Biden Administration to cancel cigarettes

Only a matter of time before they're illegal, IMO. That's just the way society is moving. The withdrawal only sucks for about a week or so.

If each cigarette contains less nicotine, won't that result in the filthy, smelly addicts buying/smoking more cigarettes to get their fix?

Good for Biden.

I don't smoke, so I don't care. But aren't menthol cigarettes very popular with African-Americans?

If cigarettes were ever introduced on the marketplace today, they would banned and made illegal as a danger to your health.

The same sort of people who would say prohibition of marijuana would never work

Good riddance. If they didn't bring in so much tax revenue they would have been banned decades ago.

This will end badly.

Don't take away my guns and mu cigarettes.

Banning menthol cigarettes is RACIST!

I’m not a smoker, but people have a right to smoke if they want. This is getting ridiculous.

I smoked menthols back when I smoked 30 years ago.

But then again, I'm a lesbian.

They should raise the tax on cigarettes to $5.00/pack - $50.00/carton. Make the nicotine addicts help pay for health care for all.

There will be a direct correlation between the banning of cigarettes and a alarming increase in assaults and gun violence.

Obama must feel like he’s just been stabbed in the back by his old buddy.

Ha ha R15. I hadn't thought of that till you mentioned it.

And R14 may be on to something. I read an article somewhere long ago that something about cigarettes works on the brain in a similar way to antidepressants. And though it's not a victimless crime, it's close. I guess air pollution/climate control is the only reason I would be on board (weakly).

So while we're legalizing recreational marijuana (same issues on air pollution?), we're cancelling ciggies? I have a feeling that cigs don't detract as much from your ability to drive (or work), among other things.

Oh and I saw this unusual guy, supposedly an expert in statistics, who said that actually people who smoke and are alcoholics and drug addicts don't really cost our country any more in healthcare because they die so much younger. The most expensive years of life (when it comes to health care cost) are the over 80s, and smokers/other addicts don't make it that long, as often, so they're cheaper people (in the long run). There are also savings on their social security benefits to factor in, due to their shorter lifespans. So that's a non-issue too.

Nanny State New Zealand is discussing whether to ban cigarettes to anyone born after 2005.

Given the poor always look a decade older than their true age, that won't bother them for a decade or two.

People will have to smoke and chew nicotine gum at the same time, maybe preceded with a menthol cough drop.

I hate smoking but why push for legalization of marijuana while simultaneously cornering tobacco? Smoking is bad period as it irritates the lungs

R13, what about heavy drinkers and fatties? Why shouldn’t they pay as well?

Does this include vapes?

I just saw a vape commercial on TV. Can’t remember the name of it, but it shocked the hell out of me.

I suppose he’s trying to make it look like he’s helping the black community’s health, but people don’t take kindly to that kind of “help”.

What about chewing tobacco and dips? Those are even higher in nicotine! I think they’re more addictive than cigarettes. I read somewhere that actresses are dipping instead of smoking because it’s hard to tell when somebody is dipping or something. Also saves your lungs I guess. It’s just nasty!

R20 I’m not sure Biden is pushing for legalizing weed. He’s changed for the better on a lot of issues, but he still seems to be very anti-drugs. He doesn’t even drink. I think his experiences with family members struggling against drug and alcohol addiction have understandably shaped his views on this topic.

Better for the rest of us, though, when it comes to second-hand smoke and air pollution. Here here for spittal and spittoons making a comeback!

I was responding to R24 about chewing tobacco... fast moving thread!

Remember when professional baseball players used to chew tobacco on the field? I remember being a kid in the '80s and seeing them spitting stuff out. When did they stop?

R23, I’m not sure what these actresses are doing, but dips and chewing tobacco require you to spit out the tobacco-laden saliva. You can’t swallow it. Maybe there’s some new kind that you can just suck on and swallow. Heh heh.

At the 7-11 in my NYC neighborhood, there’s a wall of tobacco products behind the counter. Cigarettes take up about a quarter of the real estate. There are lots of versions of chewing tobacco/dips, vapes, pouches of loose tobacco. Going after one type of flavored, pre-rolled and filtered tobacco product is like spitting in the ocean.

But it (rolls eyes) sends a MESSAGE.

Also, I smell ten times more marijuana smoke than I do cigarette smoke. But that’s somehow acceptable secondhand smoke. Okay.

Wouldn't this just be what happened with the banning of liquor in the 1920s? Prohibition didn't work then, and it won't work now.

Why not cut the tar in half instead of the nicotine?

Let’s land this olde rickety, once glamorous, 747 very gently!

I fondly remember the days when you could smoke on buses/trains, in buildings, in theaters/cinemas, in restaurants/bars, in hospitals, on planes, in airports. Everyone was so much more mellow back then. OK, coughin' and hackin' like a motherfucker, but soooooooo calm and laid back.

There will be a time in my life, where I will be skinny as a rail, standing outside of an old Howard Johnson's motel that was turned into an Econolodge, smoking Mistys after the guiltiest sex of my life. I love you, Joe Biden, but don't take those Mistys away from me. That's what defines the experience.

Aren’t younger kids smoking in droves?

I remember the young girls who lived in our complex having a BBQ and a bunch of their 20 something friends came.

ALL of them were smoking like chimneys and gabbing.

It was commonplace among them. I was stunned into saying something about it.

They looked at me like I had two heads.

Won’t people just smoke more to get the same fix?

How will this affect prisoners? Don't they use cigarettes as currency?

Where I live wild tobacco grows along the road sides.

Wild tobacco contains 9 times the nicotine level of commercial tobacco.

I don't smoke, I am a Democrat supporting Biden, but this kind of crap by politicians should be illegal. If people want to smoke ANYTHING, that is their right!

Yes, R2 & R36 , but why didn’t they think 🤔 of that?

I'm so black my pussy taste like menthol!

That is how I quit smoking 40 years ago.

Every six months I switched to a lower nicotine brand.

Took me three years but by then I was smoking Merit Ultralights and giving THOSE up was a breeze.

Has anyone here ever quit cold turkey?

R42 The first time I quit I did cold turkey and it lasted 8 years until I got into "social smoking" again while drinking during a stressful point in my life. So I cut the drinking and used nicorette for a few months. Both worked. It's more about mental state. You have to want to quit. Banning them completely will only make them more enticing to teens.

Are the Dems trying to lose in 2024? Are they trying to give the GOP their new talking point that Republicans are the “party of the working class?” Because that is what will happen.

[quote]The withdrawal only sucks for about a week or so.

What a fucking [bold]RIDICULOUS[/bold] thing to say R1.

R42 Quit cold turkey for 6 years, then realized I love to smoke, so started up. This last time, I had to make a decision; either smoke or continue to hike. The decision was simple. I quit, knowing emotionally that I could never smoke again. If you're not emotionally ready to quit, you never will. I haven't had a cigarette since. No drugs, patches, gum, nada. That was 11 years, 10 days ago.

Back in the day when I could smoke at my desk, I decided to see how long I could go without a cigarette (I was smoking two packs a day at the time). I made it about 45 minutes, and then I lit up a cigarette. When I was smoking it, I started to feel a little spacey, and then I realized I was already going through withdrawal. So I just stopped.

I was a raving lunatic for three weeks. I chewed gum and sucked on sunflower seeds and chewed on flavored toothpicks. But I quit and stayed stopped. That was in 1988 and I was 30.

BTW, what precipitated my quitting was a column in Ann Landers saying that smoking shrank the tiny blood vessels in your face causing premature wrinkles. To this day, people are shocked at how young I look for my age. Seriously! I'm so glad I quit.

I think the tax per pack is already up to around $4 in most places (I could be wrong, I quit a decade ago, and was buying my cigs from a reservation to avoid the tax).

I wonder how big the black market for cigs is right now. It will be a lot bigger in a couple of years, sounds like. If most smokers haven't quit by now, it's probably not for lack of trying.

I used to smoke in my teens and early 20s...about five years. I would smoke Kool, Tareyton and sometimes Marlboro. It's a nasty, disgusting habit...all tasted bad. Kool, the menthol one, would almost burn my throat. The taxes are so high on cigarettes...I don't know how low income people, or anyone, could afford them weekly. It really takes a big chunk out of your paycheck.

Smoking isn't bad for you as long as you smoke Parliaments.

But smoking weed is fine, which is like several cigarettes rolled into one...

Chewing might save your lungs, but the inside of your mouth is very delicate, too, and ends up with black cancerous masses--yuck.

I have changed my mind on this--I have never smoked, and I was rejoicing when they made it illegal to smoke in restaurants, which was the only place I encountered smokers. But Christopher Hitchens made a point once that though the odd drink and cigarette (or pipe or whatever) made people calmer and made life easier (as a sort of anti-depressant) for a lot of people who didn't have much money--and that perhaps we'd see less suicides if people would just take a few minutes to quietly smoke a pipe when they were upset.

Is that worth a few years shaved off the end? Maybe.

This is something you do in the second term of a presidency, not the first.

[quote]This is something you do in the second term of a presidency, not the first.

Yeah, this is not exactly a priority. I’m sure they’re going to try to reintroducing banning large sodas 🥤 like they were trying to do in NYC a few years ago. Because that’s such a pressing issue...😑

[...]

Apparently menthol cigarettes are popular with kids these days, that's the reasoning behind much of this proposed ban. Times must've changed because when I was a teenager in the 90s nobody smoked menthols, in my high school it was nearly 100% Marlboro Reds or Marlboro Lights, and a few Camel smokers. Menthols were derided as "old lady cigarettes" and smoking them was embarrassing.

Yeah, because banning alcohol worked so well why not try it again but cigarettes. Good to see being liberal and open minded only applies to race or trans.

Can't wait for Fox 'News', Qanuts and other Rethugs to start blasting sound bytes as pro-cancer!

Underground drug markets are salivating at the thought of the money they’ll rake in through the illegal sale of menthol cigarettes.

Oh, I missed you Breitbart News shills! Like a cold sore.

[...]

STFU and have a Newport r60

[quote] But Christopher Hitchens made a point once that though the odd drink and cigarette (or pipe or whatever) made people calmer and made life easier (as a sort of anti-depressant) for a lot of people who didn't have much money--and that perhaps we'd see less suicides if people would just take a few minutes to quietly smoke a pipe when they were upset.

I've read that cigarettes can affect the brain similarly to antidepressants. If it's the nicotine, why can't people just chew the nicotine gum?