The world's first nation to outlaw tobacco

I had to see it to believe it, imagine the blackmart potential and tax revenue down the drain ???

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/us_bhutan_smoking

It’s funny that they got a tobacco sniffing dog. It’s easy to smell. I personally would think it’s better to train them for drugs instead

Wow, the camel’s nose is sure under the tent there now. Absolutely ridiculous, especially when you realize that Bhutan already has one of the world’s smallest economies. Good luck with that. 88)

You want a cute puppy snorting cocaine? Anyway, I actually like this decision. I’m against that blood clotting stuff anyway. But it is bad for their economy, good for their health. :P0l

You like the government protecting you from yourself? ??? People have decided now that just because they don’t like something, it should be outlawed. Political correctness. 88)

You want a cute puppy snorting cocaine?
I personally don't care how cute a puppy is, as long as it does a good job at flagging a shipment of a few tons of heroin.

hi.
im from the united kingdom and sorry to say but a lot of government revenue comes from smoking unfortunately.
Here in the uk the government actually thoroughly encourages smoking in some aspeccts.
Thats the world we live in.

Actually, it’s the tobacco industry that makes very large campaign donations that decides what the government likes and dislikes. It’s the same in any country that depends upon funded politicians.

If people don’t let the government decide what THEY like, why does it matter? It blows my mind that the U.S. has gotten to a point where the owner of a private business can’t allow smoking in his/her own establishment. If you don’t like it, go somewhere else. If enough people don’t like it the owner will be forced to ban people smoking if he wants to make money. People think they “have the right” to waaaay too many things these days.

I wish more governments would develop a big enough pair of nuts to follow Bhutans lead and just ban tobacco outright. The hypocrisy of governments placing taxes, excises and levies on tobacco products, let alone taking political donations form the corporations behind the tobacco industry, is just plain assinine.

There is general consensus around the world that smoking tobacco is bad for you. What surprises me is that some people expect governments to stop or prevent other bad things from happening, but the tobacco indutry gets the welcome mat laid out for it. WFT??

Ewen :slight_smile:

P.S> I’m a smoker so don’t bother lumping me in the anti-smokers basket. :wink:

You let them ban tobacco and where does it stop? The people are supposed to control the government, not the other way around. How are you gonna replace all of the jobs we lose with the ban of tobacco? The tax dollars we lose? Alcohol is bad for you too, why not ban it too?

No offense, but in the spirit of debate I find it strange that a smoker railing against tobacco companies would call out another’s “hypocrisy”. :wink:

I personally don’t see anything wrong with people controlling themselves, but they, and I, still smoke.

No offense, but equally in the spirit of debate, I don’t see how you can call it (failing to ban tobacco) anything other than hyprocisy. Governments take money from the tobacco industry and use those funds to promote stop smoking campaigns and to fund public health programs aimed at the smoking populace, but will not endure the short term pain from loss of revenue to gain the long term health benefits for the people who voted them in. They bow down before unions eager to protect their members jobs (admirable) and lobbyists with fistfuls of dollars (fiscal prostitutes - not so admirable).

I can only speak from personal experience “down under”, but here a packet of Marlboro costs around $15 (Australia currently has fiscal parity with the USA so that’s around $15 US). Of that $15, there are Federal and State excises and levies that amount to over $9.50 AUS. The excises are supposed to go directly to the Health Departments revenue centre for non-smoking and smoking related health programs. Supposed to is the operative word here, as it is lumped into consolidated government revenue to be spent as they wsh.

It is quite possibly different in the US, where health care is not provided free. In a lot of other countries, Governments provide free health care and this is paid for by taxes (you and me). Yes, banning tobacco would greatly reduce the revenue stream, but it would, in the long term, provide financial releif to the health sector.

Last year, British American Tobacco (BAT) had worldwide revenues of over $5.1 billion US. Worldwide, they then donated $875 million to Governments and lobbyists around the globe to keep their industry legal.

Please don’t kid yourself that if the donations stopped, the politicians wouls still think it was a viable industry that delivered benefit to the general community.

Maybe I want it banned because I find it hard to quit??

I agree that alcohol is bad for you. Several years ago, the liquour industry was getting bashed by the media and a university was funded by the alcohol industry to do a total cost impact study, comparing tobacco to alcohol. They went to the nth degree - including hospital costs, doctors costs, nurses costs, legal costs, judicial costs, costs to employers from lost productivity (from the drinkeers and their affected families) - you name it and they included it. The study was supposed to run for four years. It was canned within 12 months as the results showed that the abuse of alcohol had a greater fiscal impact on the community by a factor of 1.2.

As with tobacco, the root cause (other than the product itself) is the abuse of the product by people who should know better, myself included.

Ewen :slight_smile:

It blows my mind that the U.S. has gotten to a point where the owner of a private business can't allow smoking in his/her own establishment. If you don't like it, go somewhere else
Not that easy. If there's public access to some place (including not only restaurants but also offices), there probably should be a dedicated place for smokers.

But the laws ruling smokers and non smokers cohabitation can be somewhat excessive.

In Spain, smoking is forbidden in public gardens, and in the street at some distance (i don’t remember it exactly) from schools.

In France, smoking is only allowed in public accessible places if some dedicated space including costly ventilation equipments exists; non-smokers have prosecuted restaurants providing outside smoking places because…they were not entirely closed, and most establishments are not able to abide by this law (either because the equipments are very expensive, either because there’s some physical impossibility to create such a space in existing structures).

This situation also leaded, altough i don’t care myself for not going there, to financial difficulties in most casinos (and therefore significative tax losses, everyone knows that the only winner in casino is the state).

People in offices even complained about “favoritism” and “lack of productivity” of some workers going out of the building for a smoking pause, not taking of course into account the “lack of productivity” due to some of the complainers themselves busy at drinking coffee or spending their time with their private mail, social networks or internet games during work hours.

Concerning the obvious cost of tobacco addiction (but what about illicit drugs, alcohol, overweight…?), and without even any lobbying, the very large tobacco taxes in France directly go to the state, while the health cost (excepting the infrastuctures costs like building hospitals) are mostly supported by wages paid on workers income both from these workers and from the company they are working for: the arithmetical result is very favorable for the state and keeps it, along with political reasons (smokers vote) and economical reasons (France is a producer not only of wine, but to a lesser extent of tobacco) to fight against tobacco and alcohol addictions.

This being said, as in every matter, excess of law is no law, and i don’t see why people (including myself) shouldn’t be allowed to kill themselves with tobacco as long as they don’t bother others in closed spaces in the same way that people are allowed to kill themselves eating too much and too fat:
in “northern countries” (i know, Bhutan is not one), the cardio-vascular morbidity and mortality relevant to smoking must be compared to the one due to obesity and sedentarity, while in “southern countries” (and by extension Bhutan), the global health situation probably makes that the prime killer is not tobacco, not only because it is expensive, but sadly enough third world diseases including banal measles or gastro-enteritis without even speaking, like in Bengladesh, of environmental factors (arsenical contamination), of malaria and of endemic parasitical pathologies (filariasis…), and of “social saturnism” (intoxication by Kalashnikov lead bullets).

Ewen…If you want to quit, quit. Don’t look to the government to make you quit. What shall we do about smokeless tobacco? Will we ban snuff & chewing tobacco as well? This is always centered on cigarettes, but this also involves pipes, cigars & smokeless tobacco etc. This debate isn’t as simple as it’s made out to be, we Americans (especially in the South) tend to be much more stand-offish about our freedoms. You (the citizens) have let taxation get out of control down there, giving the government even more power isn’t the answer.

Brucine…An owner should have the right to allow smoking in his PRIVATE business. Period. Who are you or I to tell him any different? Banning of tobacco will only do what prohibition once did in America; bring about an underground trade of illegal tobacco. More laws is not the answer.

I smoke when I drink, that’s it. I do believe that I have no right to tell a business owner what to do, I have no right to not be offended. It’s an interesting debate with you both, I must admit. :wink:

An owner should have the right to allow smoking in his PRIVATE business. Period. Who are you or I to tell him any different?
I am not judging anything: i am only stating the law, the french one and i believe also the one of most european contries, saying in substance that the employees and customers of this business man are not private, and that the freedom of some of them to smoke is forbidden by the one of the other employees and customers not to passively swallow the smoke or have their clothes smell tobacco.

The dogm of “individual freedom” as it prevails in the United States (at least for WASP…) does not exist as such in Europe where the collective and social rights are very present even in christian democracies, as well in matter of tobacco than with other questions.

Another example is firearms: no one in France is allowed to own one if he does not have the proper authorizations, and even if he does, has no right to carry this firearm in a working state in the street:
i don’t advocate for tobacco’s prohibition, and i said that some of the anti-tobacco laws in France are excessive (but probably not one saying there must be maybe not closed, but separated spaces for smokers and non-smokers in every public access place, including companies), but everyone in Europe says that the 2nd Amendment is sometimes responsible of slaughters (schools…) that were historically very unfrequent in Europe (i agree, the situation is changing, since the Wall in Berlin is gone and the USSR with it, anyone can buy a Kalashnikov for only a few bucks).

That’s what bugs me, the employees who don’t want to be around smoke can work somewhere else. The customers can do business at another establishment, nobody is putting a gun to these people’s heads and making them go there. If enough people agree with these laws then it will solve itself, customers will frequent non-smoking businesses & the owners of smoker friendly places will ban it. The problem is the majority of people don’t want it banned & the minority screams & whines until they get their way. I love how people will go to a bar and drink until they pass out but heaven forbid somebody light up a smoke! These same people also gorge themselves on McDonald’s and weigh 300lbs. but are suddenly health conscious? Anyway, I guess I’m just fed up with people looking to the government to be their parents or whatever when WE are supposed to control THEM. Don’t even get me started on firearms… 88) :slight_smile:

Yes, the government is mainly supposed to keep your country safe and peaceful…and not be the answer to every problem. (I’m also thinking about welfare and economic stimuli).

Exactly. People now to a large degree think the government is supposed to solve everyones problems. Welfare is supposed to be a stopgap to help you out of a bind, not a source of income for the rest of your life. Housing projects are supposed to be there for a last resort to help provide people have a place to stay until they can get back on their feet and afford something better, not a permanent residence for lazy people who don’t want to work. Maybe people just don’t have any pride and shame anymore. I know I’ve went off track here but this is the root of my point…somehow.