Prohibition is wrong. It’s not just unethical but impractical.
And congrats, now cops aren’t just going to claim they smell weed in my car, they’re going to claim they smell menthol too.
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Also your “waive your right to gov funded healthcare” argument doesn’t make sense. Because I still have to pay for the other guy’s healthcare too.
1. Run public health awareness campaigns to make sure that people (especially children / young people) are aware of the health risks. You can do similar things around healthy eating.
2. Treat drug usage and addiction as medical rather than criminal issue (so the police might confiscate your weed if they catch you with it, but they won't charge you with anything).
Both of these minimise healthcare costs without actually banning anything.
It’s also worth mentioning that public health awareness campaigns frequently stretch the science in the quest to moralize more effectively. Case in point: saturated fats, pretending everyone is equally vulnerable to AIDS, etc
Then why are healthcare costs in the UK (socialised) and Europe (typically private, but highly regulated with a social option) dramatically lower than US (private) healthcare costs despite similar levels of care? Unless you have evidence that it increases costs, I would suggest that you viewpoint is just ideology, and you may wish to consider revising it.
> It’s also worth mentioning that public health awareness campaigns frequently stretch the science in the quest to moralize more effectively
They also often do a lot of good despite this. There is a very successful public health campaign promoting the eating of 5 fruits and vegetables a day. It's not quite accurate. The science suggested we should be eating 9. But it's lead to people eating a lot more fruit and veg than they would otherwise have done, which is a good thing all round.
They don’t have similar levels of care, that’s why. Wait times are longer and the care is overall of lower quality.
It’s also hard to compare countries directly. In the USA we have a big “underclass” of very unhealthy people (that falls along both socioeconomic and racial lines), which the countries you’re pointing out largely don’t.
Has any country with socialized medicine actually banned tobacco fully? Genuinely curious.
If they haven't then I don't understand why regulation isn't continuous with the current regime, where smokers have to pay a lot more for health insurance. These problems do not go away in a free market system, insurance companies will always try to incentivize you to take on less risk.
Unaware what countries have fully banned tobacco. Without looking it up at all...maybe singapore? They seem like the type.
Sure but that's not really what's being discussed here right now, and there doesn't seem to be evidence that this has happened. From another perspective, governments are trying to do their best to protect their citizens from the malign interests of private entities who sell dangerous products. I agree that banning tobacco entirely would be too coercive, though.
Apparently Bhutan is the only country where tobacco is illegal. I understand your concerns with regards to prohibition but I think this is a slippery slope argument without a better example or a more compelling explanation.
Externalized costs are the root of many seemingly insurmountable societal problems, and most can be fixed by simply accounting for the costs appropriately.
Yet tobacco costs 120 billion euros a year for only 16 billion in revenue (to the government). [1]
It is almost infeasible to tax cigarette to the equivalent of their burden on the health care system.
[0]: https://www.boursorama.com/patrimoine/actualites/les-taxes-s...
[1]: https://www.reseau-hopital-ght.fr/actualites/patients/campag...
"According to the research, a person of normal weight costs on average £210,000 over their lifetime, a smoker just £165,000 and an obese person £187,000."
https://taxfoundation.org/new-study-shows-smokers-and-obese-....
By this logic, there should be no tax (or indeed a subsidy) on cigarettes.
Now what? Your healthcare costs should go up because you like your eggs fried and with salt instead of hard boiled?
Just make sure you have a dividend that goes back to the poor to make up for the regressiveness of such taxes.
I think that in situations like that, you ought to cover the cost of a potential rescue up front, either by paying for an insurance policy or putting down a deposit. People search until your deposit/insurance runs out, then they stop. If you don't survive, that's on you. There's just absolutely no reason that anyone's tax dollars should be spent to help someone who performs a totally needless and incredibly dangerous activity of their own volition.
Same goes for surfing, or having consensual, unprotected sex. Both dangerous, or at least much more dangerous than the average human activity, but both too basic and natural to consider regulating. In my opinion.
This may sound pedantic, but I think it's an important distinction: Society has saddled society with the costs of their choices. It's not the self-destructive choice maker's fault.
If a child in public school willfully refuses to practice cursive, they may require additional instruction and resources. I wouldn't say that child is "saddling society with the costs of their choices". They're just living the life they were born to, and society is obsessing over them.
In general I lean libertarian and agree that banning things isn't great, but if you want to make your own choices, you have to bear the costs of those choices. If you want to waive your right to government funded healthcare, then you ought to be able to make whatever unhealthy choices you want.