Would you rather ban alcohol or tobacco?

Discussion in 'Drugs, Alcohol & Tobacco' started by The Amazing Sam's Ego, Apr 11, 2013.

  1. The Amazing Sam's Ego

    The Amazing Sam's Ego Banned at Members Request

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    Which legal drug which you rather make illegal-alcohol or tobacco?

    Personally, I would ban tobacco and temporarily ban alcohol until breathalyzers can be installed into every single car in America.

    Basically, I would ban tobacco and keep alcohol legal, albiet with very string laws making it a federal crime to be drunk, because even if all cars had breathlyzers in them, people commit many crimes under the influence of alcohol, and being intoxicated with alcohol would be a federal crime. But I would keep alcohol legal.

    Tobacco is toxic to health! I would ban it!
     
  2. Lord Joar

    Lord Joar New Member

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    Yes, I would probably do more or less the same. I would at least ban all commercials for both alcohol and tobacco, tax both heavily, establish a way the packages and bottles have to look (like they've done with cigarettes in Australia), and allowing both to only be sold by certain certified stores. I would also ban smoking everywhere but private areas where the owner have approved it, and make people stay in said areas for at least ten minutes after they've smoked (for their breath).
     
  3. perdidochas

    perdidochas Well-Known Member

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    I would ban neither. Moderate alcohol consumption is actually healthier than tea-totaling. People have a right to poison themselves slowly with tobacco.
     
  4. Lord Joar

    Lord Joar New Member

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    They do, but do they have the right decide for others whether others should breath smoke or not? I think not, so it should be legal only on private property and not in the presence of young children. And since decision making is impaired by commercials (that's why they work) commercials for highly unhealthy things such as tobacco should be banned (including packages), and it should only be allowed to be sold by vendors trusted to be responsible (ie not vendors that hands out free cigarettes on parties to make people addicted).

    Moderate alcohol consumption, yes, but there should be action aimed towards lowering the number of alcoholics (how would you like having an alcohol addicted father?). One way of doing this would be putting a cap on a maximum amount of alcohol one is allowed to buy each week or so (which should be high enough for moderate consumption but high enough for misuse).
     
  5. perdidochas

    perdidochas Well-Known Member

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    Agree about private property, but while it's common sense not to smoke around children, it shouldn't be law.

    Disagree. I've watched many commercials for many products that I have never bought. You are trying to make laws to help the weak-minded.

    I have an alcohol addicted father. It's not nice, but still not a reason to ban alcohol consumption. Alcoholism is a choice.

    Read my sig. You people that want to do things for people's own good are the worst kind of dictator.
     
  6. Lord Joar

    Lord Joar New Member

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    But children can't really say no, and some people do apparently lack common sense. It shouldn't be legal to harm the health of someone without a consciously made permission, and everyone should be under protect of the law until they are able to give such permission.

    There wouldn't be commercials if they didn't have any effect. Commercials affect us on the subconscious level, changing our attitude towards things and our expectations.
    It's well documented that people will like the very same product more if (they believe that) it's expensive or liked by others. There is one test I've heard about, for instance, in which people were given wine and was being told the price of the wine. Now, the interesting thing is that there was two wines they were given two times, being told different prices different times. They liked them both much better when they thought they were drinking more expensive wines, even though there could not possibly have been any actual change in taste. In another test, a group of people were asked to rank faces by their attractiveness. It was found out that it was possible to affect what they thought a lot in different ways. For instance, putting a picture of a smiling person looking at the person whose attractiveness was going to be ranked increased their attractiveness, and a person looking indifferently at them decreased their attractiveness. And so on.
    The point is that decisions are not always based on cold logical calculations weighting pros against cons, there's a lot of emotions, impressions and other stuff affecting as well. That's simply how the brain is hard-wired. This does usually not matter at all, but it's different when it comes to smoking and drinking. These things are highly harmful and, more importantly, addictive things. The highly addictive effect means that using for instance tobacco quickly stops being a choice and becomes a coercion. Getting rid of smoking or alcoholism is apparently hell. One should therefore be sure that the decision to start smoking or drinking is fully conscious, which is not the case right now. People do, at some subconscious level, believe that they are buying a lifestyle or a feeling, or social acceptance, not cancerogenic fumes from a burning plant.


    Yes.


    Not all alcohol consumption.


    There are quite a few steps between an alcohol cap and "If we have to kill 90 out of Russia's 100 million inhabitants to achieve communism, we must do so" (//Vladimir Lenin).
     
  7. perdidochas

    perdidochas Well-Known Member

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    Same intent. It's the arrogant view that freedom is less important than your view. If it's a choice between freedom and safety, I think freedom is the better choice.
     
  8. camp_steveo

    camp_steveo Well-Known Member

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    Eventually everything will be banned.
     
  9. Lord Joar

    Lord Joar New Member

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    What about freedom from alcoholism, from violence, from traffic accidents and from other things a preventing of excessive use of alcohol could decrease? Misuse of alcohol is not just harming the addict in question, and there are more kinds of freedom than the freedom to.

    But OK, let's say we skip the buying cap, but keep the commercial ban and the vendor licence. You are then equally free to buy alcohol, but we'll also have fewer alcoholics and misusers, which in turn also means fewer traffic accidents and alcohol- fueled violence. How's that?
     
  10. perdidochas

    perdidochas Well-Known Member

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    Alcohol cannot really be banned. It's too easy to make. I can make enough alcohol to get drunk with in about a week. If you want to stop the negative effects of alcohol, punish those. Harshly punish drunk drivers and violent drunks.

    Also, read about Prohibition. It did very little to make things better, and it gave a lot of power and money to organized crime.
     
  11. Ramboner

    Ramboner New Member

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    I think Happy Meals should come with a joint in them.They eat, go out in the parking lot, burn it, come back in and eat again ! Capitalism man, Capitalism.
     
  12. The Amazing Sam's Ego

    The Amazing Sam's Ego Banned at Members Request

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    Here's an idea that had just occurred to me. Maybe the only reason that alcohol prohibition had failed to reduce alcohol consumption was because of the corruption and lack of strictness of those law enforcement agencies during those days. Nowadays, our police force is more strict and powerful, and it would be way easier to enforce a ban on alcohol nowadays. If reducing alcohol consumption through another prohibition would work, then I would support making alcohol illegal, since it would hypothetically save tens of thousands of innocent people from drunk drivers and violent drunks.

    I have changed my mind. Tobacco doesn't really contribute to violence or car accidents, and therefore it's not as harmful to society as alcohol is.
     
  13. perdidochas

    perdidochas Well-Known Member

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    Alcohol prohibition fails because alcohol is easy to make and because people really like it. It has been part of our culture for all of written history.
     
  14. Shopsko

    Shopsko New Member

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    Banning something so widespread to the community, would get you only negative effects in social and economic way.

    This wouldn't be a move for a healier societies, but rather a political move for favouring curtain circles.
     
  15. waltky

    waltky Well-Known Member

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    How much dem sop-heads is really costin' ever'body...
    :steamed:
    Excessive Alcohol Drinking Has $223B Price Tag
    August 15, 2013 — Excessive alcohol drinking costs Americans more than $220 billion a year, or almost $2 a drink. And the biggest costs come from a loss of worker productivity.
     
  16. Right Wing

    Right Wing New Member

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    Most likely. The war has already been waged against tobacco and fatty food. The government believes it knows what is best for the masses. I don't smoke or do drugs, but who am I affecting if I suck down some fried chicken wings and wash it down with a sour apple cider?
     
  17. Right Wing

    Right Wing New Member

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    I am against criminalizing alchohol and tobacco. The government should not be able to tell us what we can and cannot put in our bodies. I am also against banning commercials. The government should not control advertisement and should not interfere in the private sector or in business.

    At what lengths do we go for the government to protect us from ourselves? Do we really need the government to be a parent? We are not mindless masses. We should be free to decide for ourselves. What you are advocating is a utopian nirvana controlled by the government to prevent all bad things from happening. It just isn't going to be that way in this life no matter how much government control we have.
     
  18. Right Wing

    Right Wing New Member

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    Sure, prohibition didn't work because police were not as powerful? Maybe they didn't have the big brother resources then like they do now, but the reason prohibition failed is because of human nature. The government does not have the capacity to create a perfect world. The more they infringe on liberty, the more the people will push back. Also, it will create a black market, so only the very law abiding, who use alcohol responsibly, would comply, while those committing crimes while on alcohol would still be able to get it off the black market.

    Increasing the scope of government is not the answer. Public awareness in the free market, as well as police making arrests when a law is broken such as a DUI and DWI and strict enforcement of the prosecution will help, but the answer is not to infringe on the liberty of the people.
     
  19. Right Wing

    Right Wing New Member

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    What is the people don’t want breathalyzers in the cars? What if car dealers and manufacturers don’t want to put breathalyzers in their cars? We also don’t need federal laws to prosecute drunk driving. We really don’t need federal laws period. State and municipal laws will work just fine. You would ban tobacco for being toxic to health? Would you ban movie theater popcorn or other fatty food?

    Let them have cake!!!
     
  20. Right Wing

    Right Wing New Member

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    Is there anything else you would ban? How about fatty foods, sugary foods, or commercials promoting fatty foods and sugary foods? How much power do you want the government to have over our lives to protect us from ourselves? What authority do they have to decide what is good or bad for us and what we should and should not be allowed to put in our own bodies? What type of punishment would you be willing for the government to use on the people, for non-compliance? You are willing to detain a person against his will for smoking tobacco? What would you be willing for the government to do to the man who resists being detained? Would you be willing to do the same to a guy who has body odor or a cold?
     
  21. The Amazing Sam's Ego

    The Amazing Sam's Ego Banned at Members Request

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    What's so wrong with having breathalyzers in cars?
     
  22. smevins

    smevins New Member

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    I would ban alcohol without a doubt. Alcoholics may not always kill their families but they can often make them wish they were dead from the terror they reportedly suffer. It is often the distinguishing factor in domestic violence and related homicides.
     
  23. Right Wing

    Right Wing New Member

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    Nothing, as long as the dealer chooses to put the breathalyzer in the car and the consumer chooses to buy that particular car. The problem isn't with breathalizers. The problem is with governmental mandates.
     
  24. Right Wing

    Right Wing New Member

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    What other types of bad and destructive behavior would you ban? I remember, years ago, members of NOW blaming football and the Super Bowl for domestic violence. Should we ban football? It is impossible to have a government controlled utopian nirvana in which big sis protects us from ourselves. Even if it were possible, it would stifle the human spirit and concept of liberty. How free and happy would we truly be if ruled by the government in this fashion?
     
  25. smevins

    smevins New Member

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    The OP asked of the two, which would one rather ban. Of the two, I think alcohol is more ban worthy than tobacco. The implicit question is which do you think does more harm--alcohol or tobacco. I think alcohol does more harm to society than tobacco. If you disagree, you disagree, but not every comment warrants a teachable moment of righteous indignation. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
     

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