A smoke-free country? New Zealand taxes aim for it

Hypocrisy wrote:
Surely the drug trade taught us that, making a law against a product does not do much to curb the use of such a product.

Ah, you don't think heroin use would be much more widespread if it were legal and readily available? Interesting.

To my knowledge, no country has tried to outlaw tobacco as yet and as such, we really have no example of what may happen.
However - I think it is logical to assume that, if made illegal, tobacco may go the same direction as cannabis don't you think?
Quickly scan the following 2 pages

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_cann...

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/lif_can_use...

As we can see, NZ is the biggest cannabis user in the world at 22.23%. That, in spite of the fact that cannabis is an illegal substance in NZ.
This begs the question - why would I trust the govt to actually curb the usage of tobacco products if they take that product from the current highly regulated and controlled environment and move it to the unregulated, uncontrolled black market??
I would say that, if the govt. was serious about stopping cannabis in the country we'd see statistics comparable to Japan (0.05%) or Sweden (0.98%) instead of being at the top with 22.23%
As such, I can only assume that the govt. is either unwilling or incapable to control black market products like cannabis - will they behave the same with regard to tobacco when this is illegal??

Hypocrisy wrote:
On the one hand they are telling us that it is the poor that is addicted to smoking.
On the other hand, it is the taxes from those poor that enrich the coffers with 100's of millions - and as such, save every taxpayer in NZ from helping to pay for those millions.

Nicotine addiction does seem to be more common among lower economic classes. This is one reason why enforcement of litter laws is not a reasonable approach to curbing smoking. The fines would not be collectible. The taxation approach has built-in programmed obsolescence. Discouraging potential payers of the tax from consuming an addiction-sustaining level of the taxed product will, over time, reduce the number of times the tax is paid.

Hypocrisy wrote:
The least the average NZ citizen (AND government) can do is to thank the smoking community for saving their asses during these difficult financial times - instead of constantly making life even more difficult for all those smokers.

If increased difficulty brings fewer people experiencing the difficulty, with an end goal of zero people experiencing that difficulty, what's your difficulty?

My reasoning here is about double standards.
Today, we have "addiction" - to anything and everything (except tobacco.)
Then we have addiction to tobacco.

As an example, a few years ago a female at the place I work walked in and declared that she has an alcohol addiction.(She was always late for work, skipped days etc. and was on the verge of loosing her job.)
Suddenly, the company was not allowed to fire her - instead, we were forced to keep her position open and grant her leave etc. while the govt. took her to some rehabilitation process.
During this time the govt. also provided some financial assistance etc. to allow her to pick up her life again afterwards.
All this because she was addicted - to alcohol - and, she needed help.

So I wonder - why is it she was not merely taxed out of existence? By her own admittance, she was addicted so, what's the difference?

Or - the other way around. Why is it that people addicted to tobacco is taxed out of existence instead of being helped?
Oh yes I forgot - those patches naturally.
Just read this site to see that those patches are a cheap and worthless "patch" on a much bigger problem.
But don't worry - we will tax the problem out of existence won't we?

Bottom line is - why is it that people addicted to any substance (except tobacco) receive a "hand up," helping then to free themselves of their addictions while the tobacco addicted is there to be ridiculed and taxed out of existence?
Personally I think - addiction is the same in ALL cases. If alcohol addiction is an illness then, so is tobacco addiction and every other addiction.
This leads me to only one conclusion. The anti tobacco campaign is, at it's heart, only about those millions of dollars coming in. I stand to be corrected.

Hypocrisy wrote:

Hypocrisy wrote:
Surely the drug trade taught us that, making a law against a product does not do much to curb the use of such a product.
Ah, you don't think heroin use would be much more widespread if it were legal and readily available? Interesting.

Oh, for heaven's sake. Get your quotes in order, dude.

Hypocrisy wrote:

To my knowledge, no country has tried to outlaw tobacco as yet and as such, we really have no example of what may happen.

This is your response when I blast you for implying that you/we know EXACTLY what would happen because of the lack of impact shown by existing laws against other drugs? That's pretty weak, even as backpedaling.

Hypocrisy wrote:

However - I think it is logical to assume that, if made illegal, tobacco may go the same direction as cannabis don't you think?

No, I certainly do NOT regard that as in any way logical. To say that it "may" is simply making the statement meaningless.
It almost certainly will NOT, and logic calls for acknowledging THAT rather than spouting meaningless questions such as yours.

What would happen to pot smoking in a world where the paraphernalia for smoking was no longer readily available? Why is that paraphernalia readily available? Because purveyors can claim that they are selling them for use by TOBACCO smokers.

What would happen to pot smoking in a world where it was not legal to smoke ANYTHING? Do you think it logical to say that detection would become far more reliable if there were no LEGAL smoke to hide the habit with?

Given that roughly 2/3 of smokers acknowledge that they only smoke because they have found it impossible (so far) to beat the addiction, and that the addiction wanes fairly quickly (all things considered), how much of a market do you think there would be for Black Market smokes among the non-criminal populace? How would the average Joe even FIND a black market in time to avoid losing the addiction that would make him seek one?

How many times the amount of pot consumed daily by an individual pot smoker do you suppose is the amount of tobacco required by an individual in order to sustain the addiction? How often do you suppose an individual would need to have a smoke in order to sustain that addiction? How would the smoker disguise the activity--in a world without a LEGAL substance to smoke?

There is just nothing CLOSE to an analogy between the illegality of pot smoking and the proposed illegality of tobacco smoking. It is highly illogical to suppose that the course of the one has anything to do with the likely course of the other.

Again, bring some logical order to the mishmash of quotations in your posts before you ask anyone to address any content you wish to present. It is just not worth wading through all that and trying to sort out what we are supposed to be responding to.

Hugh Jass wrote:

<quoted text>
If there are active smokers anywhere you go, then you are NOT a nonsmoker, you are a PASSIVE smoker. Active smokers deny you the right to choose not to smoke--or at least they force you to regulate your whereabouts at their whim if you wish to make that choice. They don't HAVE to petition to take away your rights. They just DO it.

You appear to have a pretty strong opinion on this subject. I on the other hand dont. I realize that more people die from smoking related illnesses in NZ than from any other preventable death. We have around 5000 people in NZ die every year from smoking related deaths, compared to about 400 people killed on our roads.

But I do have some several mates who smoke and to me I think of it as an incredible waste of money and really an addiction that they dont need to have because it wont do them any favors in the long run.

So I was wondering what your thoughts are when it comes to better alternatives to smoking cigarettes. Short on telling people to stop altogether, do you have any opinions on alternative tobacco use like snus or chewing tobacco?

I know several people who have stopped smoking after turning to snus instead. Some will say it is the lesser of two evils perhaps. But one obvious benifit to using snus over smoking cigerrettes is that there are no passive smokers involved. There is no second hand smoke, so by them turning to use snus, they are not actually taking away your rights here for anything.

Would you like to see snus being promoted as an alternative to smoking cigarettes? Or would it be in your opinion that in a country like New Zealand that does not already have snus, it would just be an introduction of something else people dont need?

Hello,
I'll likely need two parts for this one.
My response to snus & co. is largely a response to the tobacco industry, and inevitably colored by that. I recall when I was reading a lot of such things that I repeatedly ran into a document from, I think, RJR. The gist of it was that they needed to think ahead to a time when they would be unable to prevent smoking from being so widely recognized as the abomination it is that they would need to find some new addiction to peddle, "probably containing nicotine".
I've read several documents that were exposed to the public (either as evidence in court cases or by the fellow who initially dropped a package of what he'd been hired to shred on the steps of a Californian named Glantz) that covered gloating over how well selling addiction worked, stress on the need to maintain a market share of the 12-to-17-year-old consumers, and on the ways and means of increasing the addictive potential of tobacco products. I think it is an outrage that the decision-makers from those companies are not serving hard time in the worst prisons available, and I would be grateful to the people who shut the industry down for good.

The tobacco companies have not only shifted to producing products like snus, "sticks", and all of that, but RJR has acquired a sister company in NicoNovum--the European version of nicotine replacement therapies. It is clear that their approach is to extend, as long as possible, the time when remaining addicted to nicotine is viewed as acceptable because the nicotine is obtained from some other source besides cigarettes.
In a way, it is much like the industry's approach to the litter problem. Rather than embrace the need for a cigarette that leaves less behind, they joined with other industries with similar problems and formed the "environmental" group "Keep America Beautiful" to focus public perception on the consumer as the problem and the community as failing to provide the solution (in the form of more ashtrays). If they can keep people focused on the unique harm done by smoking instead of on nicotine use, they can continue to rake in grotesque profit levels from the addiction. Meanwhile, if their PR people can help to blow out of proportion the problems with non-nicotine products such as Champix, they can discourage research into products that deal directly with the addiction. They have been playing a delaying game for decades, and taking in billions as a result.

The industry needs to be gone in my book.

I believe that THOSE are the people who must be told "to stop altogether". Producing and marketing is absolutely inexcusable, while having succumbed to the addiction offers at least some semblance of an excuse for the consumer.

43poundtornado wrote:

<quoted text>
You appear to have a pretty strong opinion on this subject. I on the other hand dont. I realize that more people die from smoking related illnesses in NZ than from any other preventable death. We have around 5000 people in NZ die every year from smoking related deaths, compared to about 400 people killed on our roads.
But I do have some several mates who smoke and to me I think of it as an incredible waste of money and really an addiction that they dont need to have because it wont do them any favors in the long run.
So I was wondering what your thoughts are when it comes to better alternatives to smoking cigarettes. Short on telling people to stop altogether, do you have any opinions on alternative tobacco use like snus or chewing tobacco?

43poundtornado wrote:

I know several people who have stopped smoking after turning to snus instead. Some will say it is the lesser of two evils perhaps. But one obvious benifit to using snus over smoking cigerrettes is that there are no passive smokers involved. There is no second hand smoke, so by them turning to use snus, they are not actually taking away your rights here for anything.
Would you like to see snus being promoted as an alternative to smoking cigarettes? Or would it be in your opinion that in a country like New Zealand that does not already have snus, it would just be an introduction of something else people dont need?

It's a bit of a pickle, as they say in the US. I don't know if the expression has meaning there. It means a problem that seems to have no positive solution, with any response carrying undesirable elements. The lesser of evils thing is a related concept.
While I clearly hate to see the industry simply shifting its grip on the hapless consumer/addict--and thereby on the economy of your country--I can also see the loss of DISadvantage in shifting people away from smoking as a vector for sustaining the addiction. Snus, as something that is meant to be swallowed (is it not?), would also reduce the litter issue, and without the spitting that goes with regular chewing tobacco.
Clearly, society as a whole would be less mistreated if nicotine addiction were appeased with Snus and/or lozenges and/or gum and/or patches. Too, though there are still lethal health effects associated with chewing tobacco, they seem to be fewer than attend smoking.

I have some issues with the idea of letting someone "mess with my head", but wonder whether hypnosis doesn't deserve a shot before going with smokeless tobacco (or smoke-free addiction).

I think that a "nicotine replacement" approach belongs farther down the list of plausible approaches than it is usually placed, and I believe that is largely because of the industry's manipulation of public perception.

I thought the end might be in sight when a US company was going into final testing of a vaccine for nicotine addiction, but it seems to have bombed in the last stages of testing. If a small fraction of the money the tobacco industry has spent diverting attention from any approach that threatened their stranglehold on the consumer were being spent on pursuing those approaches, I think the industry would be shut down very shortly by lack of any market for their product.

Meanwhile, if they can popularize other tobacco products enough to salvage the profitability of the addiction they sell, I don't think they will so much mind leaving cigarettes behind. The smokeless products will also be much more feasible as a basis for a black market if tobacco is ever outlawed. I believe this is also a part of their underlying strategy in bringing so many variations to the market.

As an interim approach, I think marketing Snus and such in NZ could have advantages. I also think it would be playing right into the hands of the tobacco industry, because it would take the heat off and allow them to go right on selling sickness (addiction) without the clamor that SHS causes.

Another angle is that it could create a new version of "cool" associated with tobacco use in children. Snus use is so much easier to hide from parents, for instance, that adolescents could flock to it just for the sense of "getting over". Identifying themselves by the brand of smokeless tobacco they used might also be something attractive to the adolescent mind. Add in the ability to argue that they are doing something so much safer than their parents' generation did (smoking), and I think you're on the path to seeing the disaster these products could become.

I don't have a "best of all answers" to offer. I will say that I hope that, should NZ achieve the goal of being smoke-free by 2025, it shifts enough to become "tobacco-use-free" as well.

Hugh Jass wrote:

<quoted text>
Actually, it is completely bogus knee-jerk stuff, partaking heavily of the common fallacy they teach you to avoid in a first semester logic or composition course: slippery slope.
More importantly, though, it is nonsense to suggest that a behavior is somehow the equivalent of a genetic heritage, that opposing a (self-destructive) behavior that heavily/negatively impacts others is somehow the equivalent of racism, or that supporting an effort to reduce the frequency of such a behavior is somehow equivalent to calling for the annihilation of everyone with a particular genetic heritage.
Now, if that sort of utterly contemptible nonsense strikes you as "interesting thought", then I suspect you have serious problems.

Oh this is not logical it does not make sense, reasoning fallacies, i do not understand a thing you are saying, you have serious problems- dismissive.

Oh gees, Don't use the guise of logic superiority to try and completely misunderstand and dismiss what people are saying, being able to interpret writing or language whether from an educated person or not is a skill too.

If smoking is as people claim prevalent among the poor which are also assumed to be uneducated, then dismissing reasoning fallacies just misrepresents the very people you are trying to take this "smoking" away from. Although everyone is capable of logical thought, not all lives are invested in this thinking. if this were true then all smoking advertisements whether on Tv or cigarette packets would have a high response rate because it would strike the very basic logical thinking of cause and effect people invested in logical thought, as logical.

The reason of "that is an interesting point" was that i have never heard this one before but somehow with only an assumption you were able to come up with all of this in response to a few words and a diagnosis? wow!

The Cigarette industry is not stupid. in order to extend their market from being of this "lower" socio-economic demographic an upmarket scale strategy was applied to get the "rich" smoking too! surely they sell cigars in some convenience stores, but tell me exactly who buys cuban cigars or cigars in general the poor? I've worked in convenience stores when i was younger not one pack of willem was sold by me. I mentioned this as there is a slight disregard for this.

to try and take away millions of dollars from a tobacco industry they are just going to lie down and play lapdog, because a few people protest and several people die? the warnings are on the packets and if you choose to excessively use it and die as far as they are concerned, they didnt "not" tell you.
Hundreds of thousands have died from smoking/smoking related diseases they have simply desensitized from it.

like i said before i don't care either way where this goes in terms of smokefree i see another person has a case of the "slippery slope" too linking smoking and drinking together...yet when fast food is put in there, there's mass confusion, its as if i said smoking, pink wigs and salt. what possibly could drinking, fast food, and smoking have in common, its hard to draw the lines here? I simply said if being smokefree is in the "interests of health" then the next approaches would be to aim at??

*tobacco not cigarette

Erana Monika wrote:

<quoted text>
Oh this is not logical it does not make sense, reasoning fallacies, i do not understand a thing you are saying, you have serious problems- dismissive.
Oh gees, Don't use the guise of logic superiority to try and completely misunderstand and dismiss what people are saying, being able to interpret writing or language whether from an educated person or not is a skill too.

Ah, I see. The old "You have to pay attention to what we say even if we don't make enough sense for you to figure out what we are saying because we have a right to spout nonsense but you don't have the right to dismiss our nonsense by pointing out that we make no sense" argument. I stand in awe of your grasp of that one.

Hugh Jass wrote:

<quoted text>
Ah, I see. The old "You have to pay attention to what we say even if we don't make enough sense for you to figure out what we are saying because we have a right to spout nonsense but you don't have the right to dismiss our nonsense by pointing out that we make no sense" argument. I stand in awe of your grasp of that one.

Yes, i may not make sense from time to time especially when the argument is in opposition to what the other person is saying. I did see that on more than two occasions (and you even made a stand alone post) people are not making sense to you, when i, someone of maybe less than average intelligence can figure out what that person is trying to say.

If someone from another country was to tell me "fire house" should i say it lacks proper sentence structure and i dont understand you- i am too intelligent to understand your nonsense as english speaking people do not talk in this way, speak properly, its the "only" way i am going to understand you. Only a presented body language will give you an indication that the moment someone says "fire " it instantly means "fire" but what if this was sent in a text message?

is my being too intelligent to understand this nonsense approach going to dismiss this? or are there going to be avenues taken to try and understand this person?

my first thought would be without the presence of body language and tone

house on fire?
a place to eat flame grilled?
what he/she may call what we call a fireplace? a shooting range? a change agency?

In neither case is idiocy likely to make the content more comprehensible.

Regarding what I THINK you may be talking about here, it is not so much a question of inability to parse the posts. There is a perfectly useful (and STANDARD) means provided for maintaining clarity and the person posting SEEMS to be just too lazy to use it. Then, in order to respond, I am expected to do the extra work of figuring out where one person's content leaves off and another's picks up, read what is new, and compose a coherent response that lacks that confusion? I don't think so. I COULD do it, but there is no motivation for it. If the person POSTING what I am unlikely to regard as true or accurate or relevant in the first place doesn't care enough to make the content clear, why should I bother?
As to "fire house", the hospital administration considers that just about every other episode. It's part of what keeps the show running.

Erana Monika wrote:

<quoted text>
Yes, i may not make sense from time to time especially when the argument is in opposition to what the other person is saying. I did see that on more than two occasions (and you even made a stand alone post) people are not making sense to you, when i, someone of maybe less than average intelligence can figure out what that person is trying to say.
If someone from another country was to tell me "fire house" should i say it lacks proper sentence structure and i dont understand you- i am too intelligent to understand your nonsense as english speaking people do not talk in this way, speak properly, its the "only" way i am going to understand you. Only a presented body language will give you an indication that the moment someone says "fire " it instantly means "fire" but what if this was sent in a text message?
is my being too intelligent to understand this nonsense approach going to dismiss this? or are there going to be avenues taken to try and understand this person?
my first thought would be without the presence of body language and tone
house on fire?
a place to eat flame grilled?
what he/she may call what we call a fireplace? a shooting range? a change agency?

If you've never been to New Zealand, I encourage you to visit the Travel Explosion website and see the beauty this country has to offer.

California started trying to tax tobacco to an unreasonable price. The smokers started buying from the (American) Indian reservations and zipping over to Nevada and also buying online. The state lost huge revenues from this. I think NZ may be risking having people do business on the black market, just like they do with marijuana.

GoodKarma2012 wrote:

California started trying to tax tobacco to an unreasonable price. The smokers started buying from the (American) Indian reservations and zipping over to Nevada and also buying online. The state lost huge revenues from this. I think NZ may be risking having people do business on the black market, just like they do with marijuana.

You seem a bit confused. California's (recent) effort to raise tobacco taxes for the first time in so long that only one other state had NOT raised them in the meantime failed. There was absolutely NO motivation for going to Nevada because of what the PEOPLE of California "tried" to do.

A "black market" in tobacco would not be anything LIKE what "they do with marijuana", because of the sheer volume of product required to sustain addiction in a wide enough customer base to make it worthwhile as well as because of the difficulty of pretending you are NOT smoking tobacco when there is nothing legal and common that you could pretend you WERE smoking. Taking tobacco smoking out of the equation will remove a layer of ease from the pot smokers' lives, by ripping away the camouflage tobacco smokers provided them (and making them go clandestine to obtain something so basic as rolling papers as well), so THAT black market will be impeded by the law as well.

If they outlawed alcohol consumption as well, then the pushers and purveyors of drugs would not be able to point at deliberate function reduction as being socially acceptable. The charge of cultural hypocrisy would cease to confuse kids, and fewer would be cajoled into drug use.

GoodKarma2012 wrote:

California started trying to tax tobacco to an unreasonable price. The smokers started buying from the (American) Indian reservations and zipping over to Nevada and also buying online. The state lost huge revenues from this. I think NZ may be risking having people do business on the black market, just like they do with marijuana.

I should have posted a link to backup my point, which is high taxation of cigarettes may result in losing significant tax revenues, as it has in CA.:

"California’s dominance as a leading antismoking state has declined significantly since it passed, in 1998, what was at the time the toughest antismoking bill in the country..."

That's because California voters react and California revenues suffer when smokers can get them from the internet, in an un-taxed neighboring state, Indian reservations. In NZ's case, alternative sources could be the internet, duty free at the airport, or black market type operations.

http://www.grocers.org/images/Supporting_Docu...

I'm just saying, NZ should look forward before making a quick judgement to tax the h3ll out of the addicted smoker. They will find a way to get them cheaper without regard to the NZ tax situation.

GoodKarma2012 wrote:

<quoted text>
I should have posted a link to backup my point, which is high taxation of cigarettes may result in losing significant tax revenues, as it has in CA.:
"California’s dominance as a leading antismoking state has declined significantly since it passed, in 1998, what was at the time the toughest antismoking bill in the country..."
That's because California voters react and California revenues suffer when smokers can get them from the internet, in an un-taxed neighboring state, Indian reservations. In NZ's case, alternative sources could be the internet, duty free at the airport, or black market type operations.
http://www.grocers.org/images/Supporting_Docu...
I'm just saying, NZ should look forward before making a quick judgement to tax the h3ll out of the addicted smoker. They will find a way to get them cheaper without regard to the NZ tax situation.

I still regard your premise as bogus. The site you linked to seemed to be a clearly agenda-driven collection of any excerpt from printed material that would support the idea that taxing tobacco should scare people.
With the cost of gas today, how much of the population of a state the size of California is going to drive to another state to buy cigarettes? How many New Zealanders are going to swim off to buy theirs elsewhere?
In the state of Pennsylvania, smokers have been hit with huge penalties for online cigarette purchases designed to get around the state's taxes.
As to "California's dominance as an anti-smoking state", I believe you will find that there was far less competition for that position in '98. I believe you will also find that no other state has so high a number of cities where it is illegal to smoke in an apartment building or other multi-family housing, and that there are more cities in California than in any other state where the business districts are smoke-free.
California had a cigar-smoking governor for much of the time since '98, and he wielded some veto power. The state's smoking rate has gone down dramatically. The core group of people who were active in '98 in California are now active on a national level. "Californians for Nonsmokers' Rights" has grown into the "Americans for Nonsmokers Rights Foundation". The packet of tobacco industry documents that was given to Stanton Glantz has been dwarfed by the number of such documents that subsequent litigation has forced the companies to expose to public scrutiny.

While Californians failed to pass the most recent effort to raise taxes on tobacco products, you have some work ahead of you if you expect to convince me that it was because of anything other than the huge amount of money the tobacco companies pumped into their disinformation campaign--including scare tactics exactly like what you are trotting out here.
There is also the element of the tax hike's programmed obsolescence. Using a large portion of the revenue to ensure that it would cease to come in may have slowed people down some.
==========
In New Zealand, the tax is just one element in an effort to prepare the country for a tobacco-free existence a little over a decade from now.

A recent pledge to snuff out the habit entirely by 2025.

This is what confuses me the most. Why would it take this long for New Zealand to completely kick this habit? It took a proposed 4-5 years for new Zealand to redevelop its broadband or connectivity infrastructure.

We had an ingrained habit a certain "give way process" which has been proposed this year and has not taken 12-13 years for kiwi's to get used to.

Why are our taxes aiming for something that the current government cannot promise? We cannot predict National will be leading our government in the upcoming years. Are our taxes going to be impacted as of now?

Hugh, most of your posts would go into the TLDR pile, simply because you waffle on and on and on with a point that could easily be condensed into a simple sentence.

You advocate against smoking & fair enough, however, I bet you believe it is your right to pollute everyone's atmosphere driving or riding in vehicles doing pretty much the same thing on a much grander scale that a smoker does.

I am an ex smoker, I'm happy to be an ex smoker, however, I cringe when I come across non smoking advocates who tend to believe they are squeaky clean.

One thing I have learned over the years, be aware when you remove a thorn, another rapidly takes its place...that is exactly how we have ended up in this Politically Correct nightmare we are now controlled by.

It is smoking, next will be drinking, followed by fast food, eventually someone will address the elephant in the room, I'm still at a loss why fuel emissions are totally left out of any equations, I can stand next to someone smoking a cigarette & survive, I can't stand next to an exhaust without feeling violently ill, something doesn't stack up there.

Horizon wrote:

Hugh, most of your posts would go into the TLDR pile, simply because you waffle on and on and on with a point that could easily be condensed into a simple sentence.
You advocate against smoking & fair enough, however, I bet you believe it is your right to pollute everyone's atmosphere driving or riding in vehicles doing pretty much the same thing on a much grander scale that a smoker does.
I am an ex smoker, I'm happy to be an ex smoker, however, I cringe when I come across non smoking advocates who tend to believe they are squeaky clean.
One thing I have learned over the years, be aware when you remove a thorn, another rapidly takes its place...that is exactly how we have ended up in this Politically Correct nightmare we are now controlled by.
It is smoking, next will be drinking, followed by fast food, eventually someone will address the elephant in the room, I'm still at a loss why fuel emissions are totally left out of any equations, I can stand next to someone smoking a cigarette & survive, I can't stand next to an exhaust without feeling violently ill, something doesn't stack up there.

Nice set of unwarranted assumptions, logical fallacies, and irrational efforts at analogy.

Let's see, now, driving or riding in vehicles does pretty much the same thing that a smoker does?
You mean a smoker (by smoking) provides access to medical care, distributes food so that people don't starve, gets books to schools so children can learn, gets people to and from work, makes it possible for businesses to survive by bringing products AND customers to the doors--is there really any need to go on? Are you saying that smoking tobacco does ANY of those things, on ANY scale? I think you are sadly mistaken.

Beyond that, both consumer and industry have a stake in making automobiles run more efficiently, beyond what governments demand. They could and should be making faster progress, but all three groups are, on the whole, working to move in that direction. The tobacco industry's only concerns are how to ensure addiction and how to get around efforts to keep their products from children.

The "slippery slope" thing is one of the fundamental errors in logic that you would have been taught had you taken a beginning course in logic or in effective composition.

As to your standing next to a smoker and not being killed--can you prove that? Given that the manner of death attributed to that proximity is generally something that can take decades to manifest--and in many cases derives from the interaction of a single molecule with a single cell in your body--how do you know which smoker's nearness may or may not have triggered a physiological response that will eventually end your life?

Personally, I can NOT stand next to someone smoking and not be made ill in real time. I oppose the existence of the INDUSTRY, by the way, and would hope that it is the INDUSTRY that New Zealand's intended law will ultimately ban as opposed to the BEHAVIOR of the addicts that parasitic crew has created.