Why are people not held accountable for their own actions these days ?

Forums › Off topic › Why are people not held accountable for their own actions these days ?

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318 posts

Ultimate Geek
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#761961 13-Feb-2013 21:23

MikeSkyrme:
Ropata:
MikeSkyrme:
vexxxboy:
MikeSkyrme:
mjb:
mattwnz: Smoking isdalso addicative, and tax payer money is spent to get people off it, by subsiding drugs to help people give up

To be honest, smoking should continue to be allowed (as in, not banned), as it helps to control the population.. I do wonder if the guvmint can support the ACC and retirement costs of all those that wouldn't die early from smoking related illnesses.

Don't forget to also add in the cost of the reduced tax revenue figure should smoking be banned completely...

this is the big fallacy with banning smoking. ie: reduced tax revenue, when in fact we spend more on health care due to smoking than we take in taxes from smoking.

As I dive further off topic, I will just add:

From NBR, March 2012:

Smoking related healthcare spending: $250M.
Tax revenue for the same period: $891M.

Since this time, tax levels have been raised, the annual take (taxwise) from tobacco products is expected to be circa $1.4 Billion.

This is the point exactly. Who is really addicted to smoking? And if this is the case then all unhealthy foods should be taxed as well. Adding to all that is that the total death toll from sweet mary jane is zero. ZERO. In fact the only reason i can think of for it still being illegal is purely political and commercial. How dare people grow their own medicine whose only side effects are hunger, relaxation and sleep when you can buy a drug at massive profit margins with long term terrible side effects. I dare someone to debate this.

I would suggest you start a new topic for debating this. However... I will insert my two pennies worth.

Largely because of the fact that it is illegal, there has simply not been enough research done to say that the drug does not cause harm.
What has been proven, is that similar carcinagens to those found in the burning of tobacco, are also found in the "sweet mary jane" you refer to.
There are also studies done showing a link to testicular cancer and the use of the drug.

So, first two points lead me again to the question of "so why is it illegal?" seeing as a lot of drugs are handed out willy nilly daily with known terrible side effects and the fact that there are safe ways to medicate but the general public wouldn't know about that would they. As for the last one, a link would be good because it is obviously a paper i would be interested in reading.

MikeSkyrme

272 posts

Ultimate Geek

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#761964 13-Feb-2013 21:30

Ropata:
MikeSkyrme:
Ropata:
MikeSkyrme:
vexxxboy:
MikeSkyrme:
mjb:
mattwnz: Smoking isdalso addicative, and tax payer money is spent to get people off it, by subsiding drugs to help people give up

To be honest, smoking should continue to be allowed (as in, not banned), as it helps to control the population.. I do wonder if the guvmint can support the ACC and retirement costs of all those that wouldn't die early from smoking related illnesses.

Don't forget to also add in the cost of the reduced tax revenue figure should smoking be banned completely...

this is the big fallacy with banning smoking. ie: reduced tax revenue, when in fact we spend more on health care due to smoking than we take in taxes from smoking.

As I dive further off topic, I will just add:

From NBR, March 2012:

Smoking related healthcare spending: $250M.
Tax revenue for the same period: $891M.

Since this time, tax levels have been raised, the annual take (taxwise) from tobacco products is expected to be circa $1.4 Billion.

This is the point exactly. Who is really addicted to smoking? And if this is the case then all unhealthy foods should be taxed as well. Adding to all that is that the total death toll from sweet mary jane is zero. ZERO. In fact the only reason i can think of for it still being illegal is purely political and commercial. How dare people grow their own medicine whose only side effects are hunger, relaxation and sleep when you can buy a drug at massive profit margins with long term terrible side effects. I dare someone to debate this.

I would suggest you start a new topic for debating this. However... I will insert my two pennies worth.

Largely because of the fact that it is illegal, there has simply not been enough research done to say that the drug does not cause harm.
What has been proven, is that similar carcinagens to those found in the burning of tobacco, are also found in the "sweet mary jane" you refer to.
There are also studies done showing a link to testicular cancer and the use of the drug.

So, first two points lead me again to the question of "so why is it illegal?" seeing as a lot of drugs are handed out willy nilly daily with known terrible side effects and the fact that there are safe ways to medicate but the general public wouldn't know about that would they. As for the last one, a link would be good because it is obviously a paper i would be interested in reading.

http://www.cancer.org/cancer/news/news/study-links-marijuana-use-to-testicular-cancer

Michael Skyrme - Instrumentation & Controls

nathan

5695 posts

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#761966 13-Feb-2013 21:33

Snort cocaine, read the study

gzt

17149 posts

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#761970 13-Feb-2013 21:39

C'mon guys. It looks like fun but start a new topic. That level of quoting is ridiculous.

Ropata

318 posts

Ultimate Geek
Inactive user

#761975 13-Feb-2013 21:58

LOL yeah sorry, might start a new one about it. The study really is weak sauce though.

"Case-control studies such as this compare a group of people with a certain disease to a group of similar people without it, to look for factors that may contribute to the disease. However, this type of study can?t prove that a factor actually causes the disease. Other types of studies are needed for this."
Ends with
"Len Lichtenfeld, MD, deputy chief medical officer for the American Cancer Society cautioned that the study?s findings are preliminary, and the number of men studied was small. Lichtenfeld said, ?The study is interesting, but the findings are not conclusive. More research needs to be done to form a firmer conclusion that this is a definite relationship (between marijuana use and testicular cancer risk).?

MikeSkyrme

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#761978 13-Feb-2013 22:10

gzt: C'mon guys. It looks like fun but start a new topic. That level of quoting is ridiculous.

Yes, sorry about that, I got caught up in the debate... Will not happen again.

Michael Skyrme - Instrumentation & Controls

JimmyH

2886 posts

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#761979 13-Feb-2013 22:15

vexxxboy:

this is the big fallacy with banning smoking. ie: reduced tax revenue, when in fact we spend more on health care due to smoking than we take in taxes from smoking.

I'm not sure that is accurate, and there is a good chance that the net health costs associated with smoking are zero or even better, without even taking account of the tax take. A while ago I spoke to someone who looked at the research that had been done in Aussie. Apparently the health costs associated with treating someone dying from smoking are about the same (on average) as they would be if they were a non-smoker and (eventually) had to get health care when they were dying of something else. They are incurred earlier, because smokers tend to die younger, but they aren't higher. And, by tending to die earlier, smokers also generously save us on the likely later cost of paying them a pension and providing rest home & dementia care for 5-8 years etc. So, even if there was no excise on tobacco, there is a good chance that smokers would save billions off the health/pension spend. Yes, I know the math is a bit ghoulish, but it sort of made sense when explained that way.

Personally, I think they should do a proper study of the net cost of smoking to the government, and just set the per pack tax at a level that recovers that. Maybe smokers should all get medals for patriotically killing themselves off and saving is a small fortune

(Disclaimer - I don't smoke, never have, but have no issue with adults who choose to do so in full knowledge of the risks they are running).

Back on topic, I feel sorry for the woman who died and her family. She clearly has a sad life and a tragic end. However, pinning it on Coke and "the evil corporations" is just silly. She was an adult. It should have been obvious to her and her family that something was wrong, and SHE should have done something about it. Ultimately, she was the author of her own demise, no one else was.

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Ropata

318 posts

Ultimate Geek
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#761984 13-Feb-2013 22:30

Well said last post (would quote but it looks a bit big). People watch family members die all the time in the same way i.e. doing something bad for you your whole life due to addiction then passing horribly because of it. It really is a bread and butter debate for a liberal.
Addiction is the cause of most human behavior at a chemical level, we are designed for it.

NZtechfreak

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#761992 13-Feb-2013 22:52

JimmyH: She was an adult. It should have been obvious to her and her family that something was wrong, and SHE should have done something about it. Ultimately, she was the author of her own demise, no one else was.

Sorry, I think this assumes rather too much - unless of course you personally knew her and her circumstances?

I think, if we are going to make assumptions, it is safer to assume that she was suffering some deep psychological malaise, if not frank mental illness. This seems fairly self-evident, or at least it does to me as a doctor (who also has an additional 13 years experience working in mental health above and beyond my medical work and training). Her own capacity to 'do something about it' may have been greatly diminished.

I think anyone making statements with the certainty you are is being overly quick to toss this into the 'crisis of personal responsibility' basket, unless you have some deep first hand knowledge of the case (my own assumption, freely admitted, is that you do not).

In some cases I think the desire to quickly attribute all of this to deceased betrays a personal bias in belief structure toward the so-called 'crisis of personal responsibility', which is often used as a way of dismissing things out of hand - a kind of wilful ignorance that absolves anyone of having to do or think anything about problems in society, and an active obstruction to understanding the root causes for many of societies ills which do not reside solely with individuals.

Twitter: @nztechfreak
Blogs: HeadphoNZ.org

1080p

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#762002 13-Feb-2013 23:27

vexxxboy: The tangible costs of smoking to New Zealand in 2005 were around NZ$1.7 billion, or about 1.1 percent of Gross Domestic Product. This includes costs incurred because of lost production due to early death, lost production due to smoking-caused illness, and smoking-related health-care costs.

Source?

Linuxluver

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#762003 13-Feb-2013 23:30

Zeon: Yes completely agree. NZers are never responsible for their own actions. We live in such a socialized society where virtually everyone wants to pass their responsibilities on to someone else. There is a small portion of the population who takes responsibility and try their best to make up for those that don't. Sick of it personally and its my number 1 reason for wanting to leave NZ

Where you planning on going? Unless there are no humans there, it won't be any different. :-)

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dickytim

2514 posts

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#762030 14-Feb-2013 07:09

Linuxluver:
Zeon: Yes completely agree. NZers are never responsible for their own actions. We live in such a socialized society where virtually everyone wants to pass their responsibilities on to someone else. There is a small portion of the population who takes responsibility and try their best to make up for those that don't. Sick of it personally and its my number 1 reason for wanting to leave NZ

Where you planning on going? Unless there are no humans there, it won't be any different. :-)

I agree with this post, in fact I would say NZ is a little better than most of the 1st world on this.

dickytim

2514 posts

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#762031 14-Feb-2013 07:11

SaltyNZ:
MikeSkyrme:
KiwiNZ:
nathan: sad story, 30 year old mother of 8 kids, no teeth, didn't really eat food, scared of going to the doctor, partner convicted of a violent home invasion, smoked 30 cigarettes a day, 1 of the kids born with buggered teeth with no enamel coating, but its someone else's fault

A lot failed

What failed?

Contraception?

Come on, I have bad taste/ am harsh?

not that I disagree with the above.

vexxxboy

4244 posts

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#762064 14-Feb-2013 08:50

1080p:
vexxxboy: The tangible costs of smoking to New Zealand in 2005 were around NZ$1.7 billion, or about 1.1 percent of Gross Domestic Product. This includes costs incurred because of lost production due to early death, lost production due to smoking-caused illness, and smoking-related health-care costs.

Source?

Ministry of Health web site

Common sense is not as common as you think.

SepticSceptic

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#762078 14-Feb-2013 09:19

So someone dies from drinking too muck cola, and there is a big hue and cry. Some young bloke dies from drinkng home-made spirits based on product supplied by a brewer, and there is barely a murmur ?

Bah

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