As much as people loath anything that was learned from the Nazi social experiments and scientific experiments, we would be foolish to simply ignore everything they did that could be considered positive or a learning experience. In order to best predict the effects of our own anti-smoking laws, we should look at the Third Reich’s own attempts at eradicating smoking, which were the most stringent laws in the world.
This article does a great job outlining the restrictions the Nazis put on smoking. They went far beyond what most States currently do:
German anti-tobacco policies accelerated towards the end of the 1930s,and by the early war years tobacco use had begun to decline. The Luftwaffe banned smoking in 1938 and the post office did likewise.Smoking was barred in many workplaces, government offices, hospitals,and rest homes. The NSDAP (National sozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei) announced a ban on smoking in its offices in 1939, at which time SS chief Heinrich Himmler announced a smoking ban for all uniformed police and SS officers while on duty.(15) The Journal of the American Medical Association that year reported Hermann Goering’s decree barring soldiers from smoking on the streets, on marches, and on brief off duty periods.(16) Sixty of Germany’s largest cities banned smoking on street cars in 1941.(17) Smoking was banned in air raid shelters-though some shelters reserved separate rooms for smokers.(18) During the war years tobacco rationing coupons were denied to pregnant women (and to all women below the age of 25) while restaurants and cafes were barred from selling cigarettes to female customers.(19) From July 1943 it was illegal for anyone under the age of 18 to smoke in public.(20) Smoking was banned on all German city trains and buses in 1944, the initiative coming from Hitler himself,who was worried about exposure of young female conductors to tobacco smoke.(21) Nazi policies were heralded as marking”the beginning of the end” of tobacco use in Germany.(14)
Not only did the Nazis use bans as far as smoking locations, but they also used a tactic we use today with taxation:
An ordinance on 3 November 1941 raised tobacco taxes to a higher level than they had ever been (80-95% of the retail price).Tobacco taxes would not rise that high again for more than a quarter of a century after Hitler’s defeat.(26)
The only state that can really rival that number is New York, which has a $2.75 tax on every pack.
Did it succeed? The article points out that while the number of smokers increased, the amount that the average smoker smoked greatly declined, especially among heavy smokers (30 or more cigs per day), which became .3% of the smoking population. So what caused the biggest drop in smoking? Evidence would point to poverty.
Postwar poverty further cut consumption. According to official statistics German tobacco use did not reach prewar levels again until the mid-1950s. The collapse was dramatic: German per capita consumption dropped by more than half from 1940 to 1950.
From this type of evidence, I would be more apt to think that people will smoke or not smoke more based on their own accord and personal choice and economic condition rather than because of taxation or impetus placed upon them by the governemnt.
I was thinking of continuing my series of excoriating the hapless Jeff Jacoby over this column about food labeling. One reason I am reluctant to eat out or to buy baked goods is I don’t want to eat great new globs of trans fats. There’s no way of knowing whether the reduced fat pastries on display at Starbucks, for example, consist of hydrogenated poison or not. “Bring on the nannies!” I say.
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p>The libertarians among us, though, often say, “Not so fast! If people want to take such risks, they should be allowed. Fries cooked any other way are not as good.”
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p>I still don’t know how much the state in its benevolence should be taking care of us and how much the state in its intrusiveness should be sitting on its hands.
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p>Is your seat belt fastened?
and the same with my passengers. I think the nanny issue can be argued that as long as smoking and obesity contribute to higher health insurance rates for us healthy folks.
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p>Besides, smoking is nasty. Ever made out with a smoker? It’s disgusting!
Keep the government out of my body – a statement with which I personally agree. Does the same philosophy apply here. It’s my body, I don’t want the government to tell me what is permissible to ingest. I will add however that just because I’m allowed to do something doesn’t mean I have to do it, or even that I will choose to do it. Just please allow me be the decision maker, I’ll accept the responsibility, I’ll pay for my health insurance with my earnings, and I’ll purchase it from a private company which chooses to accept the risk of insuring me.
but the gov’t does levy a ‘sin’ tax on sigs. to try to reduce your interest in them. so you still have the choice to smoke or not to smoke.
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p>and speaking of sig taxes, i just heard that the per-pack tax will increase by about 60 cents. i’m sure this is on top of already very high preexisting tobacco sin tax. while i agree that the government has a fair interest in dissuading smokers since too many eventually rely on public funds to pay for their smoking-related illnesses, i feel there must be a limit to how far we squeeze smokers. after a point, doesn’t it become flat out unfair? i don’t know what the ‘fairness tax level’ is. anyone ever read what the per-pack tax rate should be for smokers to fairly pay their way?
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p>disclaimer: i am not nor have i ever been a smoker. i loathe cigarette smoke (although i admit i kinda like the smell of cigars).
is that if the taxes get too high, people will quit purely for financial reasons, and the lack of tax money can hurt state budgets that unfortunatley have a lot of stake in that money.
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p>Cigs are such a strange issue…that we use sin taxes to dissuade people from smoking, but at the same time are putting one level or another of dependence on their addiction to stretch our budget. If you asked every legisltor whether he’d rather see smoking dissapear or keep that tax money, I’d be interested at what the honest answer is.
cancer sticks are highly addictive, so the government is taking advantage of nicotine junkies.
The thing about smoking and why it is so restricted is the health effects on OTHERS. That’s why MA and other states have nearly-complete indoor smoking bans in publicly-used facilities. So no, you don’t have the choice to poison the respiratory systems of the rest of us.
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p>I would never want to be seen as pro-smoking.
Your vowing to be, er, responsible for your irresponsibility is noble. I suspect you’re exceptional in this, no?
My point was to ask if those who are pro choice because of the “keep government out of my body” theme are also pro-choice about smoking, eating trans-fat, eating super-sized, or choosing to be sedentary. Other than lyme disease, I am healthy because of my diet, exercise, and lifestyle. I do not promote these bad habits, its just that I’ve heard the argument from some that while they certainly don’t want to see more abortions, it should be legal and available to those who choose to have one. I agree with them. Do they apply the same logic to smoking and eating?
smoking doesn’t just harm the smoker, it harms anyone coming in contact with the smoke, and it harms society when the smoker falls back on the government to pay for treatment of smoking-related illnesses. in contrast, an abortion, if done in a safe place by an educated practitioner, only affects the mother and does not lead to further health problems. on the contrary, it prevents the pregnancy-related health issues that can be ruinous to a woman’s heath.
“Keep the government out of my body (unless they want to protect me from being so stupid I’m doing something that is harmful)”.
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p>…..and abortions don’t just affect the mother, they also affect fetus.
in preventing harm, especially when the harm is done by the smoker to the non-smoker. we also regulate people beating each other up. that’s a good thing, right?
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p>this isn’t keeping you from doing stupid things to yourself so much as it is keeping you from doing stupid things to others. there is a big difference.
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p>Actually not. Smoking kills ’em sooner and society doesn’t have to pay for the alternative expensive costs of age related disease.
there is still the issue of your smoke killing me.
How about food? Can I eat whatever I want if I’m privately insured and pay the bills with my own money to an insurer who chooses to underwrite me? It seems obesity is the next cause celeb of the nannies. No trans-fat, and let’s start to force eateries to post the calorie count of their fare.
… pay your bills, the services you get from insurance (once you need them) have an effect on premiums for everyone else.
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p>Trans-fat is a special case. It’s not food. The amount you can safely metabolize is zero. As such, it is nothing but a drag on any health cost initiative. You are free, of course, to eat pencils if you want,… even plastic ones. But because you can doesn’t mean we should allow a seller to sell them as food.
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p>Calorie count posting is a pre-requisite for enabling choice, unless you want to mandate that everyone have ignorant choice. Those who want to remain ignorant are, of course, free to ignore any information available to them.
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p>Whom do you mean when you say “we should allow”. I think you mean the enlightened ones. I think you mean liberals.
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p>I’d rather let people be free to make mistakes. Let them sell pencils for whatever reason they choose to people who wish to buy them for whatever reason they choose. “We” should let the individual remain free.
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p>I don’t smoke or eat pencils, but I’d like to think that in this free country where the rights of the individual are important, I could if I so chose.
… marketing and selling pencils as food is permissible for you and that government should have no hand in regulating what can or can’t be sold as food. Have an anti-freeze soda on me.
I’m smart enough to know one shouldn’t drink that…and the government didn’t even have to tell me.
… you’d let it sit on the shelf, unhampered by government.
It seems odd to be defending transfat, but in the interest of Liberty, here goes.
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p>Transfats do extend shelf life and reduce refrigeration requirement in many products. Also, the Kosher restaurants can use them to make what would otherwise be made with lard. Therefore dishes otherwise non-consumable by some for religious means or by others because they’re vegetarians, are made eatable.
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p>So, whereas you claim they “aren’t food”, well neither are many additives to food products on the shelves today. The argument for them is cost and convenience. The argument against them is health. You say the State should decide; I contend the market has been and is responding with products that tout “NO TRANSFATS” such that they are via the free market becoming less used.
… that trans fats had a function and a usefulness to someone. I just pointed out that there is no usefulness to the body.
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p>Mind you the extent of the market ‘deciding’ is largely due to required disclosure and greater awareness of the harm.
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p>With regard to them being ‘not food’, I stand corrected that I incorrectly limited my claim to ‘not food’. I should have clarified that it’s ‘not food’ that has no dietary benefit and can lead to disease. Moreover, their use is largely unnecessary. The spoilage issue became the main impetus toward it’s use thanks mainly to the US Army. Then mass production of baked items required anti-spoilage issues because of warehousing. Before you knew, trans fats abecame an essential pantry item to the 50’s kitchen. Modern delivery systems, however, eliminate the need for trans fats to prevent spoilage. Indeed, one of the reasons you see food companies dispense with it is that they figured out that their modern systems don’t depend on the anti-spoilage trans fat anyway.
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p>BTW, my understanding is that most lard is either fully or partially hydrogenated. That means trans fats. If Kosher cooking uses some kind of trans fat for as a substitute for lard, then they are substituting one trans fat for another. In general, any recipe that requires some kind of trans fat, in fact doesn’t. It requires some kind of fat, for which trans fat will do. I seriously doubt that there is any recipe that requires trans fats. Even the famed everlasting twinkie doesn’t require trans fats anymore.
Why not raise the age to 21? One might even do it the following way:
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p>As of Jan 1 2010, you must be born by Dec 31 1991 to smoke. This birth date requirement holds until Jan 1 2013, upon which anyone 21 years or older can purchase tobacco products.
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p>This way, nobody who has the legal right to buy smokes has that right taken from them.
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p>
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p>The problem isn’t that 18 year olds are getting cigarettes — it’s that their 15 year old little brothers and sisters (and younger) are getting smokes. By raising the age to buy cigarettes, it becomes harder for younger people to smoke. Not many people pick up smoking after high school… so making it harder and harder for kids to get access to cigarettes will only result in less smoking over time.
2. “i can die for my country but not light up?!”
2. Others will make that point, but we have all sorts of different age requirements. I can operate a 6,000 pound vehicle at 65 mph but not vote? I can drop out of school but not smoke a cigarette?
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p>We have different age requirements for all sorts of things. The new smoking age needn’t be 21… it could be 19 or 35 or whatever. Heck, were it up to me, we’d keep raising the age so that [using the prior example] anyone born on or after Jan 1 1991 will never be old enough to buy cigarettes in MA.
…on the efficacy of government smoking cessation programs?
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p>How do we know that Adolf Hitler’s WWII Germany isn’t an outlier? Especially with all the new science?
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p>I guess this leads to the question: What do the most successful anti-smoking programs look like? Perhaps some money should go to incentivizing cessation? Some European countries give cash to doctors based on thee number of patients they help quit.
That bans and government taxation in of themselves aren’t going to curb smoking. There has to be some sort of stimulus like the choice between food or cigs or some sort of resolve within yourself that’s going to force you to quit.
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p>I don’t really know anyone who has quit because they have been inconvinenced by bans. However, I think cigarettes being so expensive have directly effected then number of youths who smoke, just because they are an age group that doesn’t have the income to support a heavy smoking habit.
.. and excellent point. This is the same problem with the war on Drugs. The only real difference is that the government interference is more intrusive. Outright prohibitions with harsher penalties and not limited to consumption but also encompassing production and distribution.
One would think if government action alone would stop smoking, than the Nazis, who managed to conquer almost all of Europe, brought a country from ruin to superpower in 15 years and managed to systematically kill 6 million + people would have done it.
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p>In a way, I guess you could compare smoking to gay marriage. You aren’t going to see true results from government action alone, but a shift in the cultural acceptability of action and thought.
… is just something to inform how to collectively act. I would submit that the inability to engineer a perfect outcome is not, in and of itself, evidence that there should be no action. Like anything, its a weighing of costs and benefits.
There’s lots of good data that show correlation between high cigarette prices and smoking.
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p>I think the bans help. For starters, it means smokers get used to going longer periods between smokes [and most end up smoking fewer cigs a day], which helps them quit at a later date should they try. The bans also help shift public opinion against smoking, which help other people choose to quit or not start. It helps smoking become uncool.
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p>Of course, figuring out how to reduce smoking by teens is the big game… and price seems to be a huge factor.
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p>Finally, it turns out that becoming a Mormon helps too. Utah has the lowest smoking rate in the country. 🙂
They won’t eliminate, but could curb.
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p>BING BING BING BING.
It’s pretty uncool to litter nowadays, whether it be hucking debris on the ground or throwing trash out the window on the highway.
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p>Yet, it’s perfectly fine for people to pt out and chuck their cigarette butts just any old where that’s out side. I was jogging the other day and someone from underneath a storefront awning pitched their butt into the street and a few feet ahead in my direct path. Now, I was in no danger of getting clipped and the person did give a “oh, sorry” acknowledgment. But I wasn’t that I thought throwing a butt in path was rude, it kinda was, but it was that the smoker thinks that it’s cool to just leave her trash for someone else to take care of, because it’s such an inconvenience to dispose of properly. Even smokers who don’t litter with any other product have no problems just trashing wherever they happen to be with their used cigarettes. Mind-boggling.
and I have to clean it up. So once I asked one of them why they throw the butts on the ground knowing I have to clean it up, and this person said “well, then they should get us a smokers station.”
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p>me: “well why don’t you quit smoking?”
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p>And wouldn’t you know it, my telling them to quit smoking made ME rude.
thanks, man.
…you crazy liberal moonbat, you!
getting a gay marriage.