Tobacco is a shitty drug. We should ban it entirely and federally legalize another drug like cannabis instead.
This is what I do not get. The effect is literally zero. You need to be addicted to even feel something, and then it is only not having withdrawal.
The effect is fucking awesome… The first couple of smokes. Then it’s only effect is getting rid of the headache withdrawals cause.
I’m all for legalising cannabis, but to ban tobacco seems pointless.
I want to legalise or decriminalise drugs because it doesn’t work. Banning tobacco also will not work.
Tax high - use money for education and healthcare.
Ah yes. The poorest people are the smokers, let’s just make them more miserable. Sounds about right.
You should work at a place that sells cigarettes for awhile and scope out the customers. I’ve seen people count pennies and cry because they’re hungry but they’d rather not experience the anxiety of nicotine withdrawal.
As a former very poor person and now just regular poor person who used to smoke ikr.
That said, smoking never made me a happier person and at some point we have to do something. Smoking related issues cost the NHS an absolute fortune.
Do I think that corporations and billionaires should pay their fair share so us peasants don’t need to pay at all. Sure do.
Do I think that’ll ever happen. Heck no.
So given that, then we need to do something.
You shouldn’t make assumptions about people!!
Obviously smoking anything isn’t good for you, but tobacco on it’s own isn’t that bad; it’s all the chemicals added that make it so shitty.
However, unless you grow your own or know a farmer, good luck finding any pure tobacco.
That is patently false. There is only one single risk factor for cancer generally that is bigger problem than smoking unprocessed tobacco - that is smoking processed tobacco. If you charted endemic cancer risk factors in order of risk, with smoking processed tobacco at the top, then smoking unprocessed/organic/raw tobacco would be about 5% away from the top. The next biggest risk factor would be obesity about halfway down the chart (close to smokeless tobacco products like dip, which has a higher specific risk for mouth cancers). Turns out lighting something on fire and inhaling the combusted free radicals is universally a terrible idea, who’d have thunk? Personally I’m amazed that this kind of misinformation still propagates, on Lemmy of all places, sixty years following the surgeon general’s warning.
Imagine looking at the war on drugs, prohibition in the US, etc then thinking “I think we should ban this drug that’s already normalised and used by millions. Then nobody will use it and everything will be fine.”
It. Doesn’t. Work.
It especially wouldn’t for something as addictive as nicotine and so trivially purchasable abroad and easy to import.
Tobacco is already dying. Just let it continue to run its course.
