Nicotine is naturally in tobacco, which is remarkably easy to grow. It’s raised commercially from the equator straight through the temperate latitudes. The high nicotine burly varietals preferred for commercial cigarette production are widely available. But probably easier to get is the even higher nicotine rustica species, which is commonly grown as an ornamental in many countries. That one’s commonly grown for personal use throughout Russia, South East Asia, Latin America and in many Native American communities.
The only thing you have to do to turn the plant into a nicotine delivery vehicle is dry it.
Based on what I’ve seen with people who have done either, and been told by those who do both. Tobacco is way, way easier than marijuana.
It is heavily taxed in NZ already. Malboros Red 20s (did I spell that right?) are apparently NZ$37 for a pack (~US$25). I don’t smoke, so I really have not been paying attention.
Exactly. Everybody has the right to live unhealthy, its their personal decision as an adult. Prohibition never worked, be it with alcohol, weed or hard drugs. It only criminalized people and costs the state ridiculus sums of money. If you legalize drugs but tax the crap out of them, it will make the state a mint. Newest example: the new german gouverment plans to legalize and tax marijuana, and they expect billions in tax money.
I didn’t see your first statement, but I agree with both of them. Prohibition with substances like this never works. But then again, it’s New Zealand: maybe they can make it work. In dealing with guns and Covid, they’ve made the USA look like idiots.
It’s not just about money, it’s also people that are progressively less useful to society as they accumulate comorbidities. It matters economically if a society is physically unhealthy, and not just in terms of direct cost to the state.
Nuh, that’s not great either. People in Scandinavia where I live and where alcohol is only available in special shops and is incredibly expensive have a much more unhealthy attitude towards it than people in Germany where I come from and where it is easily accessible and cheap.
There probably isn’t a simple solution. That said, you can’t really compare alcohol and tobacco because binge-smoking isn’t a thing and binge drinking is what makes societies with highly regulated alcohol sales so (literally) toxic
Heavy taxes on cigarettes is what help me quit by cutting back. Had they made it illegal I likely would have gone to the illegal sources and not cut back at all. Yet another good thing taxes has created (like schools, infrastructure…)
I think most of you missed the point of the bill. An adult smoker in New Zealand today will never not be able to buy smokes legally.
What they are doing is making it illegal for anyone born in 2007(?) or later. I don’t know how many people are going to fight for the right of 7 year olds to smoke 20 years from now.
The point is to make it very difficult to start smoking. Once someone is addicted that is a separate thing with separate solutions. I can say with 100% certainty that I wouldn’t have started smoking (at 13) if I hadn’t been able to buy them in any store. I wouldn’t have found ways to bootleg something I only sort of wanted to try.
I haven’t smoked for several years now, but I know from past experience that I dare not call myself an ex-smoker. Nicotine is (IMO) exceptionally addictive.
I think this approach by NZ seems like a pretty sensible one. A lot of people seem to be taking the ‘prohibition never works’ line just because it never worked in the US for example. It doesn’t mean that it won’t work in NZ, a country which is peculiar in a number of ways, not least its geographical location and it’s culture.
I say bring it.
And if there are unintended consequences, well deal with them as they happen.
That’s the weird part. Full prohibition might not work, but at least it’s a more coherent policy than this weird “you’ll never be adult enough” semi-prohibition.
I think their smoke free goal is commendable and legislation is absolutely the right tool to achieve it, but this approach is like declaring cheese illegal for skinny people.
I mean - cigarette sales are already limited in the US - and alcohol! Minors still get a hold of both.
I don’t see how initially it will be any different. I guess 30 years from now where only old smokers who still smoke can buy them legally, it would be way harder to legally smoke. But life, uh, finds away.
I think the vape pens and Juuls are way more popular with kids right now, and probably will continue to be. So maybe phasing out cigarettes would work because there is a very similar alternative. OR, it could have the opposite effect where now they are seen as taboo and thus desired. Nothing makes kids want to do something more than saying they can’t do it.
+30 years ago most of the farmland around my parts of NC grew tobacco. Both of my parents grew up farming it. Now that demand has dropped the two biggest crops grown are soybeans and grapes for wine production.
From a maximized efficiency stand point we shouldn’t be farming grapes for wine either. Or sugar cane or sugar beets. Or corn for fuel, feed, and sugar. But I think there is a fine line between overtly bad for you like smoking, and okay in moderation like sugar or alcohol. (I’ve rarely seen a smoker only have a couple a day.)
I grew up in Winston-Salem, NC home of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco. I remember as a kid, so around early 90’s, a carton was between $10-15. Typically a loose pack was $1-1.75.
I only really remember this because my parents (who both smoked at the time) would comment about how places like NYC taxed them so heavily and how people from out of state would “stock up” if passing through.
Isn’t that the same argument against gun control? Criminals will always find a way? Countries with no guns have few shootings. Countries with no cigarettes will have less smokers. Please don’t read this as an endorsement of either “tactic”, just addressing the argument.
Instead of government cashing in by taxing harmful drugs they should focus on funding research for “the perfect drug” - easily scalable impact/hits, least possible bodily harm/longterm health risks, cheap as aspirin/public domain formula = no black market.
Much easier to make and smuggle cigarettes. (Although to be honest, any kid with a couple of semesters of metal shop can make a basic one shot gun in a short afternoon and black powder is extremely easy to make.)
Plus addicts will go to great lengths to pacify their addiction. That’s why I used Prohibition as an example. That was a total ban and we can readily see how well that worked. In many areas, alcohol consumption increased.
