Sledgehammers and Nuts

Drugs of Choice

The dreary and tedious dishonesty of our political leaders is interminable. We were afflicted recently with significant tax hikes on tobacco and cigarettes. The prime mover was Tariana Turia of the race-based Maori Party; National went along for the ride.

Turia has long held the view that tobacco is a racist drug in that somehow it singles out Maori and damages them disproportionately. She has mumbled about it being a curse of pakeha colonisation. She has a deep conviction that something must be done to help Maori kick the habit. All well and good, as far as kicking the habit goes.

Her solution: ramp up taxes on tobacco for all smokers, regardless of race. This is the dishonest piece. Like the injustice and folly of keeping the whole class in at lunchtime because of the bad behaviour of one miscreant, Turia wants to "help" her people in a very round about way, by which all citizens end up paying the price.

Why is this bad policy? Firstly, it avoids the need for personal accountability and responsibility. Tobacco addiction is a personal choice--that is the hard, uncomfortable truth, which needs constant reiteration. Trying to get at the problem by taxing tobacco more is avoiding the hard issue, placing blame on externals, trying to change the "environment", and not confronting the accountable individual.

Secondly, arguing that tobacco is costing the government millions of wasted health care dollars in treating tobacco related diseases simply does not hold water. The sad fact is that many smokers die younger: therefore, they end up being a much smaller drain on the taxpayer over the course of their lifetime than non-smokers. Those people who live long healthy lives are a much bigger drain on the public purse than tobacco smokers--by the time they have lived for decades on New Zealand Superannuation, flashed their senior citizen discount cards, and had a couple of re-bores, valve jobs, and hip replacements to keep them comfortable in their older years.

Thirdly, the unintended consequences are pernicious. The more tobacco is taxed, the more it becomes a prohibited substance, with all the criminal opportunities presented therein. Turia and her do-gooding colleagues need to be reminded of what the outcomes of the Prohibition era actually were. Ramping up taxes on tobacco just elides into Prohibition-type circumstances where criminal gangs will have one more way to enrich themselves. Those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it.

Finally, using the tax system to try to mould social behaviour is bad for the polity as a whole. It always distorts and leaves society weaker over the long term. So, in this case, the "poor" will end up using more of their discretionary income on higher-taxed tobacco, leaving less for food, clothing, and rent. This will increase their dependency and poverty, leading to inevitable demands for increasing government largesse to the poor, who are so impecunious they can no longer afford food. The politics of guilt and pity will rush to "take care of the poor" once again with ever greater entitlements.

Now, we do not minimise for a moment that smoking amongst Maori is a serious problem. But cowardly blameshifts, misplaced senses of victimisation, failure to confront the problem courageously, not letting people face the consequences of their folly, and lessening personal responsibility are not going to produce a healthy society. In the end, the Turia approach will make Maori and others more enslaved and dependant upon the biggest and most addictive drug of them all--the government--and will consign more and more to perpetual puerility.

That is far more dangerous and destructive to the fibre of our nation than any tobacco-caused illnesses.