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- cross-posted to:
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Reversal of smoking ban criticised as ‘shameful’ for lacking evidence
New Zealand is repealing the world’s first smoking ban passed under former prime minister Jacinda Arden’s government to pave the way for a smoke-free generation amid backlash from researchers and campaigners over its risk to Indigenous people.
The new coalition government led by prime minister Christopher Luxon confirmed the repeal will happen on Tuesday, delivering on one of the actions of his coalition’s ambitious 100-day plan.
The government repeal will be put before parliament as a matter of urgency, enabling it to scrap the law without seeking public comment, in line with previously announced plans.
We’re not mob rule here. There are (or should be) checks against the tyranny of the majority. Just because most voters want a thing doesn’t mean it’s necessarily the right thing.
Most new zealnders don’t smoke, if most new zealanders don’t want to fund smoking how is that different than any other drug being illegal? Would you describe illegal cannibas or prescription only medications as tyranny of the majority?
There are checks and balances in place to prevent actual human rights abuses. You still haven’t answered why tax paying new zealanders should be forced to pay health costs for smokers when the majority don’t support it. If banning smoking is tyranny of the majority, forcing taxpayers to fund smokers against their will is surely tyranny of the minority.
I didn’t want to get too deep into it because it’s an open question. But there have been some studies suggesting that smokers cost the healthcare system less, because they die younger.
The main point though is that we don’t, and shouldn’t, exclude people from the healthcare system for their personal choices. Nor should we restrict people’s freedom to make personal choices because it would save the government money. That’s a terrible precedent.
If you’re saying it’s tyranny to prevent people from taking actions, that the majority feel shouldn’t be allowed, that drive up healthcare costs then that’s one thing. However if your position on this is based on a liberal ideal of people being allowed to do what they want, then it should surely equally apply to the taxpayers (particularly if they are majority voters) who don’t want to pay for the decisions of others. Either way that is government intervention restricting individuals freedom.
I think it’s not right to say “the governments money” as if an administrative body that is beholden to the voters has true autonomy over how it’s spent - that is the populations money and should be their choice on how it’s spent. One can argue it’s immoral to refuse migrants access to the country and healthcare but that isn’t accepted as justification for open borders. I also don’t understand, assuming cigarettes are some special case different than immigration where morality should trump democracy, why it’s more valid to say this taxpayer control over how their money is spent should be restricted based on your moral judgement compared to someone else’s moral judgement who’s claim is cigarettes are immoral (for whatever their chosen reason).
The claim of smokers dying younger and therefore costing less is something I didn’t consider and is an interesting point (that very well could prove true). But even if you discredit the taxpayer funded health argument, there’s moral arguments around selling addictive substances, human pain caused by premature death and sickness etc. that could just as readily be made as any argument based around individual freedoms. Why should your claims on what’s moral have precedence over someone else’s?
Taxes have forever been an exception to the liberal idea of freedom to do whatever. They’re a social and economic necessity.
Taxpayers decided to fund universal healthcare. If we start picking and choosing who is “deserving” of that care…that’s a terrible precedent.
In several ways, a cigarette ban is an exception to how democracies have traditionally dealt with issues around freedom. There’s really no precedent or defense for it except that cigarettes are currently unpopular.
And I think it’s nearly universally acknowledged that ceding to the government the power to decide how its individual citizens should live their lives is a terrible idea. If we were talking about almost anything else, there would be an uproar. Government says religion makes no objective sense and causes a lot of fighting and mental stress, decides to ban worship. Uproar. Government decides that having children when you can’t afford to offer them a good life is immoral, decides to ban children for poor people. Uproar.
A cigarette ban only feels like it makes sense because it’s cigarettes. Copy the justification for the ban to anything else and you realize how bad an idea it is.
Marijuana among many other drugs are illegal in New Zealand with no uproar. How is that different than cigarettes?
I’d argue it’s not, and I’m disappointed that there’s no uproar. My only explanation is cognitive dissonance.