Recent decades have seen a welcome reduction in the smoking habit in North America. One reaction of the tobacco industry to this loss was to encourage sales in India and China, etc. A few years ago, tobacco barons, Camel in the U.S., Imperial Tobacco in Canada, introduced SNUS (pronounced snooze) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snus to aid those having difficulty contending with non-smoking restaurants and other public non-smoking areas. The recalcitrant smoker can now chew SNUS, a nicotine derivative, which does not require the user to spit like a baseball player! Some smokers interviewed said they had not given up cigarettes entirely, but were now, when forced into non-smoking areas, using SNUS. This seems to mean that smokers trying to respect non-smoking laws, and trying even harder to quit the addiction, can resort to SNUS. One young man interviewed on 60 Minutes said he still smokes twenty cigarettes a day but fills the time in restricted areas with the comfort of SNUS! It is not hard to see the new addiction will keep the addicted under control, i.e. still controlled by cigarettes - and less likely to quit. This approach, started in Sweden, is called "reducing harm." Reducing - but not eliminating. A controversial idea.
I hope that this news will do two things. First, it will urge people to sue tobacco companies for encouraging their addiction. That is long overdue. Secondly, people with self-induced illness and disease, resulting from tobacco consumption, will be denied public health care. It seems totally unfair to expect other citizens to pay for restoring health to those who have freely invited deadly disease by their own hands. The companies who are encouraging this should also be held equally responsible. http://www.smoke-free.ca/Filtertips-6/snus.htm
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I think you are being a little harsh on people with self-induced illness and disease resulting from tobacco consumption.
ReplyDeleteI read a statistic somewhere that seemed to prove that because smokers die earlier they actually use less of our medicare dollars than non-smokers. Plus, they pay huge taxes to the government coffers while maintaining their addiction. They pay more and die earlier than non-smokers so the government actually makes a profit on them!
Not only that, your idea puts us on a very slippery slope. What about people who eat fatty foods, processed food and red meat? What about those who drink alcohol? Are they not putting themselves at risk for self-induced illness? Should they also be denied public health care?
Peter
Absolutely, if it is proven that their problem is self-induced. I would even object to obese people receiving two seats for the price of one!
ReplyDeleteDon
I am becoming more libertarian as the time goes on, maybe it's a result of reading the Cato Institute website or re-reading old Ayn Rand novels.
ReplyDeleteI am less and less convinced that more and more government interference in our lives is a good thing. I don't want the government checking on what and how much I eat or what, if anything, I put in my lungs. That is just a little too big brotherish for me.
I do agree though that anyone who is so obese that they require two seats on an aircraft should pay for them. Then again, is it my imagination or are the airlines making the seats smaller and cramming more of them in the plane?
Peter