Eighty national public health groups, including the American Heart Association, the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American College of Preventative Medicine, placed a full-page ad in Sunday’s edition of the Washington Post in support of a federal ban on menthol in cigarettes and all flavored cigars.
“The answer is clear,” the full-page ad says. “Saving lives starts by ending the sale of menthol cigarettes and all flavored cigars.
“Smoking kills nearly half a million people in the United States each year, and these addictive, deadly products are a big part of the problem. The FDA and White House have our full support to release lifesaving rules prohibiting menthol cigarettes and all flavored cigars.”
Tobacco is fucking horrible, but Menthol and other flavorings make it so much worse. They increase the likelihood of addiction massively.
And is always the case in public health, you don’t put in rules to cater to the edge cases, you put in rules to protect the majority affected.
Because Prohibition worked out so well they first time. But yes, let’s learn that lesson again, it’s not like we haven’t been having it reinforced over the last half-century with the War Ear Drugs.
But this time it will be different, right?
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Tell me you’re not a smoker without telling me you’re not a smoker.
You clearly have no idea how tobacco addiction works.
Prohibition doesn’t work. Mind your own fucking business.
I can tell that you’re addicted just by the vitriol in your response here.
Did you start of menthols and other flavored tobacco? Because that’s how a lot of people start. Which is why people are pushing for a ban, so others won’t be as hopelessly addicted as you are.
Fuck you.
It’s my choice.
Mind your own fucking business you fucking asshole.
Here, childhood obesity is a MUCH larger issue than smoking.
Go ban all the artificial flavorings that are in all of the different bowls of sugar, ahem, breakfast cereals, that are shamefully aimed at children in an effort to give them diabetes, just leave the aisle full of plain rasin bran.
Do that and I’ll believe it’s about health and the kids and not simply a power trip controlling another person’s choices.
A lifetime of doctors visits, insulin vials, insulin pumps, blood sugar meters, etc are bleeding this country FAR more than 80 year olds with lung cancer (that probably wasnt even caused by the tobacco).
We should do that, without question. Marketing candy to children as part of a balanced breakfast should be a crime.
Your last sentence, dude. 🤣 Way to ruin your credibility.
Are you suggesting that bad eating habits cause type 1 diabetes?
Wow, denying that tobacco causes cancer is a level of delusion that I had thought died out with the 5th or 6th Marlboro Man (who all died of cancer).
Do you want to know one of the causes of cancer from Tobacco? It might surprise you.
But you’ll ignore this because you’re hopelessly addicted to nicotine, one of the single most addictive chemicals known.
You try to deflect with whataboutisms, but guess what? People are trying to solve those health problems as well. You’re just pissed that they’re trying to solve one that affects your personal addiction.
In places where healthcare is vaguely civilized, your unhealthy addiction becomes my business because it comes with negative social externalities in the form of additional cost and strain on a public health service.
Edit: Spelling
Should we ban junk food then? How about a fat tax? I’d wager obesity is a far bigger strain on the healthcare system than smoking is.
This is an article and discussion specifically about a federal ban in the US. So, unless you live here, it’s not your business.
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That’s not even getting into the possible “fun suprises” we’ll have from all of the microplastics in our bodies.
Doesn’t sound very civilized at all.
Sounds judgy, controlling, biased, and miserable.
That’s what you get from government run healthcare
Exactly why I’m so strongly against government run healthcare
I personally was addicted before I ever had even a single puff, and plenty of others started the same way I did. I took a job to earn spending money as a 13 y/o kid cause I wanted Secret of Mana and that was a $60 or $70 game. So I went down the road to the nearest tobacco farm, and started stripping tobacco for $4.25 an hour. I left each 4 hour shift with about ½cm of black tar completely coating the palms and fingers of my hands. After two weeks cigarettes smelled good. I’m far from alone in this experience. So, no. Menthol and flavorings actually cause me to turn down cigarettes, I like the taste of tobacco.
You’re just being ignorant and holier than thou.
Do a lot of teens work on tobacco farms for their first exposure to nicotine? No, that was just you?
I mean, you also bring up the specter of unsafe child labor. That’s something else that we need to tackle, but we can also ban flavorings that make the tobacco more addictive to those who didn’t spend their childhood harvesting tobacco.
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We need to ban public health