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debeest
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quote:
Originally posted by Sikander
Smokers actually save programs like Medicare money because they die earlier and suck up less money during those extraordinarily medically expensive later years. Plus they also save money paid out for Social Security etc. If they died in middle age in significant numbers then you'd have a point (we'd lose tax money from their prime earning years), but they don't. |
[edit: apologies for having recapitulated shawnmmcc's excellent post; I didn't anticipate that anyone else would jump on this]
IIRC, this claim was put forth by people on tobacco industry money and has been shown false. The really expensive years of life, in terms of medical cost, are not old age per se, but rather, the last year or two of life when you're crashing toward death. Smoking doesn't eliminate those years; it just moves them forward. Meanwhile, smoking increases lots of other medical costs, such as for asthma and bronchitis and emphysema, long before the end-of-life cost spike.
Last edited by debeest on 22-07-2004 at 00:34
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debeest
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quote:
Originally posted by Ming
While the chance of lung cancer increase for those that smoke, it is impossible to determine if smoking actually caused it.
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I agree with your main point, that we should not bar coverage for smokers or others who induce their own illnesses.
However, lung cancer in particular is pretty much a disease of smoking. Less than 1% of non-smoking Americans die of lung cancer, while maybe 20% of smokers do. Asbestos and similar fibers are another main cause, but negligible compared to smoking, especially since smoking dramatically increases the effects of asbestos.
Also, while we have never been able to say with confidence that a specific case of lung cancer was induced by smoking, we are now much closer to it. A given substance that causes cancer by causing genetic mutations produces a specific set of mutations that differs from the set of mutations produced by another agent that causes the same kind of cancer. We can detect these sets of mutations now. They are not invariable -- they're sets of probabilities, like the probability that a man will be taller than a woman -- but they can provide considerable evidence about the origin of a specific case of cancer. This is really going to be a firestorm for the tobacco companies when the technology is good enough.
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debeest
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quote:
Originally posted by Atahualpa
Well all this pro-legalization and heavy tax people forget the power of the black market.
If the official price for pot is $50 per gramm and you can get it on the black market for $20, why the heck would you want to buy it officially? (prices are just made up and probably exaggerated)
There is a drug delivering system in place currently that is quite effective and there are prices. If you want to legalize it, you'll have to be cheaper at first until the current delivery net has so many holes it wouldn't be able to repair itself when prices go higher.
And I think making drugs available for cheaper is not really what any government intends.
Also you'll have to get the same level of control to prevent home-grown stuff and control gets even harder when it's legal to smoke pot, because you have to proof that the pot he is smokes is not government pot, so you have to invent some kind of branding and proofing...
It's really NOT that easy! |
The reason that illegal drugs are expensive is because they're illegal. It's dangerous to provide them, so there are relatively few providers, so the price is high. Make it legal, and anyone can produce it, so the price plummets. If pot was legal, there would be no more black market for it than there is now for tobacco. It would probably be priced comparably to tobacco. Big growers would step in and mass produce it, it would cost about 5 or 10 dollars a pack, and the bulk of the cost would be in taxes. Those who chose to dodge the taxes could just grow their own crappy stuff. There'd be no need to control or prevent that any more than there is now for tobacco.
It really would be that easy.
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Albert Speer
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Puerile Polemic
Mar 1999
time: 00:34
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quote:
The reason that illegal drugs are expensive is because they're illegal. It's dangerous to provide them, so there are relatively few providers, so the price is high. |
are we still talking about weed or are you talking about crack and heroine?
quote:
Make it legal, and anyone can produce it |
i was under the impression that drug legalizers were not too fond of the entrepreneurial spirit of independent drug selling...
quote:
If pot was legal, there would be no more black market for it than there is now for tobacco. |
i may be wrong but aren't cigarettes sold by the pack only, making looseys pseudo-illegal? if so, then there is a massive black market for tobacco.
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debeest
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quote:
Originally posted by Albert Speer
are we still talking about weed or are you talking about crack and heroine? |
Pretty much any and all. Illegality is what makes illegal drugs very expensive and lucrative.
quote:
i was under the impression that drug legalizers were not too fond of the entrepreneurial spirit of independent drug selling... |
Legalize them, and others will go entrepreneurial.
quote:
i may be wrong but aren't cigarettes sold by the pack only, making looseys pseudo-illegal? if so, then there is a massive black market for tobacco. |
The black market for tobacco, including cross-border tax evasion and under-age selling and looseys, is a negligible fraction of the market.
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Albert Speer
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Puerile Polemic
Mar 1999
time: 00:34
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quote:
Legalize them, and others will go entrepreneurial. |
alright so drugs are legalized and a drug dealer still will sell his drugs... why would he even bother going to the govt to ge a licence and try to compete with corporations when he could just continue selling drugs like he always did? they'll be cheaper than the legal ones just out of the virtue that they wouldnt be taxed.
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21-07-2004 19:40
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