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Comment by snarfy | Hacker News Reader

> The most effective measure against smoking is taxation.

I hate this method of behavior control. It's always a disproportionate tax on the poor and yet another reason why if you are rich the rules don't apply to you.

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And yet it is empirically effective. What alternative would you suggest? It's true that rich people are not burdened by cigarette tax, but then again smoking rates are already much lower among the rich (at least in the US).

What alternative would you suggest?

Banning it.

I'm not even joking. If your only goal is to lower consumption rates, prohibition works. If you use cirrhosis deaths as a proxy, then alcohol consumption declined during the Prohibition era. [1]

The problem, of course, is everything else that happens in the wake of enforcing it.

An alternative option is to do nothing, because it's kind of a bikeshed issue, anyway.

[1] http://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/arh27-3/209-219.htm

I actually do believe this could work if implemented correctly.

You have to show ID to purchase tobacco products. They even have signs at some convenience stores which say the year you must be born to purchase tobacco products, which the year is the current year minus 18.

Stop changing the cutoff year. This will allow the current generation of tobacco users to continue, but ban future generations from it.

I cannot understate how much I hate this, despite not smoking, because it violates our most important rule: before the law everybody is equal. We except children, for obvious reasons, but with the promise that when they get a certain age they get the same right as anybody else.

Odd that, on the graph in the link, one of the spikes in deaths seems to come immediately after an increase in consumption, but the next, bigger spike in deaths from ALD comes BEFORE a similarly large increase in consumption.

I'm suspicious, mostly because it goes against the conventional wisdom that alcohol consumption increased during prohibition.

Hardly unbiased sources, but....

http://www.druglibrary.org/prohibitionresults1.htm http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/History/e1920/chicagodea...

I'd unreservedly support banning the substance except that (1) organised crime would profit from it, and (2) nicotine itself is not the problem, but rather the combustion of tobacco leaves which is not the same thing at all. I think prohibition is not a great idea but I wouldn't be averse to some jurisdictions trying it out and analysing the outcomes of the long term, like 25 years or so.

"nicotine itself is not the problem"

Be careful with this... It is the vapor salesman's false pitch. Nicotine is a known neurotoxin, it increases inflammation, lowers your hdl, raises your ldl, and stresses your endocrine system (adrenal et al.). While ecigs may deliver fewer toxins than analogs, that doesn't erase the fact that you are much better off without nicotine.

Be careful with this... some think that it can help with Alzheimer and Parkinson.

Unless there's a demonstrable, important (life affecting) effect, I wouldn't care too much about nicotine. Maybe some people are even naturally balancing some of their brain chemistry with it.

I wouldn't surprised if in 30 years we 'discover' that nicotine was okay all along, just like eating fat.

By the way, what is your opinion on caffeine?

I support the right of folks to do either drug if they want, but I don't think it is fair for nicotine to be portrayed as safer than it is... it fairly well understood to be an addictive cardiac nightmare.

I miss the neurostimulant effect badly... if you are right about nicotine being exonerated, I'll jump for joy and pick some up that day.

Tax and dividend. Don't toss Pigovian tax money into the general fund, return it to the people by sending everyone a check for their share. Solves progressivity, forms the basis of a basic income, and ideally directly defrays some of the damages from externalities. (Last is somewhat less true with tobacco, where the biggest externality tends to be health problems that society ends up paying for.)

Tax from the poor and give to the rich(er)? Plus lots of extra bureaucracy costs with all the paperwork and administration. I won't be voting for you!

You're right about inferior goods making a T&D program somewhat regressive (the canonical example is probably carbon). Still, the biggest winner is the non-smoking poor - there's just not as many rich people. Plus the whole point is to reduce bureaucracy - a simple dividend that everyone qualifies for is much lower overhead than pretty much anything else you can do with that tax revenue.

(And hey, I never said I supported it. tmvphil asked for less regressive alternatives to a straight Pigovian tax.)

I would note that the negatives from smoking generally fall disproportionately on the poor.

If you are unsuccessful at discouraging people from smoking, people are going to pay more through health outcomes later on.

Health problems will be particularly difficult for poor people to overcome, even if they have help from the state (which may be increasingly over-burdened).

* smoking is recreational, its not a necessary expense

* the rich pay the tax too

* it has a cost and is a nuisance to others

* some countries fund the health programs caused by smoking thanks to those taxes

* you got to stop finding excuses about smoking, smokers are addicts, society must be intolerant towards regular smokers. I went through passive smoking as a kid, believe me, its awful.

Rich people are far less likely to smoke, and when they do they don't smoke enough to make up for the imbalance so this is by its very definition a regressive tax policy that affects lower class communities the hardest.

And I'm just not sure I can get down with your intolerance. Smokers are people too. I know a tremendous number of them having made friends with my working class neighborhood in Brooklyn as well as my father. Passive smoking sucks but shaming people who smoke isn't really the answer just like shaming people who are overweight is also a tremendously shitty thing to do.

I'm not talking about shaming. But I think it's a right thing to penalize people who smokes, at least financially. How else ? It is the same thing for marijuana I believe.

If both the supply and demand are high, but the health effect are bad, it's fair to introduce a tax.

It doesn't have a lot to do with regressive tax policies, which are based either on income or wealth, you can't apply that to tobacco products.

Next time are we going to argue about the tax on heroin once it's legal ? Public health policies are tricky because markets force are involved with addiction forces.

You can though. When someone says raising tobacco taxes will increase government coffers by X, they're effectively levying that tax primarily on lower and lower middle class families since those communities are more likely to smoke cigarettes.

I'm left wing, to me smoking is bad, there is just no fucking excuse. People can smoke, but it's a luxury and it comes with a price.

What happens to heroin addicts when the regular dealer go to prison ? They stop using.

It's a shitty situation in every way. There is just no way you can defend a lower tax on cigaret, except maybe if you're anti government. People will choose to buy food and rent before buying cigarets. At least it will reduce their smoking habits.

It's not just about funding government, it's also about discouraging people from buying cigarets. I honestly don't see any other way. Prohibiting would not work, it's a matter of game theory and a fine balance between smuggling cigarets and people buying them.

And honestly the cigaret tax paid is nothing compared to other taxes.

>the rich pay the tax too

The rich don't pay the tax in proportion to their wealth, so it is by definition regressive. The rich will have a minuscule incentive to quit, while the poor will have a huge incentive to quit.

>some countries fund the health programs caused by smoking thanks to those taxes

The poor shouldn't pay a higher rate to fund health programs than the wealthy.

> you got to stop finding excuses about smoking, smokers are addicts

So are coffee drinkers. Do you give them a hard time?

I'm addicted to board games, too.

if they are constantly on edge because of coffee, I would.

I have a friend on a very low income - most of which he spends on alcohol and tobacco. When he runs out of money he borrows it to fund his bad habits.

High taxation hasn't help him. I'm not sure anything would?

People often forget the hidden costs of what your friend does. The taxes exist to defer those costs to people who actually attempt to make a life for themselves.

Are you insinuating that dazc's friend is not alive?

I don't understand. His future medical costs will be spread out though society (he won't pay the bill). That isn't my bill to pay, so tax his vice to recoup some of the costs.

*Now I understand, what I mean by a 'life for themselves' is be a functioning member of society who pays his debts.

He's still alive - just about.

I agree with the point about using the tax to recoup some of the inevitable costs to society as a whole. But, on the issue of using taxation to modify people's behaviour, it doesn't always work as intended.

Do you have a better way to convince people not to smoke?

It's an addiction. There is no convincing. That's not how addiction works. What does need to happen is people need to be convinced to never start smoking. Taxing the existing addicts does nothing for this.

Completely share this point of view. I was a heavy smoker for a ten years and no level of taxation would make me quit. Back at the time I would rather smoke and stay hungry for a while if I was to choose. And quitting is very hard. I have had dozen of failed attempts to actually quit smoking for good. Having said that, I know a lot of people who smoke just to socialize and occasionally; they are not addicted and seem to have no problem with not smoking at all...

> I know a lot of people who smoke just to socialize and occasionally; they are not addicted and seem to have no problem with not smoking at all...

I'm one of these people. I enjoy smoking cigars every once and awhile, and will enjoy a cigarette or two with no danger of addiction if I happen to be drunk and at a party with smokers. With that being said, I could easily see how an occasional smoker could turn into a regular smoker over time if tobacco was readily available and they were hanging around with other smokers regularly.

I know one way: depict smokers as unlikeable beings in popular media, instead of the other way around.

So, lie to people? Depicting smokers as vermin, and censoring depictions of smokers that imply that they have any positive characteristics would definitely work over the long term. The technique has often worked really well on homosexuals, communists, and immigrants.

Cigarettes have been promoted through media for a long time. I say it wouldn't hurt if we invert the process for a little while.

You can call this lying. However, it is what advertisers have been doing for ages.

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