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@cstross I feel the same.

Also moves like that make the Legalisation of Weed and the others further away, which is the wrong way.

@cstross

Precisely right. What works is education not regulation. Which is why we need more education about the AI mental health crisis.

https://buttondown.com/monteiro/archive/how-to-smoke/

@cstross Not at all well thought through, as a policy.

@cstross

yeah... i'll predict much more prevalence of even more unsafe products...

the human race is really bad at learning from history.

"those who ignore history doom the rest of us to reliving it..."

@cstross it's not prohibition, though. This doesn't affect the people who are already dependent. People born before 09 will continue being able to buy the products.

It's phased because Tobacco's in is the curious young, who start early and then can't stop and continue because it's easy to do so.
It's about raising the barrier.

Nobody is out grabbing packs out of the hands of the 30+es who keep trying and failing to quit, or aren't interested in quitting.

@cstross in Australia they’re they’re trying to price it out. A packet now costs $50+

The only problem is that you can grow it here so import control doesn’t really work.

You can buy loose tobacco from any corner shop at 10% of official prices. Profits going mostly to bikie gangs who are handling the distribution effeciently.

Government is paralysed and has no idea how to handle it.

They never fucking learn 🙄

@cstross I'm highly conflicted. Tobacco killed several relatives in horrible ways.

Outright bans without a general attitude change is a gift to criminals.

I prefer the gradual squeeze approach, making it socially unacceptable, punishing vendors who break the rules, raising duty and treating the addicts. An age lock may work if the other methods have already had a big impact, otherwise it's pointless.

@cstross It's not really prohibition though, is it. It's about raising the difficulty of entering into the habit, while minimising blow-back (no pun intended) from older smokers. A similar law was passed in New Zealand, but only lasted a year because of a change of government to the local conservatives who said they needed the revenue to fund tax cuts.

Perpetually raising taxes on cigarettes does have the organized crime effect that you speak of.

@cstross "never be legally sold tobacco" is very true, they will only be illegally sold it. Apparently shops are not allowed to sell vapes to children, but still do due to lack of enforcement. I can imagine all those dodgy vape shops pivoting to cigarattes along with whatever else they have in their back rooms at the moment.

Also, plenty of schoolchildren round my way smoke VERY strong cannabis, I wonder if the penalties for cigarette dealing will be worse than those for drug dealing?

@cstross I am not sure about a "new organised crime ecosystem", I think the current narcotics system will move in and star delivering tobacco products, They have the systems in place, the capital to finance it and no scruples.

@cstross @noodlemaz IMHO what changed tobacco we in the US was making it difficult to do in public - making restaurants and bars and rental apartments smoke-free made it just more pain than it was worth for many people.

(And the fact that dip grosses a lot of people out meant not a ton switched over to that)

…and then we got vapes. SIGH.