Diminishing Returns

Today I'll discuss a debate, here is the link for it http://www.pierrelemieux.org/artdiminish.html

When we look at the war that the government has had against cigarettes there is a few things that come to mind. I agree that the easy gains in getting people to quit have already been had. There are the people that are either to stubborn or lack the will power to ever quit. So in between the people who have quit and the people who wont, there is the target group to work on. My fiance was a smoker for over a decade and for her it was partly that I don't smoke and that she read a book about quitting that was recommended to her.


I don't think enlarging warnings from 20% to 50% coverage will gain you the 150% change in effect on people quitting. Its mostly important to have the warning large enough to read and get its message across. For the issue with taxes on cigarettes we can just keep increasing the costs of the legal cigarettes pushing people to illegal options. There will be the group of people who wont take part in the purchase of smuggled smokes and can no longer afford to smoke and then may quit. We have to asks ourselves, is this the way we want people to quit? Would they return to smoking if the prices were to reverse or if there income was to increase to the point they were able to afford smoking again? 


If we are going to get people to quit and stay that way we need to look at something left out of this debate. Linking smoking to overall health and not just "smoking is bad" may help some people. Using government money to help people into sports and recreation could lead them to quit on there own and have other health benefits as a bonus. My fiance also has a e-cig now cause she had a weakness when she was drinking. For those of you who don't know what that is, Google it. Mostly it is a battery powered cigarette that vaporizes a flavored liquid, leaving you the choice on nicotine level and flavor. I'll even admit that I have a few puffs off her e-cig, she chooses ones with zero nicotine and berry, chocolate, etc flavor. This option keeps people hands full and doesn't force them to quit but doesn't have the same negative health affects. In Canada as of right now you can't purchase e-cigs with nicotine due to some law about self administration. So that's an area the government could help out.


To conclude, the demand needs to be addressed for cigarettes not the supply. Also the governments of the world have gone past the point of diminishing returns on many fronts and need to explore some of the other avenues available.






Lemieux, P. (March 19, 2001). Pierre Lemieux. In The Diminishing Returns to Tobacco Legislation. Retrieved May 29, 2012, from http://www.pierrelemieux.org/artdiminish.html.