Just ban smoking in public places. I don't want people blowing smoke at me when I'm walking down the street or when I'm siting outside drinking coffee. If they want to smoke in their apartment or their car it's their business. It would be easier to fight people smoking in the street than check what age every smoker is.
this post was submitted on 21 Apr 2026
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Well there's certainly no way this will create a black market, and become impossible to enforce!
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(70 replies)
This is regulation, not prohibition.
There is no value but death to smoking tobacco and nicotine products simply interface with that reality. There is value to other substances like alcohol and cannabis.
The conflation in this thread is staggering.
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I honestly don't think this will lead to a massive black market like some people seem to think. I don't see big profit margins that would make cigarettes an attractive thing to sell illegally. You can only make them so expensive if you can just find someone older to buy them for you for the normal price.
Besides, smoking is pretty shit really. There aren't going to be loads of people willing to go through the hassle of getting cigarettes illegally when all they do is stink and give you cancer. Especially when the people who can't buy them will mostly be people who haven't had a chance to get addicted yet.
I think this will work and be a net positive in the long run.
I spent a few months in South Korea and packs of smokes there were like 2 bucks and change (Seoul and Gwangju). In USA a decent pack of 72s is like 8 -10 bucks, federal tax is a buck and change per pack with state taxes being 2$+ per pack. That means that on average the consumer is paying nearly 40% in taxes to the government. Black market smokes ABSOLUTELY will provide good margins, selling without tax at taxed price or greater will net black market sellers nearly double their money on each sale which is significantly greater than a lot of the easier to sell drugs. Hell when I sold weed before it got legalized I typically made 25-30% mark up unless I sold pennyweight but then it was a hassle. In the 90s when taxes were hiked on tobacco people were selling black market cartons for less than stores could with tax and making money hand over fist, it happened because of a tax HIKE not a ban! And YOU think smoking is shit, I think smoking crack rocks is shit but people still love it. Not advocating for shit here, just pointing out that there has, is, and will be a black market for tobacco and just about everything else. I have bought illegal moonshine, tax free darts off an old head, and various illicit substances without giving my genocidal gov a penny for it! Of course now I pay tax on weed I buy legally.... But I'm getting old and don't want to take as many risks when there's a legal alternative.
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(41 replies)
How kind of the government to decide that people born after 2008 have fewer freedoms than those born before it!
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This is one of the few bans that actually makes sense. Carcinogens are genuinely bad for a person's future.
And bad for the people around them.
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A lot of people here are happy to see others lose a freedom that they themselves were never going to exercise.
I wish this ban was in effect when my stupid cunt of an adolescent brain thought starting smoking would be a good idea.
And also this freedom to increase your chances of lung cancer for litterally no reason at all doesn't only affect the smoker, but everybody in the general area of said smoker. What about their freedom to breathe clean air.
The world changes, handle it. Older generations took away younger generation's freedom to have a perspective on any kind of affordable housing.
I don't think taking away their freedom to make an objectively dumb and pointless choice for their health and finances moves the needle on the scale of problems we are facing.
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(42 replies)