By I don’t smoke, but the possibility of it being banned in South Korea is concerning to me:
A group of health experts and civic activists Monday called for the government to ban the manufacturing and distribution of cigarettes.
They urged the government to conduct intensive rehabilitation programs for smokers and encourage tobacco farms to convert to other industries.
The Tobacco Free World and the Korea Association of Health Promotion, among others, are pushing to prohibit the selling and making of tobacco products within 10 years.
Those who violate a proposed law would be imprisoned up to five years or fined up to 50 million won. The members are planning to submit the bill to the National Assembly within a year. [Korea Times]
I think I will get no argument from anyone that smoking is bad for you, however there are a lot of other things that are bad for you and they are not banned. I have personally been far more effected by drunks than people smoking cigarettes, but you don’t see anyone trying to ban alcohol. So where do you draw the line on this?
2:59 pm on February 23rd, 2010 1
"but you don’t see anyone trying to ban alcohol."
Yet. And that's the problem, once the precedent is set it is a very slippery slope and the nanny-state do-gooders are more than willing to dictate your personal lifestyle options…
3:22 pm on February 23rd, 2010 2
One problem with your argument: they aren't talking about making nicotine illegal.
10:14 pm on February 23rd, 2010 3
I can't imagine they would ever actually succeed with this. Perhaps they should, there's not much good that can be said about smoking, but they never would. I'd like to see a smoking ban in some public places like there is in Britain and Ireland and some other places, it's effective and a vast improvement all round, I feel. The only issue I could see with that in Korea is that so many laws for "minor" offenses in Korea are not properly upheld or policed. I can't help thinking that you'd be very unlikely to be punished if you were caught breaking a law that such a huge percentage of the population would probably be against in the first place.
10:29 am on February 24th, 2010 4
Yeah well, less than 100 years ago, cannabis was legal in the USA. So, it starts with prohibition on manufacture and then presto-changeo, it is a crime to possess and use.