Prohibition was unpopular. Smoking bans are popular. So it's not a very good analogy.

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”

diabetic epidemic. ….And almost no country wants to tackle

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

• not diabetic, but consider an example like trans fats being mostly banned from food chains

And Iran. Think of how much healthcare we’re saving them by helping school kids never needs care again. /s, dark /s

My dad occasionally smoked a pipe. I do not remember the house or his clothes stinking from it (he probably didn’t smoke inside, I don’t remember) and to this day get warm feelings when smelling cherrywood smoke

Unlike cigarettes or pot, pipe smoke can be pleasant

The big advantage is you can fill a pipe with whatever you want. Smoke shops at least used to have a large selection of smells and styles - think like a modern coffee aisle

Maybe that functional space is taken over by vapes these days

Yeah, like if somebody inferred that somebody smoking and getting cancer isn't hurting just themselves, but indirectly also the entire population, especially people with chronic diseases. No way they would imply it's in everyone's interests to stop smoking across the entire population, they're only saying things.

Are they not biodegradable? The claim is that cigarette filters can’t be biodegradable (or no one forced them to), but why wouldn’t these be?

Not that it’s an excuse for littering, but we ought to be able to mitigate the harm a bit

Even in the us, where industry capture prevents meaningful restrictions, American Lung Association says

Long term, smoking rates … among adults, from 42.6% in 1965 to 11.6% in 2022.

We may never hit that “smoke free” threshold but there’s real progress

Kudos to Sweden for making it happen

The longer the stem is (the piece between the bowl and your mouth), the more time the smoke has to cool down before it hits your mouth, and some believe this gives a better smoking experience.

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.

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.

why and how would smokers contribute more?
As I said, taxes are extremely high on tobacco. 85%
Even disregarding the amount in general taxes smokers also pay for healthcare that alone is more than the cost of smoking to healthcare.
Unfortunately couldn't find the study I read but it came down to a few 100 million surplus (in NL).

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.

It’s funny this study doesn’t mention vapes

Wanna know what's even funnier? The study totally does.

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.

or pot

Different strokes and all that.

Are they not biodegradable?

Doesn't matter too much for the small woodland creature that comes behind you and tries to eat it, giving himself nicotine poisoning in the process.

my dude, i just took a look through your last page or so of comments. are you okay? are you going through a crisis of some sort? do you need some kind of help?

They're all ramming Snus against their gums like there's no tomorrow though.

It doesn't add up. They're just a numpty.

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 .

"We present a case of a 21-year-old male with acute nicotine toxicity through repeated administration of nicotine pouches. Over the course of 12 hours, he consumed 15 extra-strength nicotine pouches (10.9 mg per pouch) as a study tool to prepare for the next-day exams. He presented to the emergency department with bizarre behavior requiring admission for persistent confusion and nausea which resolved after 24 hours."

No one ever got cancer standing beside a drinker.

Taxes on tobacco don't even begin to cover costs.

They are just in different places though. All the lithium batteries keep causing fires in bin lorries and recycling/waste processing places

Nicotine destructs dental stem cell-based periodontal tissue regeneration

Nicotine on its own is not cancerous.

Man... if you really want misinformation, read Lemmy on the subject of vapes and nicotine. Everyone just copy pastas incorrect "facts".

Nicotine is carcinogenic.

and

Nicotine is carcinogenic

and

Nicotine is carcinogenic

it’s the safest delivery method.

hitting your head with a 2 pound hammer is safer than hitting your head with a 10 pound hammer.

I don’t think the US has strict regulations on the ingredients… I don’t know why

Unca Jesse. This cunt protected tobacco his entire sad life until he died of "natural causes".

But kids are going 6>8>12mg.

No link has been found to oral cancer.

Fucking wrong.

Stop listening to Tucker Carlson

"Xylitol's Health Benefits beyond Dental Health: A Comprehensive Review"

"All authors are employees of DuPont Nutrition & Biosciences. DuPont Nutrition & Biosciences manufactures and markets xylitol. The authors declare no other conflict of interest."

Different tokes 😉

Can't say about wood smoke, but a cherry topped aromatic tobacco can be good 😊

Some pipes also use filters, with don't so much for chilling but remove some of the moisture from the smoke if you live in a humid area.

Longer stems also look badass

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.

The parallels between coffee (or tea!) and pipe tobacco are strong. Different leaves, preparations, (non-)aromatics, etc.

Vapes - for me, at least - or closer to energy drinks. Different vibes for different tribes.

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."

Carb tax may yet be a thing.

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.

why and how would smokers contribute more?

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'm not keen on genocide denialist who can't read, but other than that I post mostly jokes or straight facts, what's so triggering for you?

Prohibition was ridiculously popular until it wasn’t.

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.

No, I'm saying that preventable tobacco related cancers are paid by all contributors to the solidary health insurance. I'm not sure where the other commenter's nephew 6mo cancer fits in this.

Help me understand where I'm wrong.

Yeah sometimes people just state facts. Wonderful concept, isn't it?

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.

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.

The United States should ban cigarettes

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

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.

Smoking is already on the decline, i don’t think you’ll find such fervor for cigarette running

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?

They can be made from different materials. Common ones are briar, olive, or fruit trees, but also clay or corn cob... Basically anything hard enough to withstand the burning leaf and low in tannins, which are harmful to smoke.

The shapes (and finishes) are mostly about look and feel, but as another commenter mentioned, the stem length affects temperature. Hot smoke (like a hot drink) results in tongue bite, but puffing gently and not smoking like 10 bowls back-to-back makes it easier to avoid.

There's also a wide variety of different leaves, preparation methods, and toppings to explore, and their properties can change depending how you store / treat them. The different materials influence the flavor a bit, too. Most pipe smokers have multiple pipes and rotate them to avoid mixing aromatics with non-aromatics or latakia (la-TAK-ia).

It's not expensive or difficult to try. If you know anyone who's interested, just find a cheap pipe (maybe something with 9mm filter), pick a tobacco that looks good, and watch a 5-minute video about how to pack and light the bowl. Then enjoy together with a good beverage. If it's enjoyable, watch another video about cleaning the pipe, and take it from there.

Some people smoke multiple times a day, and others smoke less often. It's not like pulling a cigarette out of the box, though, and the mild 'inconvenience' of packing and cleaning helps to not chain-smoke. I prefer the process, don't mind waiting for a good thing... not in a hurry.

I've also read what I could find about health risks. Pipes are lower risk than cigarettes, hookahs, and smokeless tobacco (of which the loose variety is riskier than pouches). They're a bit safer than cigars due to volume. Newer studies show vaping is also riskier than pipes, depending mostly on the liquid. Tobacco-free nicotine pouches seem to be the safest, but more research is needed. I'm not an authority, though, so #doYourOwnResearch, and definitely reply if you see any info that needs to be corrected in this comment.