Raising Minimum Smoking Age

[© tweed]

Probably won't make much difference. Kids blag fags off older kids and adults as it is.

it does (or can) make a big difference in high schools, raising from 18 to 19.

[© tweed]

I don't think smoking should be banned and that I believe that the government is not in charge of making sure everyone is pressured into being healthy.

But, "let people consume what they want" is, just, sooo naive.

this is the right angle, though I would've gone elsewhere with the rest of the post.

regulation of smoking, soda, etc, etc arises from a fundamental tension.  'society' as a whole faces negative consequences when people make unhealthy decisions.  yet we all recognize that at a certain level, forcing people to make healthy decisions in contrary to liberty at a fundamental level.  nobody wants to see smokers executed or the obese fed steamed broccoli at gunpoint.

so, the question always is, where to draw the line.  the most convenient answer for the politicians is to tax the product at point of sale.  tobacco taxes are extremely regressive.  a sugar tax would be regressive, albeit less so. 

I would argue that tobacco taxes have crossed a line from disincentive to actual punishment in the West.  given how regressive they are, and the inelasticity of product demand, the average pack-a-day smoker in NYC or Providence has gone from spending $2000/yr on cigarettes to $4500 or so.  that's a heavy, heavy burden to bear, for, say, a single mother with a working poor level income.

[© tweed]

What the hell is the point of smoking for "pleasure"? Unlike alcohol or marijuana or even hard drugs, it doesn't have cool or fun effects. All it does is smell disgusting and make you cough. It's the worst drug ever and one of the most idiotic things you can do.

you've said this before and it'd been debunked before.  nicotine can be at once a stimulant and an anxiolytic -- a rare combination.  it would not be so widely used for so many centuries if it had no positive effects.

it is possible that you would not enjoy nicotine, cigarettes, tobacco, whatever; the experience associated with any particular drug will have a strong subjective component.  ie, you mentioned that marijuana has "cool" effects; I long ago stopped using it because it made my anxiety levels go haywire, which was not cool at all.

[© tweed]

so, the question always is, where to draw the line.  the most convenient answer for the politicians is to tax the product at point of sale.  tobacco taxes are extremely regressive.  a sugar tax would be regressive, albeit less so.  

I'll simply say that "convenience" is far from the only reason that excise taxes are chosen as a solution.  They make solid Pigouvian sense even in the absence of political constraints...

That consumption taxes (certain specific luxury goods excepted) tend to be regressive in practice is an issue, yes. But it's one that needs to be balanced against the severity of the externality problems

right.  and the fact that these harmful goods are inelastic in demand.  a 30-year, pack-a-day smoker does not "choose" to smoke his next cigarette in the sense that I'll go choose to eat at x restaurant for dinner.  it's a captive, often poor consumer base, and my personal feeling is that $12 for a pack of cigs, $9 of it taxes, is exploitative and targets the poorest segments of the population.

something similar is true of gas taxes: people can't just up and choose not to commute to work via car anymore.  the society was deliberately designed to be sprawl-y in the early-to-mid 20th Century, for the benefit of the auto, gas and oil companies.  the only silver lining (though it seems weird to call it that) is that this targets the lower-middle through upper-middle classes rather than the underclass.

punitive taxes are not real solutions to problems.  they're a way for politicans to raise taxes in a way that's politically feasible.  the strategy with tobacco has actually been working: demonize it, massive ad campaign, free nicotine replacement starter kits, etc.  the % of the US that smokes has declined propitiously since its peak in the 50s/60s.  (of course the tobacco companies have shifted to targeting Asian markets, so even as they lose the lobbying battle here [except for the tobacco belt states, VA, SC, etc] they'll perfectly profitable).

the way to tackle the fossil fuel problem is much more difficult and complicated.  it's take massive public investment (hundreds of billions, trillions...) in both mass transit and alternative energy sources. it would face mass resistance from some of the most powerful sectors of capital. I'm pessimistic we'll get anywhere with that on any sort of mass scale.

[© tweed]

Finally, pessimism simply isn't an option here. Throw up your hands and say, "oh well, it's too big, no way to fix it", and well, that's gonna cost us way more in the end.  It's not gonna get fixed immediately, but you know what they say about those thousand-mile journeys...

the pessimism is my way of saying "I don't think getting off of fosssil fuels [quickly enough] can happen within the contours of the current system".  there are things that people can do that are facially apolitical but can be a part of movement-building: buy food locally, etc.

there's also the issue of whether we're past the tipping point to begin with.  I'm not a climate scientist and never will be, but plenty of reputable climate scientists expect catastrophe by the end of the Century even if we act now, decisively, to reduce emissions.

I mean, one of the two major parties in the largest country by GDP in the World denies that there even is a problem and will promote policies to make the problem even worse.  the other one admits there is a problem but does between little and nothing about it.  it's just about time for our tears -- hopefully we'll be dead by the time it gets really bad, but may God damn you if you have children.