We’ve seen over and over that Prohibition doesn’t work and often backfires, but as someone who lost a father to a stubborn tobacco addiction, I’m in favor of anything to nudge people to quit. Make tobacco absolutely suck to use. Ban flavors. Tax the shit out of it and subsidize nicotine gum+patches. Ban filters, which don’t actually make them safer (they actually allow smokers to inhale the contaminants more deeply) and fill our environment with plastic pollution. Get rid of all branding on boxes.
Prohibition doesn’t work, but I would like to see limits placed on where they can be sold, just like we have in many places with legalized cannabis. Make them only able to be sold in a dispensary. Make it so they can’t be sold within a certain distance from schools. Continue to tax the shit out of them. The only nicotine products that should be sellable outside of tobacco dispensaries should be products aimed specifically at cessation such as nicotine gum and nicotine patches.
Vapes should also be similarly regulated, and I say this as a person who vapes. I go to a vape shop for my juice and supplies. I vape a refillable mod, not a disposable pod thing, which are sadly so popular nowadays. I am aiming to cease vaping soon. (Last time I quit nicotine, I was clean for 7 years, but when Roe v Wade was overturned, that night I bought a pack of cigarettes, a bottle of vodka, and went on a bender while wallowing in despair. Not a good time and well, nicotine is hard to kick after even just a few smokes, especially for someone who previously had the habit.)
Anyway. There are controls that would have a positive impact without being full-on prohibition.
Tax the shit out of it
They already are. It’s like $100 a carton here but people still buy them. That’s insane to me. When i quit they were around $20 a carton.
