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Smoking age should rise from 18, by one year every year - Rishi Sunak (www.bbc.com)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

There is no oxymoron.

Smoking is harming oneself.

Selling is harming another.

They are not equivalent.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Again. Stunning mental gymnastics.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'll note that you have nothing to refute with.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Should outlaw knife-selling cause those harm people!

Also should probably outlaw cars. And concerts, those are harmingly loud. Also alcohol I guess.

Okay, in all seriousness, I agree with you, but prohibition doesn't work. Drugs won the war on drugs.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

prohibition doesn't work

My first gut response was 'We should outlaw murder, I bet that'd stop murder from happening!'.

But as hilarious as it is, lets ignore the hyperbole.

The fact is that laws never stop all the activity they are intended to prevent. If they did we wouldn't need a court system.

No, the question is does the law do more good than bad for society?

Smoking causes 480,000 extra deaths yearly according to the CDC.

As we both agree, outlawing the sale will not prevent 100% of usage. But it will almost certainly prevent some usage.

And I agree that a black market will form and that black market will cause some societal damage.

So the question is, will the affects of the black market created by prohibition do more damage to society than the reduction in existing societal damage that we should see from prohibition?

Considering the above statistics, it may be worth the gamble.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

But there's the other part of the picture: black market drugs kill more people than legal drugs. Who knows what'd happen to the quality of tobacco!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Sure, like I said, there is going to be harm the black market creates.

I still feel there is a good chance for a net positive here.