• BigMikeInAustin@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    That’s very impressive you are quitting. It takes lots of effort to do that. You can keep it up!

    I don’t mean this as a judgement. Ideally, wouldn’t you now have preferred if smoking was prohibitively hard to start in the first place?

    • towerful@programming.dev
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      3 months ago

      Oh yeh. I wish smoking was just completely not a thing and never was a thing.

      When I started it was very socially acceptable and cheap to smoke.
      Then it got less socially acceptable (indoor smoking ban), and a big bump in price. I tried quiting a few times, but I always ended up smoking again.
      Somehow, when working hard and under time constraints “going for a smoke break” was an accepted excuse to spend 5 minutes outside. Bonkers.

      Anyway, a proper vaping setup, making my own vape juice and all that had me forget about cigarettes within a few weeks, and I vaped for 5 years. Maybe 8?
      Still had an excuse to go for a break, but I felt so much healthier vaping than I ever did smoking. And I could still sneak a vape indoors if there wasn’t time for me to go outside.

      Been on the pouches for 1.5 years now.

      So yeh, increase the taxes on tobacco. A small bump for vaping nicotine (imo, safer than smoking but not risk free). And ideally no tax increase for nicotine products.

      I could see a minor bump in taxes for snus/snuff/chewing tobacco. It’s still a risk to the consumer (because it’s tobacco), but it doesn’t pose a risk to 3rd parties (because it’s not burnt or aerosolised).