Entirely Predictable

Criminal Gangs Exploit the Ignorance of Politicians

We have blogged on previous occasions warning of a crime wave about to come.  That particular tsunami has now struck.  Cigarettes are now the coin-du-jour of the underworld.  This development has been entirely caused by the government of New Zealand.  It is the unintended consequence of hubris and folly.

The gummint is trying to make New Zealand tobacco smoke-free by 2025.  Its tactic of choice is progressively to tax tobacco and cigarettes so as to make them expensive luxury items which only the rich can afford.  We and others have warned that this unenlightened approach would have the entirely predictable consequence of a crime wave, where hoods and the desperate rock into local convenience stores to steal tobacco.  And so it has come to pass.  And it will get worse.

This from Stuff:

Foolish Politicians, Nannies and Wowsers

Prohibition Redux

The old adage from George Santayana runs, those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it.  A corollary is the proverb, a hundred blows on the back of a fool make no impression (Proverbs 17:10), but a word to the wise is sufficient. 

History has illustrated and taught repeatedly that when the state overreaches to ban or criminalise something as contraband (all for our own good, of course), criminals get richer and stronger.  It happens every time.  When governments overreach to ban tobacco and cigarettes, or tax them out of existence, it becomes, in the words of Yogi Berra, deja vu all over again. 

This, from Breitbart London:

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.

Unintended Consequences

Prohibition Works Out Well for Criminal Gangs

It is universally acknowledged that Prohibition was a failure in the United States in the 1920's.  Not only did it fail in preventing access to alcohol, it proved a boon for criminal gangs which were able to prosper significantly manufacturing and selling contraband alcohol.  But, as we are well aware, those who do not learn history's lessons are condemned to repeat them.  Consequently, we find many voices clamouring for prohibitions of various kinds in our day.  Dumb and dumber.

As with the Prohibition movement early last century, there are always plenty of social evils to garnish the argument for prohibiting whatever the evil substance du jour  might be.  Tobacco is the biggie at the moment.  New Zealand has a diverse bunch of wowsers who have publicly committed to making New Zealand "smoke free" by 2025.

Sideswipe

Ineffectual Wowsers

. . . The next step, if the Government follows Australia's lead, is to allow cigarettes to be sold only in identical packets - probably a dirty brown, featuring pictorial health warnings even more gruesome that those they already carry. The manufacturer's brand would be permitted only in small type somewhere.

When this rule came into force across the Tasman, a French manufacturer put a line on sale in Europe featuring a kangaroo on the packet and the legend: "Popular in Australia." So much for fun.

John Roughan
NZ Herald

No Idea What Freedom Means

Swaddled in Kindness That Kills

People have a right to go to the grave in their own way.  It's called freedom.  Necessarily contingent to the ethic of freedom is that we have a human right to damage to ourselves, undermine our own health, shorten our lives by stupid habits, and otherwise act to our own destruction. Not before God, mind--but before civic authorities.

The most oft-heart objection to freedom arises out of social welfare: since the cost of paying for damage is collectivised in our kookie world, those who damage themselves--by what they eat, or drink, or ingest, for example--end up costing the collective.  So, they must be made to stop it.

Rubbish.