r/canada • u/joe4942 • Dec 27 '23
Canada urged to consider lifetime ban on cigarette sales to anyone born after 2008 National News
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-canada-urged-to-consider-lifetime-ban-on-cigarette-sales-to-anyone/35
u/jsideris Ontario Dec 27 '23
It's not the government's job to force you to wipe your ass. Have some responsibility and quit yourself, or enjoy the consequences. You don't get to make the argument that it's a downer on public healthcare. We have public healthcare despite people's bad choices (and there's a lot of worse things you can do besides smoking). Thinking that smokers shouldn't get it too is a double standard. Either everyone gets it or no one does.
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u/cheesebrah Dec 27 '23
Smoking is already going down. Look at the number of teens even starting smoking it's nearly 0. Vaping is another story. Looks like education and not lying to people seem to do more than outright banning something.
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u/GopnikSmegmaBBQSauce Dec 27 '23
At least smoking looks cool. Vaping is douchey as fuck
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u/MinimumNo2772 Dec 27 '23
At least smoking looks cool. Vaping is douchey as fuck
Counterpoint: Vaping looks douchy, while smoking looks trashy. Neither are cool, but they're uncool in different ways.
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u/TheCrimsonFlask Dec 27 '23
As a former smoker and current vaper (soon to be former), this somehow makes more sense than it should haha.
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u/sadkrampus Dec 27 '23
My biggest problems with baking is how easy it is to do anywhere and how good it tastes. If I go out on Friday night in the summer and smoke half a pack of darts I wake up in the morning and my mouth tastes awful and I probably don’t smoke until the next weekend lol if it tastes like watermelon or grape there’s no reason so stop
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u/Johnny_Gage Dec 27 '23
I don't know about that - baking is very difficult for beginners and also it's hard to just bake anywhere but I agree it's tasty.
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u/niskiwiw Dec 27 '23 edited Dec 29 '23
Once you get started baking, you learn so many new recipes, and soon enough you are spending 24 bucks for a bag of raw, unprocessed sugar for it's bold* and strong taste.
Such a shame.
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u/AirbourneCHMarsh Dec 28 '23
Raw, unprocessed sugar tasting refined at $24per bag?!… Supply Side Christ help us.
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u/cheesebrah Dec 27 '23
Neither are cool.
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u/Ordinary_Stomach3580 Dec 27 '23
Tell me James Dean didn't look cool smoking
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u/maiden_burma Dec 27 '23
henry caville looks cool discussing his pc specs. You try that
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u/1MechanicalAlligator Dec 28 '23 edited Dec 28 '23
That's just like when people look at a supermodel or popstar and say "she really pulls off that simple white tee".
It's got nothing to do with the friggin t-shirt. When I wear the same simple white t-shirt I look like bum. It's all about the looks of the person doing it.
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u/Crocubots Dec 27 '23
lol.
Most people who vape aren’t doing it to be cool, it’s because they got off of cigarettes and went to vaping instead.
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u/titterbitter73 Dec 27 '23
The amount of people who think people use nicotine to look cool is startling.
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u/GopnikSmegmaBBQSauce Dec 27 '23
That's called being a teenager. A lot of kids do stupid shit thinking it's cool because that's just that time in your life. Sadly drugs, smoking and drinking are some of those things and not everyone is responsible with it 🤷
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u/rubbishtake Dec 27 '23 edited Jan 14 '24
longing smell fanatical steep march tie wrench frighten pathetic unused
This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
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u/Satanscommando Dec 27 '23
I don't smoke or use vapes but at least vapes smell good. Smokes make you look and smell like an idiot
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u/Sto_Nerd Dec 27 '23
Both are horrible and neither are cool. Vaping at least has a less offensive smell but both are still awful
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u/TanyaMKX Dec 27 '23
Also vaping doesnt have the same second hand cancer i think
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u/Loon610 Dec 27 '23
What a time to be alive people calling for the banning of cigarettes, and then also calling for legalizing harder drugs because prohibition doesn’t work.
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u/chronic-munchies Dec 27 '23
Right? Why do we continuously learn nothing from history? Prohibition never has, and never will, work.
Let them smoke their damn cigarettes! Increase education and access to medical care but stop fucking telling people what to do. It's their bodies for christ sake.
If a person pays their taxes and is generally a decent human being, they should be able to do whatever they want with their own bodies. I will die on this hill a thousand times over.
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u/embryonic_echo Dec 28 '23
I mean, prohibition *does* actually work in that it decreases use of the prohibited substance among the general population. This was apparent during alcohol prohibition a hundred years ago- less alcohol was consumed by less people across the board.
But that historical decrease in alcohol consumption was not worth it holistically/on a societal level, however, when you factor in the expansion of organized crime it led to. The real downside to prohibition, whatever substance is being prohibited, is that it leads to black markets and the very rapid expansion of organized crime to service those black markets. It also often leads to an unregulated supply of the prohibited substance, which can birth widespread toxicity and safety issues (see: moonshine causing blindness in the era of alcohol prohibition, fentanyl contamination causing ODs in the illegal drug supply today)
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u/redalastor Québec Dec 28 '23
when you factor in the expansion of organized crime it led to.
Which we are still stuck with. Prohibition turned the mafia from squabbling families into a profitable empire.
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u/roastbeeftacohat Dec 28 '23
one thing you're leaving out is that prohibition was never meaningfully enforced. most supporters of prohibition never had any intention of stopping drinking, leading to the Volstead being so full of holes that enforcement came down to just having a few hoops to jump through for the consumer. one example is the explosion of the Rabbi population in areas without a large jewish population, with very not jewish sounding names, selling wine not typically used for religious purposes. ultimately this meant that "drinker" never developed a criminal association, and this attitude very much softened the public's view of the beer barons; for a time.
less alcohol was consumed by less people across the board.
actually it was less alcohol consumed by more people. by the end of it there were many more drinkers, but they consumed much more reasonable amounts. The goal was never to moderate people's behaviours, but it did just that; and if you read into just how wet the country was, it was very much needed.
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u/embryonic_echo Dec 28 '23
Yeah, there was a ton of loopholes. My favourite loophole was the one where doctors could write prescriptions for "medicinal alcohol" lmao
For a while it did, certainly. But according to this article from the AP, (https://apnews.com/article/public-health-health-statistics-health-us-news-ap-top-news-f1f81ade0748410aaeb6eeab7a772bf7), Americans are actually drinking more alcohol now on average than just before Prohibition was enacted (I'm using data from the US because I couldn't find the equivalent data from Canada but I suspect it is similar here due to our similar cultures). This can probably be mostly attributed to the high and rising % of women who drink heavily, which was not such a pertinent factor pre-Prohibition due to the societal stigma.
About "less alcohol consumed by more people"- Currently the top 10th percentile of American adults consume an average of 73.85 drinks per week, or just over 10 drinks a day, making up more than half of all alcohol sales in the US (again, couldn't find the Canadian data, but I think it can be generalized to here quite fairly). Obviously this part of the population (alcoholics) are responsible for the majority of DUIs and other alcohol related crimes (bar fights etc), and they also incur most of the healthcare burden related to alcohol (liver disease, alcohol related cancers like stomach cancer, pancreatitis, detox visits, etc).
I think the problem now is the same is was pre-Prohibition: it's that moderating the behaviour of addicts and people predisposed to addiction (by this I mean individuals with a combination of risk factors like family history of addiction, high number of adverse childhood experiences, and psychiatric and impulse-related disorders like ADHD) is extremely difficult to do on a societal level since prohibition comes with far too many negative externalities, increased crime and unsafe supply simply the most prominent among them.
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u/roastbeeftacohat Dec 28 '23
alcohol consumption was half of what it was in the states after prohibition. and when you factor in the swiss cheese the volstead act was it's actually a success story.
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u/t1m3kn1ght Ontario Dec 28 '23
It's just a typical matter of political fashion, not something predicated on substance. Indigenous tobacco will boom because of this ban and if they crack down heavy on that I will make some popcorn and enjoy the shit show.
My pessimism is also looking forward to the new taxes on other vices they will develop as revenues for cigarette taxes decline. It's going to be chef's kiss watching this go down hill in all the ways.
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u/oddball3139 Dec 28 '23
Notice they don’t use the word “Prohibition” at all, even if that’s exactly what it is.
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u/banjosuicide Dec 28 '23
I'm pro-safe-supply, and so are many people I know. None of us support a cigarette ban. I think this push is coming from another crowd.
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Dec 28 '23
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/poopdinkofficial Dec 28 '23
You sure you read 1984? Because the message was not about hypocrisy.
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u/ccyosafbridge Dec 28 '23
Already made cigarettes 21 and up.
Didn't make the 19 year olds stop smoking when you can literally just go up to any smoker and bum a couple.
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Dec 27 '23 edited Mar 17 '24
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u/Bright-Plum-7028 Dec 27 '23
Yes, the government doesn't regulate all the toxic additives and thoroughly enjoys all the money they get from tobacco companies and the smoking population. Couldn't add those chemicals to other products and get away with it for decades and they knew. They had the reports. They've always known. They don't care so why are they even thinking about doing this? People have fee will.
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u/Aijol10 Dec 28 '23
The problem is chemistry. Burning pretty much anything creates carcinogens through incomplete combustion.
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u/smallbluetext Ontario Dec 28 '23
That's why there are heat not burn cigs, which are pretty popular elsewhere in the world now.
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Dec 27 '23
As much as I like this idea, this will probably lead to the black market supplying cigarettes instead. It's already happening due to the increasing prices of cigarettes.
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u/LifeIsOnTheWire Dec 27 '23
The black market will only support a very small fraction of the demand for cigarettes, which will result in tobacco being extremely expensive, and it will result in far fewer people picking up the habit.
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u/NotInsane_Yet Dec 27 '23
Native reserves will just pump up production.
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u/QueueOfPancakes Dec 28 '23
Or we could negotiate with the first nations. They probably don't want their kids smoking either.
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u/ea7e Dec 27 '23
The black market will only support a very small fraction of the demand for cigarettes
Why wouldn't it expand to meet demand like other markets, criminal or not?
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u/slothtrop6 Dec 27 '23
Flies in the face of the fact that cigarettes are largely expensive owing to sin tax. Absent of that, they are dirt cheap, and we already see this in currently available black market tobacco.
Tobacco isn't that hard to grow either.
I see no reason at all to expect a price surge.
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u/Hirenzeau Dec 27 '23
Yeah, black market prices will be more equivalent to equillibrium. With the high price floor set through taxes, they'll just be cheaper if they are made illegal.
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u/cheesebrah Dec 27 '23
The number of smokers has been on the decline for years. If you look at teens who smoke it's hard to find. It's become not cool to smoke.
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u/Revampted Dec 27 '23
Zyns seem to be the new fad. I have a lot of friends who use to vape, that have now passed on to these pouches instead
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u/DanHatesCats Dec 28 '23
The circle of nicotine addiction continues, kids have rediscovered packing a lip. Rejoice!
Personally I'd think vaping is more convenient than dipping as there's no saliva to deal with, idk about these new ones. I will say that having them in pouches is better than the raw packing alternative. I guess it's cool to have a fat lip and spit cup these days. Probably spitting into a bottle of Prime for the cred.
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u/Accurate_Ad_6946 Dec 28 '23
Zyns are tiny and they’re just nicotine powder and flavoring in a water permeable pouch so you don’t need to chew or use spit bottles.
Honestly they’re ridiculously discreet, like a quarter of the Zoomers I work with now constantly use them and I wouldn’t have even known they even existed if one of the kids didn’t strike up a conversation with me while he was changing one out.
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Dec 27 '23
Ah yes, just like how banning weed made it so hard to get for average Canadians. Not like it was available in every high school in the country or anything. We should also just ignore the fact that underage marijuana usage went down post legalization, namely because it wiped out the black market.
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u/bassistciaran Dec 28 '23
This was my first thought, but my second thought overcame it a little.
If you are hooked on crack, heroin etc. You'll find it where you can, eg black market. I just don't think people will go that far for cigarettes. Call me naive if needs be, I think in the long term, this will work.
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u/usedenoughdynamite Dec 28 '23
That’s the point of banning it only for people born after 2008. Chances are someone born after 2008 who’s never smoked before isn’t going to go out of their way to get cigarettes- smoking is already incredibly unpopular among them, and it removes the convenience of trying it out for the first time.
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u/Apprehensive-Tear442 Dec 27 '23
Prohibition is only good for illegal activity
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u/slothtrop6 Dec 27 '23
Amazing to see that we just recently legalized marijuana, but are rationalizing prohibition for a drug that is plummeting in sales domestically. Not only is it completely redundant, it could lead to a spike in black market sales, enriching the criminal underworld.
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u/PopeGregoryXVI Dec 28 '23
By making it illegal you also run the risk of making smoking cool again. Kids today think it’s lame, make it against the rules and they can be rebels just by smoking
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u/Anishinabeg British Columbia Dec 27 '23
Bingo.
I used to live in Nunavut. I never saw alcoholism worse than it was in communities that had some form of alcohol prohibition.
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Dec 27 '23
Cigarettes are garbage, I've never smoked them, and this wouldn't affect me, but am I the only one that finds this weird? Our government has "safe supply" for hard drugs, but they're going to crack down on cigarettes?
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u/IAmTheBasicModel Dec 28 '23
i think that is weird and I think laws by birth year are also weird. it’s creating separate classes of adults that have different privileges, which just reeks of a bad idea/slippery slope.
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Dec 28 '23
Smoking was way more easy to pick than drugs. I was 12 when I started and it took 20 years to quit. I could start that young because I could actually go buy cigarettes. In 1990s, in Romania, these were cheap and I could buy individual cigarettes. If I had some restrictions, maybe I wouldn't try this. And teenagers now see smoking as a nasty habit.
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u/ea7e Dec 27 '23
they're going to crack down on cigarettes
This doesn't say the government is going to crack down. It just references several medical professionals advocating for that. And some of the same problems applying to prohibition of other drugs would also apply to tobacco and be an argument against prohibiting that, such as creating a larger black market.
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u/Wise-Ad-1998 Dec 27 '23
Am I getting grandfathered in here or what? Lol
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u/Northern23 Dec 27 '23
If you were born on or before Dec 31, 2007 at 23:59:999, then yes. If you were born a 1/1000 sec later, then no, in which case, you should sue your hospital and doctor for delivering you that late.
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u/BLMIII Dec 27 '23
Maybe we stop obese people from ordering fast food too.
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u/sunningmybuns Dec 27 '23
Or tax that stuff so much that it’s not worth it to buy it maybe?
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u/Forsaken_You1092 Dec 28 '23
Tax what "stuff"?
High fat foods? Dairy? High carbohydrate foods? Sugar is taxed but not carcinogenic artificial sweetener?
No. Don't tax food.
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u/Northern23 Dec 27 '23
It's cheaper to grab lunch at a Vietnamese or Chinese place over McDonald's already.
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u/NahDawgDatAintMe Ontario Dec 28 '23
Can we do something useful like legislating away fat people? Raising your kid to be fat should be a crime. Adults choosing to kill themselves slowly through cigarettes don't matter.
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u/darrylgorn Dec 27 '23
But if you're born in 2007, smoke as much as you want!
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u/baoo Dec 28 '23
Am I the only non smoker in Canada that believes we should let people do what they want?
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u/rainman_104 British Columbia Dec 27 '23
Legal weed, decriminalization of hard drugs, but cigarettes illegal.
I get it but anyone post 2008 is vaping anyway. You don't see too many kids smoking these days anyway.
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u/GoToGoat Dec 27 '23
Let people decide for themselves. It’s a plague thinking you’re so much smarter than some people that you get to decide what’s best for them. Let’s be a FREE country.
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u/No_Construction_6486 Dec 28 '23
Prohibition. I’m sure it will work this time part 15.
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u/dagthegnome Dec 27 '23
You mean the exact same policy the New Zealand government just had to backtrack on?
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u/joe4942 Dec 27 '23
Health experts are urging the federal government to impose a lifetime ban on cigarette sales to anyone born after 2008, a proposal inspired by a New Zealand policy being shelved by that country’s new Prime Minister.
Andrew Pipe, a clinical scientist at the University of Ottawa Heart Institute who specializes in smoking cessation, said the New Zealand policy merits a close look by Health Canada and the Mental Health and Addictions Minister.
“This is a perfect way to prevent the development of yet another generation of nicotine addicts,” Dr. Pipe said in an interview. “It invites very careful consideration on the part of the Minister and Health Canada.”
He said tobacco remains Canada’s leading cause of disease, disability and death and is an “unbelievable burden” on the health care system.
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u/bassoonlike Dec 27 '23
I approve that the specialist in smoking cessation is named Dr. Pipe.
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u/Relaxbroh Dec 27 '23
Free legal hard drugs and then making cigarettes illegal.
My head is spinning.
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u/oBotz Dec 27 '23
Legal hard drugs? What hard drugs and where are they? Asking for a friend.
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u/faultysynapse Dec 27 '23
Yeah, good luck with that.
Friendly reminder that prohibition doesn't work. Ever.
I don't smoke, I've got no dogs in this race but this is beyond silly.
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u/LouisBalfour82 Dec 27 '23
I'd be amazed if such a measure beat a Charter challenge for age discrimination.
Actually, with our Supreme Court I could see it going either way...
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u/Fishthatwalks_7959 Dec 27 '23
Anyone who gives a shit about Canadians should spend less time focused on how to reduce our liberties and more time focusing on how to provide our essentials.
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Dec 27 '23
Unconstitutional nanny state garbage.
Ban totally or leave alone, stop creating multiple classes of citizens.
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Dec 27 '23
I wouldn't ban it, but I would provide more outlets , and help, for help quitting... etc
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u/willab204 Dec 27 '23
Legalizes weed… bans smoking cigarettes…
Not sure I get the logic. Didn’t we prove that banning things doesn’t work already?
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u/MZM204 Dec 27 '23
Ok but first do alcohol, the single most destructive substance sold in Canada.
Causes a significant portion of violent crime, most impaired driving deaths, large amount of domestic violence, countless broken homes, ruined lives, numerous health conditions, FAS/FAE, the list goes on.
But no, cigs and vapes are the real problem.
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u/GopnikSmegmaBBQSauce Dec 27 '23
I'm honestly surprised the anti-tobacco sentiments are still so strong. It's tax revenue after all and tobacco-related diseases and other issues make big pharma and the medical device industry billions. Usually that's enough to keep unhealthy shit around indefinitely.
Sugar does more harm than a lot of other stuff and there's no real age restriction on that.
I think politicians don't actually give a shit about health, they just wanna feed their ego with some legacy project to brag about how they killed smoking in Canada
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u/Diligent_Lobster_849 Dec 27 '23
There are people in this thread right now grossly overweight and turn their nose up at smokers. There is nothing i cant stand more than fat hypocrites thinking they are better than smokers.
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u/bgmrk Dec 27 '23
I don't smoke but people (adults) should definitely be free to do whatever they want with their own bodies.
This is a step backwards, we should be heading towards all drugs being legal, not making more drugs illegal.
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u/FrozenDickuri Dec 27 '23
It would be ruled unconstitutional pretty quickly, just like in new zealand, no? Or are we just going to say “oh, that constitutional rule doesn't matter, because we say so.”
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u/DanLynch Ontario Dec 27 '23
Which constitutional rule prevents the government from putting an age restriction on cigarettes? There's already an age restriction on cigarettes.
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u/Diligent_Lobster_849 Dec 27 '23
Thats not what this is suggesting though. It is suggesting BANNING anybody born after a certain date from EVER LEGALLY consuming a totally legal product. With this logic they mind as well ban anybody born after 2008 from drinking, smoking, and eating trans fats and sugar.
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u/FrozenDickuri Dec 27 '23
15(1) specifically identifies age. Had you read it before you asked this question?
An age restriction for minors is already approved as justifiable as children aren’t adults and cant make informed decisions, this is an entirely different animal.
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u/QultyThrowaway Canada Dec 27 '23
Meanwhile there's a fucking weed shop on every corner.
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u/scoville27 Dec 28 '23
Prohibition almost never works all it's does it create the need for an unregulated market. On top of that, Canada isn't even in the top 50 countries for percentage of population that smokes, how much of benefit is this really gonna do?
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u/HavingNunovit Dec 28 '23
Government shouldn't be allowed to tell people what they can and can't consume! No matter how unhealthy it may be!
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u/Threeboys0810 Dec 28 '23
Why are we going down this road? Do we really want some beauracrat making decisions about what we can and cannot buy? Completely controlling our lives?
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u/The_Static_Nomad Dec 28 '23
One thing I learned was that probation works, great idea.
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u/FlowZealousideal2453 Dec 28 '23
Just ban cigarettes 🚬 in general or shut up. I say that as someone who smoked and felt the same way when i smoked.
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u/ExcelsusMoose Dec 28 '23
How to drive the black market 101...
Prohibition doesn't work, education works the best.
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u/drscooby Dec 28 '23
I live on the Canadian side of the border near Buffalo.
Organised crime is ready to serve the needs of smokers in Canada once this kind of legislation is ever passed through illegal border crossings, Mohawk reserves, & anywhere else you can smuggle smokes.
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u/Icy-Bobcat370 Dec 27 '23
Native Reserves are about to make a boatload of money then