Goes to show how little they’re actually worth. The stark contrast between cost to manufacture and cost of purchase is actually quite amusing.
It probably costs like fifty cents to manufacture each unit for sale, which is then sold in Australia for a price between 25-120$.
Should be noted despite the absurd amount of revenue our government garners from tobacco taxation, healthcare costs (both indirect and direct) far surpass the costs garnered from revenue procured.
I crunched some numbers a while back and found cigarettes would have to cost around 340$/pack in order for costs to even out.
Unlike many others I know however, I don’t stigmatise against ones choice to smoke. There’s been a shift in societal paradigm, smoking isn’t as “okay” as it once was. On the other hand drinking, eating badly and living a sedentary lifestyle is a-okay. Tobacco is terrible for you, equates to a roughly 5x fold increase in cardiovascular disease risk, 12x + fold risk for lung cancer, increases the odds for developing type 2 diabetes, cancers of the mouth, throat, pancreas etc. We all know this, we’ve all had it drilled into us “smoking = bad”. I don’t think it’s necessary to further attempt to drill in a message that’s already been drilled in so effectively
There are a few third world countries/regions of which still aren’t quite up to date regarding current regulations/health campaigns put in place.
At this point if someone still decides to smoke it’s their decision to make. I don’t see the point in needlessly punishing those who smoke tobacco. Make it easier for people to quit by expanding access to services like nicotine replacement therapy, but proposals like banning outdoor smoking entirely scream “bullshit nanny state” to me.
Man, I can get shitty cigarettes for 90 cents in China lmao! I sometimes just smoke those Clint Eastwood sized cigars there since the high quality shit is so cheap.
I guess high prices to get revenue from cigarettes are also because you have Universal Health Care and the government has to make it’s money back somehow. We don’t have it in most parts of Asia, and the ones that do are SHIT anyway. But it keeps the price of private clinics and overall drug prices low so I’m not complaining.
Even without Universal Healthcare here, I’ve once tried to set a dental appointment at a government hospital and the only available date was ONE YEAR LATER. Not kidding. This was probably an exception since people have told me the average waiting time is 3 months but man, was my mind blown when I heard “ONE YEAR” over the phone.
Clint Eastwood actually hated smoking. It irked him when takes required tobacco usage, as repeated takes would require more use and it’d make him feel sick
I think you’re referring to “cigarillos”. Actual cigars in Aus are something like 40$+ a piece, but they’re legal to import for personal use (unlike tobacco cigarettes or loose leaf tobacco).
I’ve smoked a cigar before, though I wasn’t aware one wasn’t supposed to inhale. It made me quite sick (nicotine poisoning).
It isn’t particuarly ‘better’ over here either. Universal healthcare = subsidised healthcare for all but wait times can be absurd. Going private however dramatically shortens wait times. Six months might now be a 2-4 week wait.
It appears Mexico is legalising the (adult) use of medicinal and recreational cannabis. Depending on the framework this legislature is enacted within this could theoretically have a large impact regarding cartel mediated revenue.
It’ll be interesting to see how this unfolds. What’s more, it’s amusing somehow Mexico is managing to pull this particular trigger prior to the USA doing so. France may be looking down a similar avenue as the government in power is launching a public consultation gauging public opinion on the matter.
It does appear as if authorities and federal government’s around the world are slowly but surely advocating for softer stances, treating the issue as a public health crisis as opposed to a criminal issue. Wonder where the world will be thirty years from now, somehow I doubt the sky is going to fall. The concept of society consisting of degeneracy as a result of legislation enacted pertaining to these particuarly issues doesn’t appear to be reliably backed, thus I can’t help but think this body of thought is a result of fear mongering.
I wonder as to whether a shift towards more punitive action towards distributors and a more lenient stance towards those who need help would change things. It doesn’t appear as if there is a reliable means to eliminate supply/demand without vastly altering sociocultural attitudes; and this would be virtually impossible within the western world without the implimentation of biased/non factual propaganda (and as a result would always have the potential to backfire tremendously).
@dt79 Singapore appears to have a relatively low rate of societal drug abuse, addiction and whatnot; yet methamphetamine is an epidemic in the Phillipines despite punishment associated with use/distribution literally being… Death.
What gives? How are two of the strictest countries so diametrically opposed regarding net outcomes?
Also @dt79 if I recall you are for the legalisation of (adult) use recreational cannabis. Do you believe this ought to be done under a framework akin to the way ethyl alcohol is advertised and marketed to the masses as a mundane, socially acceptable act?
I don’t wish for this to be the case, although unfortunately I can for-see large corperations monopolizing on this and subsequently reaping in very large profits as the market for this is very, very large. Cannabis may be far less toxic on a dose/dose basis, however it isn’t intrinsically harmless as many within my particular demographic appear to believe. I’d like for those who wish to use to be able to go about doing so without excess stigma, but at the same time I don’t want it advertised in effort to make it enveloped within our societal paridigim. I find it obnoxious enough Aussies feel the need to drink quite a lot at virtually every function regardless of whether the environment is appropriate or not for doing so. This reminds me of vaping. Cigarette smoking is still prevalent, though on a hefty decline amongst youth. Vaping nicotine however is very, very common and although a far cry from combustible tobacco in terms of percieved negative impact on health it’s still an avenue towards a potentially lifelong nicotine dependency. I’d rather cannabis replace alcohol, though I don’t like the idea of deceptive/manipulative marketing towards younger demographics in effort to get people to start. Almost anyone would be better off not using cannabis/drinking at all. It’s not the end of the world provided indulgence is within reason, but… Let’s be honest, society would be a better place without any of this stuff to begin with.
Interestingly within the youth paridigim drinking rates appear to be dropping, yet rates of illicit substance abuse are skyrocketing.
The whole schtick “but it’s medicine” comes across to me as an excuse to justify frequent bouts of intoxication. Cannabis is medicinal for those who actually have diagnosed conditions of which the substance can ameliorate symptomatology associated with said condition (MS/chemo nausea/PTSD etc). Even then, specific cannabinoids can be isolated/extracted to elicit a desired effect absent of excess intoxication.
Calling cannabis medicine to justify taking bong rips out of your dorm window at 3am irritates me. What’s more, cannabis isn’t good for you just because it’s a plant. Cocaine is derived from a plant (purified extract to isolate the specific alkaloid in question), opium is also “just a plant”; as is deadly nightshade. The jury is still out re potential carcinogenicity, long term cardiovascular implications, impact on mental health/wellbeing etc associated with cannabis use. We know frequent use if initiated from a young age can result in fairly significant consequence down the line.
@brickhead thoughts on medicinal cannabis/psilocybin/ketamine/MDMA/LSD/whatever for indications wherein a therapeutic effect may legitimately be elicited. Last year I had a ketamine infusion (IV, releasing a fairly hefty dose every hour for seven days) for chronic pain and I can attest it worked wonders. Significant relief was noted for months. In my opinion this beats having to take habit forming medications regularly, at the same time the procedure is a pain. Going into hospital for seven days is arduous, time consuming and the level of inebriation present as a result gets old quickly. What’s more, although my treatment wasn’t indicated for this purpose, the infusion worked wonders for ameliorating symptomatology associated with my largely treatment resistant major depressive disorder.
If the sky does fall and societal collapse initiates I reckon it’ll be the result of global warfare, consequences relating to unkempt global warming etc as opposed to (in my opinion) relatively trivial issues like this.
Manpower, check out the amount of LEOs per 100 ppl. Singapore has a lot more.
Standard of living: when you live in shitty conditions -
i) there’s less to lose when you start using
ii) there’s more incentive for selling
Entry points for smugglers: Look at the map of Singapore and see how bloody small the island is. It’s a fucking dot on the map. Smugglers have no other way to get in other than concealing their shit and trying to cross the borders.
etc.
It’s why you can’t just compare one country with another wrt to their policies.
I haven’t really thought about it tbh.
And I fucking kid you not. I dreamt about smoking marijuana last night and suddenly you’re asking me these questions today lol. I’ve not dreamt of anything like this for months, perhaps over a year. There’s some woo woo shit going on.
This is the Philippines. It’s 300,000 km² in size with a population of 108 million. Look at the cluster fuck of islands and all the potential entry points.
There’s a direct route from the Golden Triangle - Thailand, Laos and Myanmar - and now China is getting in on the action. Can you even spot Singapore on this map lol? It’s a fucking dot. And to get there, you would have to go through Malaysia first.
This is Singapore. It’s 728 km² in size containing a population of 5.7 million people, which means it’s so populated there isn’t even a “capital” since every bit of land is used and they have to resort to land reclamation when they want to build more shit.
Which also means that if I’m living on one end of the island, I can drive to your home on the other end of the island in 45min to 1hr if there’s minimal traffic.
Look how the upper half of the island is surrounded by Malaysia, as opposed to the Philippines, which makes transport of drugs even harder, with the lower half surrounded by Indonesia. You have to go through one country before getting to the next.
In WW2, it was so hard to breach the Japanese had to cycle across the Causeway - the bridge between the borders of Singapore and Malaysia - to get into Singapore lol.
How do you get drugs in unless you have balls of steel lol? Singapore cannot, and should never be used as any model for other countries wrt to things like these.
Singapore is a rich, advanced, 1st wold nation with advanced surveillance technology and shit without any natural resources, especially oil, while the 2 countries surrounding it are fucking poor 3rd word countries despite having an abundance of natural resources.
The Philippines is also still a 3rd world country.
Singapore is kind of an anomaly. The only country in S.E Asia that’s comparable is Brunei but they have an abundance of oil.
I’m unsure what this has to do with your inquiry of my thoughts on what you wrote in your first paragraph. I’m not against the ethical and safe use of drugs for medicinal purposes. Isn’t that what much of medical care is, and all of pharmacy?
As for recreational drugs being legalized so people can get high, I’ve already explain why I’m against it. I don’t put a premium on getting high, and all the functional, mentally healthy and successful (not solely ambitious or rich people) people I know don’t either, simply because pro-social, highly agentic people don’t do them generally.
I’ve already stated I think you’re an OK guy, but you said you’re a nihilist, by definition someone who believes life is meaningless and there are no moral truths. If I have it correctly you also said you don’t want kids or marriage, which means you have most of your stakes in only your own future. So I think this should be considered regarding how different our outlooks on important matters are.
Anyway, going forward, I might only consider what those who like, promote, morally support, and advocate for the vice trades (porn, hard drug use) have to say only if they pass my personal litmus test, and that would only be to see if they’re consistent and if they can put their money—or literally their own family—where their mouths are. That is, for example, if someone supports legalization of all drugs, they should tolerate mass drug use in their own towns, or reside, work, or socialize in high drug-use towns and see what a pleasure it is. If they think porn is a legit, venerable industry, why not suggest porn or stripping as a career option to daughters, sisters, wives, aunts and cousins?
Sorry, the majority of what I write here is done within the confines of my tiny phone. I write out my thoughts as they come to me in the moment, as a result the structure of my posts can be erratic.
How did you infer this
From this. I’m clearly stating I don’t wish legalised markets designed as to promote use towards the masses.
If this is what encompasses nihilism then I don’t identify with this particular ideology. I somehow doubt that we are here for a purpose, any perceived action is inconsequential within the grand scheme of things given the vastness of time and space. Rather we can derive pleasure and gratitude from peer to peer interaction, behaving like a good Samaritan, fulfilling our duties and pushing through pivotal milestones of which I generally have no interest in/find mundane. I believe we ought to behave well despite the intrinsic meaninglessness of life on a grand scale. Feelings, emotions and quality of perceived life most certainly matter. The validity or lack thereof and significance of our interactions relating to the sheer scope of the universe need not infer I don’t believe we ought to treat one another with compassion, respect and humility. There is definitive right and wrong within this world. First degree murder, rape, antisocial behaviour for the sake of simply starting trouble. These are blatant “wrong’s”. To state I believe there are no moral truths would indicate I harbour relative indifference towards those who are morally corrupt, this isn’t the case.
I’m not made of stone/rigid in my way of thinking, I’m amenable to looking through your perspective and I can fully understand why you’d have qualms about various vices as prolonged exposure can/will impede potentially quality of life for your child/children in particular. I wouldn’t wish to impede the future employment prospects relating to your offspring. At the same time I’d like to state legal vices and other activities not suited for children are available at our disposal. Alcohol, tobacco products, adult entertainment, violent video games, explicit TV series/movies clearly aren’t meant for children, and fairly effective barricades are put up in effort to mitigate youth exposure. I’m not going to stop watching game of thrones because it isn’t appropriate for my eight year old cousin, that’s preposterous. Rather safeguards ought to be put up to shield my hypothetical cousin from this content. The whole world (to me) doesn’t revolve around children.
I’ve been to raves, concerts, festivals and the likes. Though aside from Concerts/heavy music festivals this isn’t particularly my scene anymore. Whilst I’m not someone who uses a lot of drugs, I’ve been around the substances I think ought to be legalised enough to pass this litmus test. I can tolerate being around them just fine, even if I don’t always like it. As a blanket statement I tend to find stoners (heavy smokers) and drunk people quite annoying. I don’t think people shouldn’t be able to drink. I think it’s a waste of time, money and resources spending enormous amounts of $$$ in effort to police people over numerous substances of which if consumed in the same manner most responsibly enjoy a few drinks every now and again appear to be relatively harmless. The average Australian supposedly gets drunk 31 days out of the year… That’s fucking insane; yet the sky isn’t falling…
What’s more, this argument doesn’t hold up as according to data. Legalisation doesn’t inherently equate to an uptick in use within the general populace. Depending on the framework legalisation is enacted under the result is typically a stagnation, sometimes a decrease in overall use. Drug use is by/large a byproduct of environmental factors and public attitude. We can see this with cigarettes; legal but demonised. Therefore despite being highly addictive, highly toxic following chronic exposure yet legal adult/youth use has dramatically dwindled over the past few decades. Very few (normal) people would be stupid enough to start smoking crack if it were legal.
My argument for legalisation is to provided a regulated way for people to use without risking lethal ramifications (and no, the prospect of a lethal outcome doesn’t appear to deter many). What’s more, the concept of crippling criminal syndicates/cartels is highly appealing to me, as is reducing the burden associated with mass incarceration. You say “think of the kids”, I think if my hypothetical kid was given a criminal record because he made a stupid decision (that didn’t intrinsically harm anyone) when he was eighteen on a night out I’d be pretty resentful towards societal constructs currently in place; and I think you’re with me on this as you’ve stated such a scenario shouldn’t be grounds to effectively ruin an individuals life. You can argue perhaps the potential ramifications would serve as a deterrent for most, yet this doesn’t appear to be the case in Australia or the USA otherwise we wouldn’t have a problem with mass incarceration associated with minor offences, nor would courts be getting clogged in Aus over minor drug offences/the implementation of “drug courts” wouldn’t have been necessary.
I don’t, though I do support removing the “criminal aspect” from penalisation for minor possession. For harder substances I’d advocate for civil penalties with repeat offenders being referred to treatment. You can’t save everyone, but it’s a better alternative to throwing them all in prison, allowing them to socialise with other people on the wrong side of the tracks. Incurring a criminal record has profound negative impacts on future prospects and dramatically increases the likelihood of re-offending and furthermore deteriorating, potentially edging towards criminal activity if employment prospects aren’t adequate.
Pornography is an industry of which tends to prey on young, vulnerable women. Many of whom may not have a (viable) family to begin with. You could put this towards your argument re the importance of nuclear families, the devastating consequences associated with having bastard children. Rather I think some people merely have the shit end of the stick growing up. Plenty of immigrants, kids from broken homes, kids with narcissistic or abusive parents etc fit the demographic I’ve described above. That being said, a small portion of strippers/porn actresses actually enjoy what they do, and do it because… it’s good money.
In Australia for university you take out a government assisted loan to pay for university. Parents generally don’t pay for college here. Stripping can make upwards of 500-1000$/night provided you’re attractive. Some resort to stripping and/or prostitution (legal and government regulated here) in effort to pay off these bills. I don’t have an issue with it, though I’d most certainly be concerned for the safety of my ADULT offspring at the time if they were to be involved in this industry. It should be noted at the age people get into porn/stripping… they’re adults, not children to be mollycoddled and protected from any and every potential harm in the world. A 22 y/old uni student can make his/her own decisions…
Cracked/glitchy screens don’t help our cause either! Wrote out my last reply on my laptop. I got home from work late last night and somehow managed to walk straight into my screen door, dropping my phone in the process (was carrying it). Now the screen is cracked everywhere on both sides…
My laptop also has a janky/borderline broken keyboard, thus I have to type slowly. I’d buy a new phone/laptop, but I’m saving up for when I can travel again in 2096.
It seems to me, that a logical way to make laws for a society is to start with all possible freedoms, then limit some actions for good reasons. To me, good reasons involve directly negatively impacting others (infringing upon the individual rights we have agreed upon). The argument shouldn’t be why should cannabis be legalized, but why should it be illegal in the first place.
To me, there hasn’t been adequate justification to prohibit cannabis use. Allowing cannabis use doesn’t infringe on my rights (or anyone else’s rights), so it should have never been prohibited.
One promoting the legalization of cannabis does not need to show it should be legalized. They only need to show that it hasn’t met the criteria to be prohibited.
@lordgains, I think this is a good spot for our derail in the pharma section.
Cannabis and alcohol are the drugs I can see being reasonably legalized, but I don’t think I’d care much if they were made illegal either. Not being able to use wine and beer for culinary use would be a bummer though.
Also in saying this I know I’m just one man and not the wisest and I wouldn’t and shouldn’t be the one calling shots in society. Hence I don’t vote.
Should be done within a different nature to how its being done in the USA.
Uruguay legalised cannabis akin to the way I’d want just about anything of this nature legalised. Sold from reputable, licensed pharmacies. Limits are in place as to how much one can purchase. What’s more a licensed pharmacist can have a detailed discussion with a given patient relating to risks, potential interactions with medications/health conditions. To my knowledge the product is sold unbranded and in plain packaging.
There is definitively an allure towards certain brands of alcohol/tobacco initiated through deceptive advertising. As to whether plain packaging is effective at reducing rates of use… I don’t know; though it definitively reduces the aspect of “allure”.
Don’t want another Marlboro man… But for cannabis…
FWIW, I used to be in the keep it illegal camp. I thought justification wasn’t there to make it legal. I now take a more libertarian approach to rights (I am not libertarian in regards to fiscal policy and other topics FTR). Basically, your right to swing your arms ends at my nose. I don’t think a government should mandate morality aside from the obvious things that involve others infringing upon another’s rights.
We especially disagree considering that there are several actions that don’t involve infringing on other’s rights but certainly wreck others quality of life.
Yes, I believe that people who think porn is fine to have respect it in the sense that it’s legit. Otherwise they wouldn’t be so defensive when someone proposes banning it.
Not only that, many men watch it. Will they admit they support something they don’t think is respectable?
I don’t respect it. However, unless we’re setting up a theocracy, I don’t see a way to ban it that doesn’t invite bans on pretty much anything(not that we don’t already have this…but starting from a hypothetical state of nature).
I’ll add that many men want a licentious society generally. I suspect this is because they believe that in such a scene there will be more sex from more women when it only provides that for relatively few men.
Licentiousness causes many not to think straight because as someone once said, lust of the eyes causes constipation of the brain.
