Sanders thinks about banning cigarettes

[MCMLXXXII]

Smoking should be illegal when in the presence of a minor. Smoking in a car with a minor should be illegal on a federal level. Smoking should also be illegal inside the home of a minor.

Having a minor locked in a space with a smoker is child abuse.

I wholeheartedly agree. But can we also ban kids from fast food restaurants please. Diabetes is bad.

[Katchii]

Breathing is also self-destructive.
If people want to smoke, fine by me. They'll die 10 years earlier. Saves a lot of medical care.

But those 10 years will most likely be rife with medical bills, doctors visits, medication, etc... which just hikes insurance rates up higher because the people getting treated may not even HAVE insurance. Don't the statistics show that the largest population of smokers are low income? The same group of people that are finding it more and more difficult to afford insurance and therefore choose to forgo the premium and go with the government fine instead? Yeah...

Stop defending smoking, we all know it's a terrible, unhealthy habit, it says so on the fucking label of every box of cigarettes that's purchased. I agree that it's your right to choose to do it if you want to, and I respect and will defend your right to make that choice, that doesn't make the decision any less bad.

[Toxigen]

Bernie Sanders is an idiot and anyone that supports him is equally moronic.

[MCMLXXXII]

But those 10 years will most likely be rife with medical bills, doctors visits, medication, etc... which just hikes insurance rates up higher because the people getting treated may not even HAVE insurance. Don't the statistics show that the largest population of smokers are low income? The same group of people that are finding it more and more difficult to afford insurance and therefore choose to forgo the premium and go with the government fine instead? Yeah...

Stop defending smoking, we all know it's a terrible, unhealthy habit, it says so on the fucking label of every box of cigarettes that's purchased. I agree that it's your right to choose to do it if you want to, and I respect and will defend your right to make that choice, that doesn't make the decision any less bad.

Recent studies over here(the Netherlands) showed that smokers pay so much taxes they actually pay their own medical bill, also because they die 10 years earlier on average. I know it's apples and oranges when we compare those studies with the US but just FYI

[Katchii]

Recent studies over here(the Netherlands) showed that smokers pay so much taxes they actually pay their own medical bill, also because they die 10 years earlier on average. I know it's apples and oranges when we compare those studies with the US but just FYI

Yeah, I can only speak from a US perspective. We don't have universal health care paid for by taxes here. Would be awesome if that were the case for this specific reason (has it's upsides and downsides) the people choosing to smoke would pay so many extra taxes that they are essentially covering their own medical costs. That's currently not the case as health care is still privatized.

[TITAN308]

We should ban cars that can travel faster than 80mph in the USA.

[MCMLXXXII]

Yeah, I can only speak from a US perspective. We don't have universal health care paid for by taxes here. Would be awesome if that were the case for this specific reason (has it's upsides and downsides) the people choosing to smoke would pay so many extra taxes that they are essentially covering their own medical costs. That's currently not the case as health care is still privatized.

It's privatized over here too. Used to be different.

[Hiricine]

Anyone who argues that the reason we shouldn't sin tax something because the population buying them is poor should be disqualified from being a candidate, not that taxing those things in general is something we should advocate. The entire point of that tax is because people are too poor to afford it after the tax, which generally hasn't served as a deterrent, at best it serves to pay the social costs that the goods incur.

The entire concept of banning self destructive things is silly as well. Are you going to tell armed cops to shoot me if I refuse to put down the cigarette? Now we're not going to include putting a tent over a baby's crib and exhaling the smoke into it, or any of hypotheticals that people like to use in these cases, but its completely contradictory to use force to regulate what basically is a self-destructive behavior.

[Deleted]

It should be a crime to smoke near other people, your pets or kids. And should count as animal/kid abuse.

[Tijuana]

first
I want to point out the ignorance of Sanders not knowing the vast majority of those that smoke are the poor
so a cigarette tax would exclusively hurt the poor more so unlike a soda tax that would effect all because everyone rich and poor drinks soda

second
how can a person that wants to make marijuana legal but make cigarettes illegal for health reasons when pot is much worse for you health then cigarettes when it comes to putting pollutants into your lungs

third and last point
for a man railing against the war on drugs why would he want to add another drug to the list to be at war with?

Bernies 15 minutes of fame are more over than Sara freaking Palins. He has accomplished nothing in Washington, and he is mathematically eliminated. It's time for him to go back home to his parents basement.