114
Behind the push to make smoking and vaping illegal for a generation of Canadians
(vancouver.citynews.ca)
Edibles are pretty nice
this post was submitted on 18 Oct 2026
114 points (98.3% liked)
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I'm confused. If smoking is bad for you because it clogs up the blood vessels in the lungs with tar and reduces oxygen to the body, and with 500 or so chemicals added to the equation. Why is vaping ok when, in fact, it has as many chemicals and does the same amount of harm to your body? Make it totally illegal for dumb people who don't realize this.
Here is an extra bit of wisdom: we all know we're going to die one day; what we should worry about is "How you're going to die."
I agree with prohibition.
However, I know this incentivises the black market. The middle ground I would be OK with is the crown monopolies model in them like LCBO, not now where you can get it at any store.
not now where you can get it at any store.
Please understand, a carton at any store cost north of $200. Drive 1 hour from any major town an you can buy a carton for less than $50 at the rez.
While the majority of the tobacco is illegally sourced through the HA. First Nations Peoples in Canada have asserted their right to produce and sell tobacco. RCMP enforcement has only succeeded in pushing sales to further from major city centers.
Basically restricting locations will just drive more people towards the already flourishing black market supply chain.
Because teaching temperance takes too long. And regulate the companies is too much of a hassle.
We already do both. This is prohibition. This is dry laws for tobacco.
Not enough. Most people simply ignore tobacco as a substance and do not talk with their children, family and friends about it. It is addictive, it is dangerous for health but it should never be banned as it is being attempted on several countries.
Tobacco should be treated as a luxury, an indulgence, not something to label as a drug and criminalize. As you state and very well: this is prohibition. Puritanism never works and this will not be an exception.
Its part of school curricula, and there is a ban on advertising and it is now seen in film a lot less and you cannot smoke indoors. You have to ho outside to smoke. And tobacco products are locked in a case and you have to ask the cashier to get it.
I don't see how much more can be mandated through legislation. I would be OK with an LCBO model. But after that, it's prohibition
Prohibition doesn't work because there will always be some people would still do it anyway. The goal should be to get to as close to elimination as possible.
This is not like small pox where it can be eradicated. Behaviours cannot be eradicated because people do the behaviour. You'd have to make it impossible for people to do the behaviour to eliminate it. But since we can't change biology, the next best thing would heavily enforced prohibition and since that is impossible, make the activity extremely inconvenient.
I have a couple of ideas.
First would be making tobacco a specialty item, to be sold solely on specialty shops. Take it out of the supermarkets, convenience stores, gas stations, etc. Put it in an enclosed, reserved space, with knowledgeable people behind the counter to actually teach a customer on tobacco and smoking and we have a start.
Second would be to end specific tobacco blends that invite to grab a cigarette after another. I work around smokers and the more conscious ones mention there are such blends, while others satisfy after just one, whatever that may mean.
Third measure would be to make tobacco expensive and perhaps even cap the price. I worked with a person that said he'd quit the day a pack cost 10€. We've been farther from that but the cheapest pack available on the market is 5,5€ which is cheaper than the average pack was when I had that talk with my coworker. Twenty years back. I wonder how the companies manage to put such cheap product on the market today and not then.
Next would be to move the culture forward and bring back the notion of smoking as an indulgence and not an escape. My country, in the 60's and 70's, during a civil war, dispensed cigarette packs to soldiers where it was stamped "Have a cigar and relax." It did wonders to boosts the tobacco consumption in the country. Previously it was mostly confined to more afluent people, who would usually smoke the pipe or high quality cigars, which is a better form of tobacco.
And where is tobacco a part of curriculum?
Prohibition only serves to empower organized crime and cops. We have been through this shit with booze and cannabis. We know better than this. Come on people.
Plenty of opportunities for me on the black market then.
Morons.
I was thinking that too. I'm all for people quitting smoking, but this doesn't seem lie the smart way to do it.
We shouldn’t ban cigarettes and vapes instead we should push people to healthier alternatives.
Education and freedom, yes!
But please don't push, making addicts guilty doesn't help health issues.
Education and Freedom is not enough. You must pave the road of a smoke free life and put barriers on the road to a smokers' life.
You're educated and free to drive your car how you please. We design roads to make it easy to drive one way over another. But if the driver overcomes those barriers and drives in a poor manor, there are physical and legal penalties.
I strongly disagree.
Driving involves other people in your car and around you. And the public power should be used to protect them if you represent a threat toward them.
If you drive on some private road or circuit, you may drive how you please (according to the private rules). And this freedom is important.
The barrier you want to put on smokers life are abusive, in my opinion, not only as it restricts liberties, but mostly because it comes with criminalization of smoking. If it is a crime or a shame, people are most likely to hide it, do it worse, and make it cause more harms. And it also make it harder to help those who want to stop.
Driving involves other people in your car and around you. And the public power should be used to protect them if you represent a threat toward them.
As opposed to smoking, which doesn't affect other people's health? Secondhand smoke is a thing.
Second hand smoke is a thing, and it is dangerous for health... so are pollutions from cars, and most production of electricity... but other things as well. Banning everything isn't a good way.
Education and health campaign are a good way to make people willing to protect themselves and others ; or at least less of a charge on others.
Those who pay attention to depollution systems on their car pollute less, and those who pay attention to where their second hand smoke goes aren't much of a danger. And when a majority makes efforts for the comon good, those who don't make efforts are seen socially wrong. A bit as someone who doesn't shower more than once a year: it is not illegal, but the way they are seen is a social cost. And you may notice fewer people go for never washing themselves than for smoking. In my opinion, because there is nothing "cool" at never washing self. Smoking give a shady vibe, a bit gangster, a bit "cool". Treat it as a pure health problem, and it will become a sickness (and it is not "cool" to be sick).
Like autoerotic asphyxiation.
All the rage these days. You even got the school yard pushers selling belts.
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This is just going to make them cool as hell for kids???
Trust me I grew up with marijuana being illegal and somehow it made marijuana, the least edgey drug I have ever encountered, feel edgey and cool.
I think it was the back alley deals that made weed cool and the bit of camaraderie that comes along with the in-group baddies smoking weed.
Now you just go into a shop and there's a 19+ year old trying to sell you the ultra super duper bubble gum thunder blitz hybrid with 91% THC that you smoke through the shatter bong. Feels like Vegas when you just want a Doobie.
What made weed cool was that weed was made illegal because of racism and was always cool... we are just addicted to the forms of racism that disappear when you look right at them more than we are willing to let ourselves have cool things.
Black market suffer too much after loosing hand on canabis?
Which prohibition has ever been good for health?
Also the other history notr: we literally did win against cigarettes with public health interventions.
Then we defunded public health and for some reason aslo took a decade to start treating vaping as smoking.
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Having watched my own parents die from smoking related illnesses, my father in law and sister in law succumb to lung cancer, it’s a shit way to go. Not something I want to watch or wish upon anyone.
As an ex smoker myself who hasn’t smoked in over 20 years, there are still days I think I’d like a smoke. It’s got a helluva mental hold on you.
Anything we can do to keep the next generation of kids to pick up this filthy habit is a win in my opinion. Stop them before they ever get the chance to start.
This may not be perfect, but at least it’s something.
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When are those people going to push for a ban on cars, specifically gas powered cars.
The health burden analysis indicated that TRAP from Canadian sources was associated with 1,200 premature deaths in Canada in 2015.
Non-fatal health outcomes included 2.7 million acute respiratory symptom days, 1.1 million restricted activity days and 210,000 asthma symptom days per year. The total annual monetary value of the health burden was estimated at $9.5 billion (CAD 2015), with $9 billion being associated with premature deaths.
To me this all seems a bit hypocrite and extreme. C'est de l'acharnement.
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regulatory hubris will only strengthen the black market.
personally I am actually FOR this as I want my dual nicotine/thc vapes ASAP. the black market always provides. and I dont give a fuck what your opinion is on this.
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