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'Incredible' milestone reached as Sweden becomes a smoke-free country
(www.thelocal.com)
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this post was submitted on 25 May 2026
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The United States should ban cigarettes, but should continue to allow tobacco to be used in smoke-free forms.
If you want to poison yourself, that should be your choice, but poisoning others should not be allowed.
This is exactly what I am thinking. A person can smoke legally, expelling drug laced smoke at everyone around them ... including babies. However, if a person cannistered this up and went around spraying it that would likely be considered assault.
Should they ban smoking weed too?
Go ahead, do it! You can call it the "Smoke War" and kill hundreds of thousands of additional people over the years (over and above the danger of smoking), imprison many times more, and destroy families from coast to coast!
BRILLIANT
Never read about the Prohibition?
No one ever got cancer standing beside a drinker.
Drinkers kill people every day, drunk driving, drunken murders and violence, etc., all would not happen without alcohol.
They kill many more people than second-hand smoke, DUIs alone.
Prohibition was unpopular. Smoking bans are popular. So it's not a very good analogy.
Prohibition was ridiculously popular until it wasn't. Just like smoking bans will be.
People will choose to smoke just because it's illegal, and it will unironically be a gateway to harder drugs since the same guy selling tobacco will now be the same guy selling crack.
It failed because of widespread lawbreaking, organized crime, enforcement failures, and economic pressure (tax and jobs during the great depression)
Smoking is already on the decline, i don't think you'll find such fervor for cigarette running.
There is, in some countries with very high taxes on tobacco.
You're wrong, it will also have widespread lawbreaking, enforcement failures, economic pressure, and create a new organized crime powerhouse. As always.
The smoking market is comparable to the drug market in size of users... how's that drug war doing?
You're wrong!
see how easy that is?
It’s a good analogy, because nicotine is a drug and smokers as addicts will seek it out whether or not it’s illegal.
A non-addictive drug like THC is a good comparison, as the legalization within the US is a big source of tax revenue and the period when it was more illegal made it a staple of cartels, which smuggled it into the states.
When criminals run an enterprise, they inevitably use their resources to undermine government and commit more crime. That’s the true nature of prohibition.
Prohibition of any item, meaning, making the item illegal to make or possess anywhere, is a stronger infringement on personal freedom and often leads to organized crime stepping in to provide the prohibited item, both of which make it unpopular.
Popular smoking bans generally ban smoking in certain public areas. This does not promote organized crime to sell the banned product, and is less of an infringement on personal freedom.
The proposal to “ban cigarettes” sounds like it would fall under the former category .
Yep.
Prohibition does not prevent. Prohibition makes the good things bad and the bad things worse.
"Controlled substance" they say. How Orwellian. Handing it over to the black market, with no control but [criminal] market forces. How controlled.
"We said don't do it.", like that works. Generally, good people do not obey bad rules, and bad people do not obey rules either.
Then there's the forbidden fruit effect. Then the profiteering and price-hike for risk, and in absence of regulation oft coming in the most harmful polluted forms of whatever's been turned into contraband. Dangerous combination.
Normalisation of controlling people's behaviour's an even deeper bag of rant bait yet, than just via banning substances, slippery sloping via banning delivery methods.
Funny how prohibition and "public relations" [e.g. as per Ed Bernay's Crystallising Public Opinion] came into being at around the same time. Prohibition wouldn't work without the accompanying psyop? Due reconsideration of the popularity of bans. ... Especially in light of realising "Prohibition does not prevent. Prohibition makes the good things bad and the bad things worse."
In countries with solidary health insurance expenses to cover unnecessary, tobacco related cancers are paid by the whole population.
That's kind of shallow IMO. People drink and smoke (unhealthy much) usually because of something, like problems and such. We were also basically given cigarettes to start smoking and alcohol is everywhere, not always so simple. People don't do it to spite taxpayers.
But it's good, a really good trend, banning cigarettes, NZ started it IIRC.
Dead wrong.
The whole population benefits from what smokers pay.
From a study in NL it shows that they generate far more than what it costs in healthcare.
And it also said should the small percentage of smokers suddenly quit and live longer, the loss of income for the state and the extra cost of them living longer and needing more care would be unsustainable.
And if you want to be selfish and not have solidarity then let's start about the much bigger cost of the SELF-INFLICTED diabetic epidemic.
They require an avg of 28 years of aid.
And almost no country wants to tackle that because of their opportunistic politicians.
Who cares about antagonizing a small percentage that smokes.
But the many sugar addicts poisoning themselves are too important for their precious votes to touch.
And those same hypocrite politicians can be seen regularly with a glass of alcohol (hard drugs) in their hand.
And as an edit, I don't want to pay for your skin cancer treatment also, should've stayed out of the sun.
Carb tax may yet be a thing.
This is a cynical argument for multiple reasons. First it is basically saying if smokers stop smoking their end of life care could cost more in the long run rather than dying early of cancer.
This ignores new treatments that are targeted and much more effective than previously thought possible. Someone who gets this treatment and related services would cost a lot more if they live to an old age. So no actual savings in this increasingly common scenario.
It also ignores quality of life. It may be cheaper for someone to die early from smoking, but their quality of life is significantly reduced. This not only affects their happiness and productivity, but also their families. Dying from lung disease is a horribly way to go.
I fully agree governments should be cracking down on diabetes. Allowing addictive, processed, and engineered food should be banned. It is time for food scientist to do good and stop addicting people with overly fat, sugary, salty foods for corporate profits.
You last line is pretty ridiculous. You don't want to pay for others healthcare because of their choices. Do you want to pay for healthcare because of a companies choice to pollute the environment which leads to a significant amount of cancer.
Do you feel comfortable with subsidizing petroleum when it also causes millions of deaths worldwide from lung and cardiovascular disease.
There are slightly bigger fish to fry than sun exposure, even if it is also important to consider.
Almost every country has nutrition regulations and makes some effort to encourage better nutrition. It’s not enough and is too easily hijacked by industry but there is some level of effort
Sugar tax is simple and highly effective.
What I see is they do not put much effort into it, certainly not compared with the witch hunt on tobacco.
Especially since a large percentage is suffering from obesity and only getting worse.
But as I said, electoral suicide.
Imagine paying 6x more for a soft drink, that would be the equivalent of tobacco taxes.
It would also spend way too much time in the weeds - what types of sugars? How to distinguish “natural” from “added”? How much for what? Which sugar substitutes? Do they have their own level? How to distinguish too much sugar in orange juice from too much in bread from junk food? What about alcohol, fats, and other high calorie foods? What about all sorts of carbs?
I disagree with a sugar tax being easy.
If I were orange cult god Trump, I would find it easier to define and sell a junk food tax.
And can traditional soda (healthy, probiotic) be exempt, and so then can be more competitive on price...
... I like this idea. I'd vote for that. :) ... depending on nuances of implementation. Perhaps it may prove more bureacratically complicated and expensive, and not worth doing. But all else equal, "simple and highly effective", sugar tax seems like a savvy equaliser, especially if was weighted for things like glycemic index, complete nutrient ratio to sugar, nutritional balance... oh, darn, this could get complicated fast.
wait how does that add up? why and how would smokers contribute more?
your second argument about healthy people living longer and therefore costing more (BC of receiving more pension is the argument I guess?) would apply to any treatment, including obesity, right?
In some areas of endeavour, some smokers insist their smoking helps them perform.
For just one other example tidbit to add to your evolving calculations.
I’ve read that too - elderly and end of life care is expensive, and smokers are more likely to die early before running up as much healthcare costs as a healthy person. They may be sicker, cost more in healthcare while sick, but shorter overall life resulting in smaller overall healthcare costs
Assuming that’s true, and I don’t remember if it was a reputable source, on purely financial terms for healthcare, smoking is “good”
It doesn't add up. They're just a numpty.
And yes not needing to pay pensions is a big part of the gains to to the state but also not having to pay for the plethora of other diseases the elderly invariably get.
And while obese people indeed have premature mortality that is often preceded by decades of chronic illnesses and care.
And same as smokers that includes increased risk of cancers.
Unlike most smokers very obese people often can't perform physical labor the average human can.
There's more, like logistics and how many hospital workers and specialized ambulances or equipment it takes to simply move the more extreme cases but I think this will do.
To be clear, I'm not defending smoking but the argument of how they don't want to help smokers (basically addicts and victims) because it costs their health system is wrong.
Not to mention anti-social and selfish.
As I mentioned in the other comment, that's a slippery slope.
Taxes on tobacco don't even begin to cover costs.
If we go that way, IMO smokers should pay higher health insurance contributions.
When I was playing full contact, injury rich sport, our club paid an additional insurance covering sport injuries for every game day - because general insurance can be stringent in such cases.
So, risky behavior = higher cost of insurance.
For context, I pay about 16% of my income towards health insurance. When I was between jobs, government paid most of it. I'm also a smoker, clearly realizing that this is a morbid self destructive habit.
That happens in the US too. We just also pay CEO salaries and shareholder disbursements.
Wait, that happens just about everywhere else too, I feel like it may just be a systematic problem
And health care for Israel
And Iran. Think of how much healthcare we’re saving them by helping school kids never needs care again. /s, dark /s
We're such a generous nation ❤️
/s