• PonyOfWar@pawb.social
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    4 months ago

    Smoking. Millions of euros of taxpayer money spent every year on those lung cancer patients which could be well spent elsewhere. It’s also an activity that negatively affects not just the smoker but everyone around them.

      • SanguinePar@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        Thanks to taxes (81½% of the price is tax on average), smokers are currently making my government a profit, including all the cancer care. Old people need a lot of healthcare, so people dying of cancer saves a lot of healthcare cost in the long term.

        You been hanging out with Sir Humphrey? ;-)

    • Kanzar@sh.itjust.works
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      4 months ago

      The tax on cigarettes is so high, it’s been claimed they pay more into the system than they claim out, as they die too soon. 🫣 (In Australia)

      • Carighan Maconar@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        At least here in Germany this is apparently still not true as smokers in particular add a huge cost to the healthcare system due to the long-term and repeated damage. For example, once they get parts of their feet amputated from clogged arteries, most actually continue to smoke (“Ah well now it’s too late anyways”), and hence will get half a dozen such amputations over time.

        • SupraMario@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          Obesity is the issue these days not tobacco. Tobacco use is a fraction of what it once was. Now a huge portion of the EU and USA is obese, which causes way more strain on the healthcare system.

      • Dave.@aussie.zone
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        4 months ago

        Australian here, in Finland. Holy shit it seems everyone smokes like chimneys here.

        Never really thought about how much smoking has declined in Aus over the last 20-40 years, but yeah coming over here has been an eye opener.

        • Kanzar@sh.itjust.works
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          4 months ago

          Seems to be a Europe thing, or really a rest of the world thing. It’s very rare to smell cigarettes, particularly after vaping took off.

          • Bye@lemmy.world
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            4 months ago

            In my country there was like 10 wonderful years when almost nobody smoked.

            In the last 5-10 years all that got reversed by vaping, it’s everywhere now. Not as bad as smoking though.

    • Taalnazi@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      Yeah, and unlike what people commonly think, it doesn’t just directly affect the user (first hand smoke) and the people around it (second hand smoke), but also the furniture and nature around it (third hand smoke).

      I despise those cigarettes laying around everywhere in nature. You can even smell them on remotes if someone was a hardcore smoker.

      They need help in kicking off from it.

    • umbrella@lemmy.ml
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      3 months ago

      i hate tobacco but prohibition doesnt work.

      we should have learned that lesson with alcohol and weed but it seems we did not.

    • Hawk@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      3 months ago

      Maybe this is an unpopular opinion, but I have less problems with the “luxury” items, such as cigars.

      They’re usually hand-crafted expensive stuff that’s made to enjoy once and a while, compared to cigarettes which are mass produced with the sole purpose to get you addicted.

      I think the same is true with alcohol. There’s the cheap, mass produced stuff vs the more expensive “hand”-crafted stuff.

      I wish we could just enjoy these things without corporations trying to get us addicted to them at every opportunity, disregarding any of the dangers associated with consuming them.