Mexico tightens ban on smoking in public places: Time for Ireland to follow suit.

Arguments like personal responsibility and choice and smoking outdoors being harmless to others are all fine, but they’re completely irrelevant as to whether a ban on smoking in public places should be considered by Government in order to prevent the enormous costs of providing healthcare for smoking related illnesses and conditions in the general population.

I don’t know would health warnings on bottles of wine do anything, it couldn’t hurt anyways, much like the health warnings and plain packaging on tobacco products doesn’t appear to have done anything, but it doesn’t hurt. I just don’t take any notice of them any more, unless they’re particularly novel. Some of them are genuinely intriguing, but do nothing to diminish my enjoyment of a cigarette or the occasional cigar.

The initiative in Mexico does seem a bit misplaced though, but maybe it’s because I lump Mexicans and Cubans all into the one boat 🤔

Actually the amount of tax taken by the government on tobacco each year far outweighs the costs of smoking related illnesses

Yeah they’re great at enforcing laws in Mexico I hear

“In 2020, receipts from taxes on tobacco raised €1.201 billion, up from €1.131 billion in 2019. The yield for 2021 is forecast at €1.262 billion.”

“Smoking and exposure to second-hand smoke (SHS) cost the Irish health service an estimated €172 million in 2016”

So you have roughly 1.2 billion euro in tobacco excise receipts vs less than 200 million in smoking related costs to the health service.

It’s not even close.

And if the benefits in taxation were the only consideration, you’d have an absolute cracker of a point, and the Government should encourage people to take up smoking so they would gain even more in taxation, because it would outweigh the cost of providing healthcare for smoking related illnesses.

It’s flawless logic, except for the fact that the Government’s imperative is to improve the health of the population and reduce the cost of healthcare. The reduction in taxes isn’t quite the reason not to implement and fund anti-smoking policies and programs that you think it should be.

Now if you were to argue that Government should tax the absolute hell out of vaping products, I’d be right there with you. Fcuking kiddy smokes them things, they’re everywhere 🙄

I actually didn’t say anything about any of that. Please don’t put words in my mouth.

You brought up the costs to the healthcare system derived from smoking related illnesses. I simply pointed out that tobacco excise covers smoking related healthcare costs numerous times over. Which it does.

I’m not putting words in your mouth, but if you want to go down that route, please point out where I said anything about revenue collected from taxation on tobacco products. I’ll save you the trouble - I didn’t. What I did mention, was the enormous cost of providing healthcare for smoking related illnesses.

The amount of revenue generated from the sales of tobacco products is irrelevant, and whether or not it ‘covers’ the cost of providing healthcare for smoking related illnesses is irrelevant, because the Irish taxation system just doesn’t work like that. Another example is the more recent sugar tax -

A spokesperson for the Department of Finance, however, told TheJournal.ie that there is no plan to ringfence funding raised by the tax for initiatives targeted at reducing obesity in the Irish public.

The spokesperson said: “The Department of Health is responsible for developing an evaluation framework for the sugar tax, which will provide evidence on the efficacy of the tax from a public health perspective.

“Hypothecation (or the ring-fencing of taxes for specific and related purposes) is not a feature of the Irish tax system in general.

https://www.thejournal.ie/sugar-tax-revenue-5212076-Sep2020/

Revenue generated from taxation on luxury foods outweighs the cost of providing healthcare for obesity related illnesses too, and Government still doesn’t ringfence off the revenue generated from higher VAT rates on luxury foods to fund obesity prevention programs and so on. The justification you’re offering, that it brings in revenue from tobacco sales, is simply irrelevant.

On the subject of smoking bans, which I fully support, one thing has intrigued me.

In the USA they still have the old style attractive packaging with no warnings (bar small writing on the side if the box) displays are legal, in store display and adverts are legal, money off coupons and discounted prices are legal, deals for buying 2 packs together etc.

In some states, you can still light up in bars and have a smoke with a beer indoors.

Yet, according to the CDC, their nationwide smoking rate is 12.5%. Find it interesting that it's lower than ours of c20%, given the more lax examples of control above.