Comment by FL33TW00D
7 hours ago
In a country with a national health system, why should you be able to internalize the benefit of smoking whilst externalizing the cost?
7 hours ago
In a country with a national health system, why should you be able to internalize the benefit of smoking whilst externalizing the cost?
You could use this logic to ban unhealthy foods, or restrict people from eating too much.
https://www.diabetes.org.uk/about-us/news-and-views/junk-foo...
https://www.newfoodmagazine.com/government-bans-high-sugar-a...
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/soft-drink-levy-extended-...
Or to resist ever passing a national health system.
There is something insidious about the state forcing a citizen to pay for its services, only turn around and insist that the use of said services entitles the state to further control of the citizen.
Considering the general state of the UK population, this may not be such a bad idea.
Indeed yes. We have extremely large governmental departments regulating what can and can not be sold as food.
Not the quantity of food though. Deaths attributed to obesity are higher than those of smoking in recent years. Smoking rates are falling, but obesity continues to climb in the UK.
This is just whataboutism, but the UK also regulates sugar in fairly draconian ways too, for example.
There are good reasons to target smoking given how addictive and deadly it is. Nicotine is fairly unique in this regard.
It's reductio ad absurdum. Obesity is really bad for you and strains public health services. Should the government enforce a cap on caloric intake?
2 replies →
> In a country with a national health system
I live in the USA where we are treated like crap by our system of government. I'd agree with you if we had national healthcare.
pigouvian taxes are both a stronger disincentive and help cover externalized costs.
if this moves nicotine to the black market then the people/government will still pay the cost without receiving any taxes on it at all
The sin taxes more than cover the healthcare costs of the associated sins. It's the untaxed sins, greed and sloth, that are fucking the NHS.
OK, so if you smoke you don't get national / socialized health care but don't have to pay the taxes that fund it either. Deal. It's enough to convince me to take up smoking.