Posts by George Darroch
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Giving up on this.
If you think that controlling an addictive disease that kills ten percent of New Zealanders and twenty five percent of Maori every year is unreasonable, then we have no common ground, and we can't have a useful conversation.
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Since we’re on the nostalgia trip, Toy Judt, 2006, on the failure of ‘liberal’ America.
Why have American liberals acquiesced in President Bush’s catastrophic foreign policy? Why have they so little to say about Iraq, about Lebanon, or about reports of a planned attack on Iran?
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Dropping this in, simply because it's such an excellent tune from 79, which I've been thrashing the last few days.
The fact that it stands up to reworks is testament to the original.
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Whether choice exists or not does not alter the morality of using punitive measures to influence the decision making process.
And I've explained, that while measures cause you inconvenience, they are not punitive. They are preventative. They reduce consumption and reduce the likelihood of others smoking, and make it easier to break the addiction (which most want to do). You still feel like society is trying to punish you - when that is not what the policy wonks in MOH and tobacco control are trying to do. (Well, there are those youth ads which are aimed at making smokers uncool). But for the most part, punitive sanctions are a limited part of the policy mix.
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I’m not ignoring public health policy – I’m just not aware of it, it’s not my field, nor an interest of mine.
Here’s a good place to start. World Health Organisation, Tobacco.
Edit: actually, everyone in this debate could get something from the WHO's page. There are some extremely well produced resources there.
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I just don’t really feel like answering it, because it’s not especially relevant to the argument at hand.
If you want to talk about personal choice, but wont to talk about addiction, you’re just... [edited, unnecessarily harsh].
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I’m going save everyone the bother (warning, assumptions about others here, if symptoms persist see your doctor).
Ben is upset about being picked on. His basic assumption (as I gather from what has been written here) is that much of tobacco policy is primarily punitive, driven not by health needs, but by a societal wish to sanction those who violate norms. Society must be defended. He says that he is not driven by this, but I don’t believe him, insomuch as he claims to be comfortable only with measures that do not impinge much on his freedom. This is an approach/response also frequently adopted by those who challenge the state’s efforts to promote health in other areas (including diet). I’ll only address tobacco here, because each has a tangle of ideas and assumptions that need unpacking and f*’d if I’m going to debate (for example) obesity today too.
However. This isn’t actually a driver of policy, at least as far as I can tell from reading and listening to health ministries and tobacco-control activists. If this motive is here, it’s well hidden.
What is at stake are a number of things. Reducing the number of social contexts in which it is possible to smoke actually has significant effects on use. If it’s no longer possible to smoke at your desk, while at a bar, in a park, or on public transport, your physical opportunities are limited. People do of course smoke in between these, but the evidence I understand is pretty clear on this. Reducing consumption also reduces nicotine levels, meaning that breaking addiction is easier. Difficult, but easier. Reducing the acceptability of smoking in a large number of contexts also breaks a lot of psychosocial links, further helping smokers to quit. Reducing these contexts also severely limits the contexts in which new smokers are exposed to tobacco as a ‘normal’ activity. Ben persists in the idiotic assertion that smoking is a choice made by rational adults, rather than a addiction fallen into by teenagers. So, this part is important. Reducing their exposure to even small amounts of nicotine is important. Tobacco is extremely addictive, and even small amounts make regular tobacco use much more likely. Finally, the raft of other measures (including point of sale control, packaging control, and pricing) all help prevent future smokers from acquiring the addiction, and help existing users to quit. Most users who are aware of the health effects (in NZ is the great majority are aware) want to quit.
Second hand smoke is very serious, and although there are some situations (a park, for example). Nevertheless, Ben is chosing to ignore this part of things, because it does not coincide with his argument.
Apologies for the length. I feel like I have to spell everything out.
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The authorities here have gone out of the way to improve the air and the water (which is now mostly tap-drinkable). Making the public areas of the city walk-able is another part of the overall grand vision I guess. I’m not sure how that becomes uncool when seen from afar
Here's to governments who realise that their job isn't to get out of the way, but is to help create things that make our lives better.
(I guess that makes me a socialist).
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Tell me something that I haven’t engaged with, and I’ll happily engage with it.
Your initial response to the fact that tobacco kills people was to wave it away, and then it was to say that old people are a burden to the state and we're better off economically without them.
So I don't think you've engaged with the fact that tobacco is an addictive substance which is first typically smoked by those in their early-mid teens, and which will then go on to cause massive health affects on those users throughout their lives until their early death. You've failed to explain why despite all of this, the state is illegitimate in putting (quite minor, in both relative and absolute terms) restrictions on its sale, use, and price. Which, if I understand you correctly, is your claim.
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Perhaps I don't think you're arguing from bad faith, but I feel like you're not engaging with what I or others are saying.
I'm also aware that my last paragraph is an appeal to authority, but I do think that if you're going to argue that there is no compelling reason to restrict tobacco you have a burden to provide evidence. Merely appealing to liberty is insufficient, because there are other rights claims that society has, including very strong ones (the right to health, the right to life, the right to fresh breath). Unless you are a libertarian, and believe that liberty (insomuch as it can exist when people have been misled and then addicted to a commercial product) trumps all other rights and interest claims - there's no way for a non-libertarian to engage a libertarian coherently, because the premises are so completely divorced.