You're looking at Less Wrong's discussion board. This includes all posts, including those that haven't been promoted to the front page yet. For more information, see About Less Wrong.

Douglas_Knight comments on Open Thread, Feb 8 - Feb 15, 2016 - Less Wrong Discussion

4 Post author: Elo 08 February 2016 04:47AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (215)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: TezlaKoil 08 February 2016 01:07:36PM 2 points [-]

Dagon's points are very good. There's another aspect as well:

Tobacco import and distribution (and in some cases, production) are already nationalized in many countries, especially in the EU. National governments try to impose artificial scarcity (winding down operations, tax increases, fixed pricing), and this makes the statistics look better - officially monitored tobacco sales decrease.

Artificial scarcity cannot last: a black market of RYO tobacco, and home-made cigarettes of dubious origin is always ready to serve customer demands. In the end, the health effects of nationalizing the tobacco industry, and winding down operations, can easily be negative.

Comment author: Douglas_Knight 11 February 2016 02:37:18AM 3 points [-]

Australia has a track record of doing a better job of enforcing bans than other countries. It's a island.