New Zealand’s new government scraps world-leading smoking ban to fund tax cuts

[BUtterfield 8 41,818]

 

[RAMROD 117,117]

the reasons btw:

"The New coalition government says it intends to scrap the smoking ban in order to fund tax cuts promised by the National Party. 

The National Party’s tax-cut plan, a major election promise, sought to introduce a foreign buyers’ tax it hoped would help pay for promised tax cuts for middle and higher-income earners. 

Incoming Finance Minister Nicola Willis said the coalition has led to National looking elsewhere to fund their tax cuts. 
 

"The effect of drastically reducing the number of shops that could sell tobacco products, de-nicotising those products and introducing a range of restrictions would significantly reduce revenue to the Crown,” said Willis.  

However, public health modelling conducted in 2022 had shown the Smokefree policy would have saved New Zealand's health system about NZ$1.3 billion over the next 20 years.

Prime Minister and National Party leader, Christopher Luxon, said the reversal of the Smokefree NZ legislation will prevent crime in Aotearoa"

 

[Taylucifer 5,249]

LOSERS

hate that man for this

15 minutes ago, RAMROD said:

owever, public health modelling conducted in 2022 had shown the Smokefree policy would have saved New Zealand's health system about NZ$1.3 billion over the next 20 years.

again, LOSER

flop ass government

[Helxig 45,366]

WHAT THE ****?? THIS IS HOW I FIND OUT ABOUT MYOWN COUNTRY?

**** THIS NEW GOVERNMENT 

I don't how how the **** our people voted in such conservative, business oriented pieces of ****. The negative changes are just starting but things are gonig to turn to **** here over the next few years. I'm so ****ing mad at the idiots that live in this country

[Helxig 45,366]

Christopher Luxon and the entire Labour and Act parties can go directly to hell

[Economy 52,861]

Isnt a ban just gonna increase black market activity, lost government taxes and lost ability to regulate not to mention cause more ppl to have issues with the law?

 

Ppl were fine with these arguments to legalize recreational cannabis so this seems like a double standard

 

Yeah u can argue tabacco has a higher degree of addictiveness in both individuals and potentially more harmful in some ways...

 

but overall neither are particularly great for u and in either case the poijt about regulation, revenue and black market stands so i dont get the difference

[Petie Estie 5,707]

2 minutes ago, Economy said:

Isnt a ban just gonna increase black market activity, lost government taxes and lost ability to regulate not to mention cause more ppl to have issues with the law?

 

Ppl were fine with these arguments to legalize recreational cannabis so this seems like a double standard

 

Yeah u can argue tabacco has a higher degree of addictiveness in both individuals and potentially more harmful in some ways...

 

but overall neither are particularly great for u and in either case the poijt about regulation, revenue and black market stands so i dont get the difference

it's politically possible to do it with cigarettes because so many people hate cigarettes. and i mean...they are disgusting so. I don't think it needs a better reason than that. lol

[Economy 52,861]

On 11/30/2023 at 10:33 AM, SEANGT said:

it's politically possible to do it with cigarettes because so many people hate cigarettes. and i mean...they are disgusting so. I don't think it needs a better reason than that. lol

Thats fine but i find it a bit hypocritical that ppl would be so angry that governments didnt fully legalize weed and gave all these arguments now everyone is pissed they reversing a ban on tabbaco

 

Like i dont really smoke either and i dont live there on top of that but i dont get being so mad at one and not the other

 

I think its nothing more than political bias. Left tends to be more pro cannabis while more right wing conservatives smoke cigaretts

 

Because ppl automatically hate on anything related to the opposite end of the spectrum, u get support for one and not the other even if the exact same arguments can apply to both

[Petie Estie 5,707]

On 12/1/2023 at 10:19 PM, Economy said:

Thats fine but i find it a bit hypocritical that ppl would be so angry that governments didnt fully legalize weed and gave all these arguments now everyone is pissed they reversing a ban on tabbaco

 

Like i dont really smoke either and i dont live there on top of that but i dont get being so mad at one and not the other

 

I think its nothing more than political bias. Left tends to be more pro cannabis while more right wing conservatives smoke cigaretts

 

Because ppl automatically hate on anything related to the opposite end of the spectrum, u get support for one and not the other even if the exact same arguments can apply to both

I really can't stress enough how different cigarettes and cannabis are lol. I don't think they go together at all in people's opinion? People hate cigarettes. love weed. Hate weed. Smoke cigarettes. love both hate both. It's just not related. 

[Bronco 25,131]

32 minutes ago, SEANGT said:

I really can't stress enough how different cigarettes and cannabis are lol. I don't think they go together at all in people's opinion? People hate cigarettes. love weed. Hate weed. Smoke cigarettes. love both hate both. It's just not related. 

I think you're missing Economy's entire point. 

The point Economy's making is that people have argued that the only way to stop the illegal trade of drugs like cannabis is to legalise it and regulate it. Because you can't legislate away demand. It doesn't matter if tobacco or cannabis are identical or not, the political argument & legislative arguments remain the same. 

Look at Prohibition, banning alcohol did not prevent alcohol consumption or demand - all it did was create a breeding ground for criminal organisations to profit. And those criminals profitted to the extent that they took decades to be brought down. 

[Petie Estie 5,707]

1 minute ago, Bronco said:

I think you're missing Economy's entire point. 

The point Economy's making is that people have argued that the only way to stop the illegal trade of drugs like cannabis is to legalise it and regulate it. Because you can't legislate away demand. It doesn't matter if tobacco or cannabis are identical or not, the political argument & legislative arguments remain the same. 

Look at Prohibition, banning alcohol did not prevent alcohol consumption or demand - all it did was create a breeding ground for criminal organisations to profit. And those criminals profitted to the extent that they took decades to be brought down. 

I did forget that's where this started thank you. I guess I just have absolutely no expectation that politics and legislation follow some kind of logic. It's simply whatever is popular.

[Petie Estie 5,707]

1 minute ago, SEANGT said:

I did forget that's where this started thank you. I guess I just have absolutely no expectation that politics and legislation follow some kind of logic. It's simply whatever is popular.

also I guess if I had to make it logical, I'd say that cannabis is acceptable to legalize because it's not dangerous. Smoking kills millions. It may be true that you can't legislate away demand, but I don't know of any political party or significant group of people that are advocating for literally everything to be legal. 

[Magic Mike 2,771]

good. nobody should support condescending dictatorial bans 

[Ayesha Erotica 1,924]

On 11/30/2023 at 4:29 PM, Economy said:

Isnt a ban just gonna increase black market activity, lost government taxes and lost ability to regulate not to mention cause more ppl to have issues with the law?

That's true for normal, typical countries that share (long) borders with other countries, the more the less secure, but NZ is a special case. It is a rich isolated island nation that has effective border surveillance that has successfully full control over its borders and what's coming in and going out, and invests lots of money in surveillance. It has almost none black market activity. Tbh, I was shocked how draconian and strict and anti-freedom NZ and Australia were during the corona pandemic, I would have expected that from authoritan countries but not from democracies that (pretend to) value human rights. I used to think of Australia and New Zealand as role-model countries but I no longer think they are, they are frightening countries to live in and their governments  have a tendency towards  control and curtailment of civil liberties. AUS and NZ are like Ned Flanders in the Simpsons episode, where NF installs security cameras all over Springfield and spies everywhere,  reminding people of their illegal behavior and punishing them and the only place to have fun is Homer Simpson's garden, out of reach for NFs mass surveillance.