She said the Maori Party's aim is to stop the uptake of smoking and she believes that is beginning to work with the biggest drop in the numbers of young people taking up cigarette smoking in the last three years.
You have to have somewhere to start and this really is it. People often bring up Prohibition and its consequences when discussing the banning of smoking, without realising that the circumstances are usually totally different. Yootwopia has made a name in recent months for himself by arguing that history doesn't repeat because it is never exactly the same each time. Normally I say that you must look at the wider scale to see the repetition but in some cases the smaller details warp that completely.
Die Smoking revealed the laziness of the people who brought this type of thing up.* Whether it was the first incarnation, the revival or the gravedig people misunderstood what was being proposed, completely. This was despite my telling them exactly what was happening, the OP did the same with a similar lack of success. Still people kept bringing up Prohibition or why not ban alcohol as well? The latter case may just be a sign of their ignorance of laws in NZ because the same ban proposed in that thread already applies to alcohol.
Anyway, in this case the ban is gradual. The idea is to reduce the number of smokers and reduce the number who pick it up. To this end, price hikes (a 20 pack is $13 or more, for some brands, at some supermarkets, already) and plain packaging will be useful. Also, the continued funding of Smoking, Not Our Future and Quitline type things are necessary. The social rejection necessary is well underway and the association of smoking with bad is achieved already. It may be useful to achieve smoker = bad, I'm not sure if the benefits will outweigh the generalisation.
I have seen the OP of Die Smoking propose capital punishment for smoking. This was misconstrued by essentially everyone (especially borderline trolls, as one would expect). They had made it illegal and by the time the punishment would have been implemented an extensive programme of rehabilitation and anti-smoking campaigns had already been in place. The eventual result, I think, is too intense. However, the steps that they had in place prior to this were entirely sensible and probably a good idea. I would replace capital punishment with jail time. (Smoking is already illegal inside. Get it?)
Dr George Thompson, the lead author of a tobacco report in February, said "incremental efforts" are not working quickly to achieve the 2025 smoke-free target.
Well, we still have thirteen years and a lot can change in that time. To use a soccer game as an analogy, Team A is behind 3-0 with, at most, thirteen minutes left. The game finished 3-3, no-one could have predicted that outcome.
I think that following Australia's lead and going with plain packaging may count for one of those goals. Getting a better public broadcasting system could be another. The final goal may be anything, it could be insane price hikes...
So, do you support a ban on smoking? How would you go about it? What are your general views on it? Please be sensible.
*That is to say they persisted in that behaviour. They just never bothered to appreciate the difference between the case of Die Smoking and Prohibition or the invalid nature of why not alcohol? Publicly at any rate.
You are suggesting something other than banning smoking?
