relief from the physical symptoms of nicotine withdrawal.
Sure, removing the nicotine isn't going to be an immediate barrier from continuing smoking. But the point is that once the person can no longer get nicotine from smoking, they will almost certainly make the decision to quit themselves. And that has the potential to be a more profound decision for them than simply having the product taken off the shelves and being told they can't have it.
Why benefit society when you can just fuck it over whilst profiting from short term gains.
God I hate how this planet functions. Tax the fucking rich already.
Taxxing won't do anything because structurally the Rich have the most power in the system. The only way to fix this is to systematically remove the Rich through whatever means and remove the means which enables them to exist.
Tanks go brrrrr!
Planet? Don't include the mice and dolphins in the way the homo sapiens do their shit.
Dolphins can be dicks sometimes too lol
Boomers are having a temper tantrum in their death throes by elections these Conservatives.
extinction burst
There is a massive drive to legalize weed. How is banning this any different than banning marijuana?
Do not like smoking myself but not sure how to justify the hypocrisy of thinking we should ban this vice over the other.
i dont think anybody is being forced to go buy cigarettes