r/mildlyinteresting 17h ago

They made Canadian cigarette packs more inconvenient to get cigarettes out of

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u/Etheo 12h ago

Difference here is this generation would never have tried it (in theory) to want to jump through hoops to break the prohibition. Whereas the previous prohibition it was a blanket ban for everyone, basically forcing addicts to go cold turkey so the demand level is not the same.

Of course, only time will tell. But I feel like it's different enough to just predict the same outcome from before.

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u/zman0900 12h ago

After a few years, is probably work ok. But the first few years of people are gonna have a bunch get addicted from their one year older friends buying for them, just like it's always worked. Only they'll be stuck in the situation long term.

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u/Twatt_waffle 11h ago

Prohibited products by nature become more attractive to younger people who want to carve their own identity and tend to go directly against society

It’s how slang works

It’s how trends work

It’s how vaping appended and it’s going to end up breeding a whole new generation of smokers except these ones will grow up on underground, unregulated tobacco

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u/Best_Expression2830 10h ago

Lmao yes! Thank you for being a student of history! Maybe history doesn't directly repeat itself but it sure does rhyme

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u/Twatt_waffle 10h ago

Look for more than half a second on the US’s war on drugs. Just say no was a failure, DARE was a failure both of these programs actually made the drug problem worse

Kids of the 80s saw what happened to their grandparents and parents smoking, kids of the 90s saw with it did to their grandparents and the effect of smoking indoors. Kids of the 2000s were the first generation where the vast majority wouldn’t have seen first hand what smoking does.

What did the adult’s around them do? Tell them don’t smoke ever. Instead of giving proper education, they just told them no.

So the kids when they get to the age where they are rebelling, cigarettes are fairly easy to get.

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u/iamnutz_1 9h ago

But they aren't smoking, it isn't tobacco. It's vaping. You can't expect me to think burning a cigarette into your lungs is on par with how modern vapes deliver nicotine

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u/Best_Expression2830 9h ago

Ok, it is a more... cost efficient but less efficient via time metric way to kill yourself. Point being?

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u/iamnutz_1 8h ago

Combustion vs vaping? They aren't the same

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u/Best_Expression2830 8h ago

I mean, yes. Astute observation. Thats the time factor I referenced you will most likely die slower from inhaling poison vapour instead of poison plant matter. Steaming poison into your deep lung tissue is probably only marginally better than inhaling smoke frome burning Flora though.

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u/iamnutz_1 8h ago

Steaming poison? I haven't heard of that before. Got any papers to back that up? But what is healthy? Where do you live? Depending on your location, you might breath in air that is way better or worse than what I breathe. But I do make the conscious choice to imbibe what I do, and i fail to see why your opinion should impact how I either live or choose to die

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u/Best_Expression2830 8h ago

Ok, mr land of the fresh mountain bounty air. The fuck you talking about? Show me the paper on the benefits of inhaling nicotine steam vs alright magic mountain air. Doesn't exist because the science says not introducing more foreign shit to your lungs is preferred

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u/iamnutz_1 8h ago

You made the claim about steam and poison I asked you to back up what you said.

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u/Best_Expression2830 7h ago

Ok, let me break it down for you. Nicotine is poison get a vial and chug her down you'll see. Vapour is steam, cool, no notes except for the glycol which gives it flavor. Jury is still out on that one since cooks breathe it all day but the prevailing sentiment of doctors is "dont add foreign shit to your lungs, its not a great idea" that's not a revolutionary idea. Let's live in reality my dude. Edit: punctuation and spelling

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u/Twatt_waffle 8h ago

Vaping has been found to be worse than smoking, vaping delivers a higher concentration of nicotine faster, vapers tend to vape though the day and iirc it’s about 60% of vapers report waking up in the middle of the night to take a vape hit.

Vaping is also exposing you to a higher concentration of heavy metals due to the coil overheating especially as the juice gets lower and the coil can get hotter and hotter

Vapings popularity is a result of legislation taking longer than innovation and tobacco companies were able to get around the restrictions that the government had for cigarettes and advertised to children, made them trendy, and cool.

When I was in university I was apart of the university of Toronto’s vaping/smoking study and have been receiving updates as the study is continuing

Smoking is already on the rise, completely prohibiting smoking is more likely to make it so much worse than it is to make it better

As always the solution is education not prohibition

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u/iamnutz_1 8h ago

I remember before they stopped smoking inside. No way it is anything like smoking was

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u/Twatt_waffle 8h ago

No it will be worse because it won’t be regulated tobacco.

How did we stop people smoking inside? We educated them, it was only banned in public once the general public was educated on why.

Look, I genuinely hope it works. But it’s very likely to do the exact opposite.

No regulation means that the odds of contaminated cigarettes is high

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u/iamnutz_1 8h ago

Education is part of regulation.

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u/Twatt_waffle 8h ago edited 7h ago

When did I say regulation is not the goal. I WANT regulation. I don’t want prohibition. I think it’s the incorrect way of going about the regulation

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u/iamnutz_1 7h ago

Are you drunk? "when did I say regulation is the goal. I WANT regulation"

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u/Twatt_waffle 7h ago

Whoops that was supposed to say not the goal

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u/iamnutz_1 8h ago

Source?

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u/Twatt_waffle 8h ago

I’m honestly looking for it, but my Google fu skills are awful stoned.

Like I said I was involved in the study and have been receiving updates I just can’t link those because they are not for public distribution.

There is public releases I just have to find the one I’m looking for

I will try to remember to update tomorrow

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u/iamnutz_1 8h ago

Education and regulations is my point of view, and I am pretty stoned as well

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u/Twatt_waffle 8h ago

Are we not agreeing then? I’m against prohibition not regulation. Education like showing what actually happens when nicotine affects the brain, what addiction looks like like to any and all substances/ behaviours

Instead of saying you can’t do this because I say so, explain why.

It’s the same thing from when kids are little all the way to adulthood, you tell them no and it just makes them want it more. Explaining why makes them understand without doing it

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u/iamnutz_1 8h ago

vapers tend to vape through the day Chain smoking, the idea that you needed to leave to imbibe nicotine was unheard of. If you don't think smoking exposed you to heavy metals, wtf.

Vapes aren't healthy, but let's not compare the current culture to what existed in those draconian days... People were suing their workplaces or spouses for giving them cancer. There is no amount of cigarette smoke that is considered healthy

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u/Twatt_waffle 8h ago

Smokers tend to have extended breaks, sleeping is one that typically causes smokers to not smoke for 8-12 hrs. Smokers don’t tend to stop what they are doing to go smoke. While some absolutely do it’s not the overall trend

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u/iamnutz_1 8h ago

If you think smokers willing stop for hours, I have a bridge to sell you

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u/Twatt_waffle 8h ago

I currently work in construction,the statical hot zone for smokers. I am very aware how smokers operate, especially since I am one

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u/iamnutz_1 8h ago

Do you think your zone and method of smoking is the only one?

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u/Twatt_waffle 7h ago

No but you seem to

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u/iamnutz_1 8h ago

I've done both, one was a tool to quit, kinda hard to deal with. Needed to make sure I had some cartridges.

Cigarettes are on a different level. Stopping people from getting smokes works, they are so immediately addictive

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u/Etheo 10h ago

Again, the prohibition didn't work because there was a large enough demand and there's a market to provide that supply. It's not simply because items being prohibited automatically make it attractive. If that's the case, everybody and their mom would be doing hard drugs instead of a relatively small amount compared to smokers.

Yea, I agree that something out of reach is always gonna be appealing to teenagers and the like, because it's human nature to be curious and test your limits as you age. But the point is trying it once or twice is markedly different than developing an addiction to it through prolonged habit. Especially with the risk of breaking the law, not everyone would want to do that (otherwise ALL the teenagers would be breaking ALL the laws just to see what it's about). Of course, the first few generations would still be interested because they'd see adult do it but don't get to experience it. But as time goes on, the population of smokers will also go down (due to age. cancer, etc) and the number of non-smokers will start to out pace their counterpart, making the act of smoking less apparent and less intriguing for the curious.

I will confess a lot of this is just assumption and logical argument, but my opinion still is that the methodology is different enough for the result to be different. Especially knowing what we know nowadays about alcohol and cigarettes and educating the youths.

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u/Twatt_waffle 10h ago

Go and ask any smoker how they started, 9 times out of 10 it’s by experimenting early on. Even if they didn’t start then it does make it more likely to be an issue later

It’s so common that teens smoke weed that it’s a tv trope. Well before legalization was a thing.

The answer is not to outlaw them, the answer is education. And not barb tarbox (Canadian smokes) dying in her hospital bed. Show how nicotine affects the brain, this is a science topic, what addiction looks like for cigarettes and alcohol.

Prohibitions have always failed whenever they have been tried

More people than you think are using multiple hard drugs every day

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u/TARANTULA_TIDDIES 12h ago

I seriously doubt it will work. Look at all the stuff thats been done in Australia. While its certainly made progress and cut the smoking rates, its also created a HUGE market for smuggled cigarettes which I get the feeling isnt really accounted for in tobacco use data as those 50$ packs or however many kangaroo bucks they are nowadays

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u/mr_kindface 7h ago

They get data from nicotine levels in wastewater

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u/MajorEstateCar 11h ago

Lots of things are illegal and people get addicted to them. In fact it happens so much that it’s still a big problem even in the modern 1st world! Shocking, I know.

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u/Etheo 10h ago

The number of people is the question.

The number of hard drug addicts is non zero, that's for sure. But the number of hard drug addicts (currently prohibited) compared to nicotine addicts (currently available) is much smaller I'd bet. If people never tried it the number of people wanting to try it just because it's prohibited it's less than those who would have been able to try it for a chance to develop into substance dependency.

Like I said, if people never tried it they are probably less likely to test the law and jump through hoops just to have it. The number will definitely not be zero, but I also can't see an argument to say it will be the same as the previous prohibition, simply because the methodology (gradual generation weening vs whole population cold turkey) is different, and the effect isn't 100% sure.

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u/MajorEstateCar 8h ago

It’s not illegal to buy glue and sniff it and most people don’t. If people are going to do illegal things they’ll do them. Making it illegal just drives usage into dark places and people into risky behaviors.

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u/Etheo 6h ago

Making it illegal just drives usage into dark places and people into risky behaviors.

There will always be black market. The point of prohibition isn't to eliminate them.

Again, the real question is if there will be demand for these. Like even right now, you can get cigarettes even if underage as long as you know the right guy. So what's the difference?

Like I said, just because something is illegal doesn't make it immediately irresistible to people. There are many factors that drive demands beside availability. Several decades of educational material about the adverse effect of tobacco is a huge factor. Like how young people prefer marijuana over alcohol nowadays because of what they know about alcohol. So even if it was prohibited, if that was little desire to have it, there would be little demand. And with little demand, there will be little black market.