FT 22.04 – Tobacco Prohibition Amendment (Failed)

[KoopaDaQuick 🇵🇸]

Thank you, Mr. First Minister.

If the government has the authority to restrict the sale and distribution of other deadly vices, such as crack cocaine, meth, et cetera, I find nothing wrong with the prohibition of this comparable substance. Tobacco provides no substantial benefit to the people of the region, and prohibiting its distribution would cause no fundamental harm to its security or prosperity.

However, when we pass this amendment, we must remember its goal: stopping tobacco from being sold. The people aren't our enemy, the people who perpetuate this vice are. Don't punish them, punish the manufacturer.

I refuse to elaborate any further as the amendment speaks for itself. Tobacco bad. I yield my time.

[KoopaDaQuick 🇵🇸]

Very strongly opposed to this overkill. Who cares whether the original law is constitutional or not, this is a simulated game so we don't need to pretend to worry about tobacco companies suing us till the cows come home.

I don't care what the virtual tobacco companies think. The law is the law, and I don't want to stand for regional laws that violate federal statute and our great region's constitution, especially when the plain packaging laws offered by Frémont's current laws are themselves overkill and stomp out private parties' fundamental rights to free expression for the sake of a nanny state holding the hands of people too stupid to make the right decision. It opens the door to government being able to dictate what parties can and can't say and poses an existential threat to the most fundamental civil right you could receive.

People have every right to up their lives if they want to as long as there's no direct harm to others. Given the very liberal approach we take to drugs in this game and in this region it's absurd to suddenly take such a hardline position on tobacco as if we're LARPing as Nancy Reagan.

In my opinion, I think this is a pretty liberal solution to the tobacco question. Under this amendment, nobody will be arrested for partaking in tobacco consumption. Smokers are not the target of this amendment, tobacco manufacturers are. Though me and First Minister disagree heavily on whether or not plain packaging falls under the first amendment, we can both agree that profiting off of addiction and suffering just can't be reasonably justified. Allowing tobacco manufacturers to profit off of human suffering, much like allowing cotton companies to profit off of slave labor, cannot be something that can be permitted for much longer. Tobacco hurts people. Its profit may be counted in dollars, but its consequences can only be counted in lives. Taking a lolbertarian stance on the sale and distribution of tobacco makes about as much sense as taking a similar stance towards crack cocaine. That's why the TPA is on the floor right now.

[KoopaDaQuick 🇵🇸]

Tobacco, like gambling, or McDonald's, is something that people freely choose while knowing the consequences. Certainly the influence of Wulfricism is alive and well if we're debating whether to ban entire products or companies because they're unhealthy!

Let's not undo the progress we've made with drug liberalization. Let's not become a nanny state. Let's not relegate tobacco to the black market.

This amendment falls in line with other forms of drug liberalization as it doesn't actually ban smoking, just sale and distribution. If our nanny government can regulate what the people can and can't say, what's stopping it from saying what it can and can't sell?

[KoopaDaQuick 🇵🇸]

calling for a final vote because this bill is good

[KoopaDaQuick 🇵🇸]

So much for stopping the evil tobacco empire. Sticking it to your political opponents is apparently far more important.

Aye