UK Tobacco Ban On The Way

[Swiss Army Knife]

The love of nanny-state laws by Britain and it's various offspring is always really surprising to me. We've got our own issues but thank God almighty that the US declared independence so long ago.

Also, didn't New Zealand try this same kind of law and it's already been repealed? Or am I thinking of something else?

 

[revnatorade]

Pipe smokers are a contemplative bunch of people, what's worse for the government than thinkers? Marijuana people can be thinkers as well but tend to forget any brilliant thing they thought of while high, at least that was always my experience. Lol

 

[sardonicus87]

It's not about health or tobacco. It's typical political crap.

There's three groups of people... anti-tobacco, indifferent, pro-tobacco. Indifferent people don't care either way, so politicians don't care about them. Anti-tobacco people vastly outnumber pro-tobacco.

Marijuana is an entirely separate thing from tobacco. More people are pro-legalization than there are anti-legalization.

This is all just politicians looking for easy, low-hanging fruit to give "the people" an easy "win" so they won't have to do real work to fix real problems, because there's no money or power in that. It's about keeping the populous complacent so that it doesn't rise up and revolt. Makes them look like they did something. Giving people what they are already doing on their own is way easier than trying to fix crumbling infrastructure, for example.

Most of them could probably give a shit less one way or the other on anything as long as it doesn't cut into their tee-time.

 

[Michigan_Bill]

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”​

― C. S. Lewis

 

[BenMN]

I keep forgetting the term for intentionally passing a law to take credit for the natural ebbs and flow of trends. One example is passing very strict laws about crimes that just got past their peak.

Post hoc ergo propter hoc