Government Wowsering

Up in Smoke

In New Zealand we have a messianic crusade to make the country "smoke free" by 2025.  The definition of this paradisaical state is as follows:

 What does Smokefree New Zealand 2025 mean?

• Our children and grandchildren will be free from exposure to tobacco and tobacco use
  

• The smoking prevalence across all populations will be <5%. The goal is not a ban on smoking.
  

• Tobacco will be difficult to sell and supply.  [http://smokefree.org.nz/smokefree-2025]

Of course this is being promulgated by government and its agencies, and driven by particular wowser-politicians.  We do not question the motives of said protagonists.  Smoking can cause much harm.  But we do question the wisdom of the wowsers. 

Moreover, we are also deeply sceptical of government promoted programmes and causes where the underlying object is to restrain government spending on health (as is the case of the anti-tobacco movement).  The reason is straightforward: when an entire population (that is, more than 5 percent) is dependant upon government provided healthcare, the government has been given a license to control human behaviour to an extraordinary extent for its own ends.  In this case, the broader campaign against smoking shows every sign of not being driven primarily by concern over smokers welfare, but by a desire to restrain public health expenditure.


The fiscal logic is simple: less smoking mean less smoking related diseases which, in turn means, less government spending on health.  Such logic is pernicious in that it "proves" far too much.  It can (and has) rapidly extended to arguments for nanny controls over food, diet, exercise, and drinking. 

In addition, the fiscal argument is just sloppy.  It is relentlessly self-defeating.  The cold fact is that from a fiscal perspective once medicine and health is socialised and paid for out of the public purse, the sooner people die off, the less expenditure impact upon government revenues.  Thus, from a fiscal perspective alone, the more people that smoke and become obese the better.  The shorter the life span, the less the cost to the government (and the taxpayer), because the biggest costs always occur towards the end of life, particularly when, as is the case in New Zealand, we have a universal, non-means tested, taxpayer funded, retirement income scheme. 

In the end, then, the wowser campaign against tobacco falls back on humanitarian concerns--trying to prevent people from harming themselves.  This is a highly tendentious position, particularly because the actual results are likely to be desultory.  And the unintended consequences are adverse to say the least. 

One of our daily newspapers carried a "canary in the mine" story about how people are likely to respond to ever increasing taxation costs upon tobacco (the key strategy being employed to make people stop smoking):

A Southland woman is beating tobacco tax price hikes by turning over a new leaf and growing her own. Liz, who does not want her surname published for fears someone might steal her crop, has been growing, curing, and smoking her own tobacco for about two years.  She and her partner each smoked about 50 grams of loose, roll your own tobacco per week, she said.  "Who wants to pay $60 a week for something you can grow yourself for less than $5?"

Each plant provides about 100 grams of tobacco, and takes four to six months to grow, she said.  Liz said that after picking the leaves, she hangs them and leaves them to "colour cure". . . .  The plants grow to up to 2 metres tall, and Liz grows them throughout her garden at home.  "I've got about 30 in at the moment, they grow really well down here but they can't go anywhere near frost so you have to get your seasons right," she said.

It is legal to buy seeds, grow and smoke tobacco for personal use in New Zealand, but against the law to sell or give away home grown tobacco away.

We have seen the home-brew market grow substantially in New Zealand--and that without any substantial restrictions upon the sale of alcohol.  We have also seen an explosion in home poultry.  The opportunity of saving around $60 per week will  no doubt generate a huge expansion in home-grown tobacco. 

How are the wowsers and the nannies likely to respond?  By campaigning to make home-grown tobacco illegal.  And that is when the trade will become extremely profitable to criminal gangs and smugglers. 

One wonders how many times we have to repeat this kind of folly before we learn.