S.20.3-21: Nicotine Discount Prohibition Act (Law'd)

[KoopaDaQuick 🇵🇸]

Thank you TM for putting this on the floor, thank you to Weatherboy for proofreading the text, and thank you to the Chamber for your time.

The core idea of this bill is that no commercial establishment in the Southern Region should be allowed to distribute coupons (and other instruments that allow for discounts) for the purchase of products containing nicotine. As I assume most of you are aware, nicotine is a highly addictive chemical that can cause extreme long term damage to the human body. The logic behind an establishment giving out coupons for a product is to encourage more people to purchase said product. With products that project little to no harm, such as cheese, deodorant, and other products you might find at a grocery store or supermarket, this is no big issue. But providing the consumers with coupons for nicotine products is really indirectly asking the consumer to buy tobacco, which could easily lead to addiction. We wouldn't see an advertisement for Marlboros or Camels on television, so why allow coupons for them to get distributed across the Southern Region? Therefore, in the name of preventing the health of Southerners from getting compromised due to nicotine addiction, I urge my fellow delegates to support this bill.

I yield the floor.

[KoopaDaQuick 🇵🇸]

A BILL FOR AN ACT
relating to coupons and discounts for nicotine products

BE IT ENACTED BY THE SOUTHERN CHAMBER RESOLVED.

Section 1, TITLE & DEFINITIONS.
i. The title of this Act shall be, the "Nicotine Discount Prohibition Act."
ii. “Product with nicotine” and “product containing nicotine” both refer to any commercial product that contains the stimulant nicotine, which includes, but is not limited to:
   a. Cigarettes
   b. Cigars
   c. Pipe tobacco
   d. Chewing tobacco
   e. Snuff tobacco, whether wet or dry
   f. Electronic cigarettes
iii. Clause (ii) of this section does not include nicotine lozenges, nicotine patches, or nicotine gum.
iv. “Coupon” refers to any instrument or mechanism, either print or digital, that provides the consumer who redeems it with a product or bundle of products containing nicotine at either no cost or a cost lower than the listed retail price.

Section 2, COUPONS.
i. No commercial distributor of products containing nicotine shall accept or redeem any coupon for said products within the borders of the Southern Region.
ii. No magazine, newspaper, or other publication is allowed to distribute coupons for products containing nicotine within the Southern Region.
iii. A Southern citizen who wishes to redeem a coupon for products with nicotine is permitted to do so in another region that permits coupons for said products, and is also permitted to use those products purchased with it within the Southern Region.
iv. An establishment caught accepting coupons for products with nicotine will be given with a fine of $X for each incident.

Section 3, ENACTMENT CLAUSE.
i. This act shall take effect on the first (1st) day of the January after final enactment by the legislature of the Southern Region.
ii. Coupons that are invalid and/or non-redeemable on or before the thirty-first (31st) day of December 2020 are not subject to this law.

minor grammatical fix lol

[KoopaDaQuick 🇵🇸]

By the way, once the objection period closes, I would love to hear a ballpark for the fine we should charge for accepting these coupons so I can get rid of the '$X' in §2.3.

[KoopaDaQuick 🇵🇸]

Do we think that $15,000 per violation is fair? Maybe too low? Maybe too high?

[KoopaDaQuick 🇵🇸]

Aye