How To Make Tobacco Less Appealing And Addictive Without Banning It Or Reducing Nicotine Below Natural Levels

Here is a "Cliffs Notes" style list on how to make cigarettes and other smokeable tobacco products less addictive and appealing WITHOUT banning it outright, raising the age limit any higher than 18, or even reducing nicotine below natural levels:

• First and foremost, BAN ADDITIVES!  No non-tobacco ingredients should be added, period.
• Adding extra nicotine deliberately should also be banned as well.
• Require the smoke pH to be 8 or higher to discourage deep inhalation of smoke, as it naturally was prior to the 20th century. 
• Phase out the pH-lowering and environmentally unsustainable practice of flue-curing tobacco. 
• Phase out cigarette "filters", which don't really filter, and merely provide a false sense of security to smokers, and inherently creates a major toxic waste littering problem to boot.

If they still want to reduce maximum nicotine levels to a non-addictive level in ready-made commercial cigarettes and little cigars, go right ahead.  But it would be best to do the other things on the list first.

Also, banning the use of radioactive (!) phosphate fertilizers to grow tobacco is really a textbook no-brainer in terms of tobacco harm reduction. 

Additionally, requiring all tobacco products to be sold only in dedicated tobacco stores, or other places where you have to be 18 or older to enter, would really not be a bad idea either.  It would certainly make it less ubiquitous, convenient, and tempting without the constant reminder in grocery stores, convenience stores, gas stations, pharmacies, etc.

So what are we waiting for?

A Band-Aid Solution In Search Of A Problem (Part Deux)

We previously wrote an article about the recent wrongheaded push to ban young people under the age of 16 or 18 (depending on whose idea it is) from social media entirely, or at least heavily restrict it.  Well, now the state of Utah has finally done it, and signed it into law today, effective one year from now on March 1, 2024.  This new law does not completely ban people under 18 from social media, but in some ways it is worse than that.  What it does is 1) prohibits any Utah resident under 18 from opening a social media account, or even maintaining an existing one after March 1, 2024 unless they can provide both proof of age verification as well as proof of parental consent, 2) prohibits anyone of any age from opening a social media account or even maintaining an existing one without proof of age verification, 3) requires social media companies to provide parents with a password or other means to gain full access to their teens' accounts, 4) prohibits anyone under 18 from accessing social media from 10:30 pm and 6:30 am, 5) prohibits social media companies from showing any ads to people under 18, or using any addictive features for people under 18.  

If your jaw just dropped after reading all of that, you're not alone!

This is just plain wrong on so many levels.  That the age limit is set so high is bad enough, as is the lack of privacy for people under 18, but that not nearly the worst of it.  For starters, unlike Josh Hawley's federal bill, there is NO grandfather clause for existing accounts for anyone of any age, whether you are 18 or 80, only a mere one year delay before the law goes into effect.  Worse still, the mandatory collection and storage of proof of ID (driver's license, birth certificate, passport, etc) required by this law for ALL ages comes with NO meaningful safeguards to keep such sensitive information from falling into the wrong hands.  Fox, meet henhouse.  Everyone's privacy is at risk now, more then ever before.  Yet another example of adultism backfiring on adults.  It is the ultimate Trojan horse from Big Brother. 

And of course, the even greater loss of privacy specifically for teens should not be trivialized either, as that will put the most vulnerable young people in even greater danger still, not least from abusive and/or bigoted parents or guardians.

And the ban on addictive features, such as via those notorious algorithms, curiously only applies to people under 18 for some reason.  And it would hold the social media companies liable for that and any damages that result.  That, along with perhaps some other enhanced safety features, is probably the ONLY marginally good part of the new law, which of course they had to nerf it by age-gating it rather than simply applying it to all ages across the board.

(Why don't we simply make it illegal for any manufacturer, vendor, or company to deliberately engineer a product or service to be more addictive or habit-forming than it would otherwise be in the name of profit, for all ages, across the board, period?  Big Tech, Big Tobacco, Big Pharma, Big Food, et al., I'm looking at YOU.  That would not completely cure the problem of "limbic capitalism" in practice, of course, but it sure would greatly decrease the frequency and flagrancy of such machinations and manipulations.)

And what else does the law NOT do, but should do for all ages?  No data privacy rules, no enhanced safety features, no common carrier rules, or anything like that.  Nope, just more of the usual ageist bigotry and control under the guise of concern and protection.

If the new Utah law ever does become the national standard, then this is truly the end of an era, and the beginning of a new and even more dystopian one.  And it would also mark at least the beginning of the end of the free and open internet as we knew it.

And by extension, one more cut in the long-running, subtle "death by a thousand cuts" of the First Amendment, and the rest of the Bill of Rights as well.

One thing is for sure.  The Overton window has clearly shifted in a VERY questionable direction!

UPDATE:  Looks like the 10:30 pm social media curfew would simply be set as the default feature, which parents would be able to adjust at will.  (Thank God for small mercies, I guess.)

And there are ways of verifying age that don't compromise privacy or security, but somehow we doubt that those will be used.  In any case, teens will always find a way to game the system and get around the restrictions regardless of the method.

But with the general anonymity of social media effectively a thing of the past for all ages, thanks to the new ID verification system, the chilling effect on free speech will remain unless this law gets struck down before it goes into effect.  The clock is ticking.

UPDATE 2:  Looks like the evidence on which this law is based is less than meets the eye.  Far from a mountain of evidence, it is more like a molehill, and a shaky one at that.  Not that Big Tech is completely benign (they are not) or doesn't have a dark side (they clearly do), but we need to deal with them proportionately, and not from a place of moral panic.

And look into the other potential causes of mental health declines in young people as well.

UPDATE 3:  None of our objections apply at all to TikTok specifically, and we actually support federally banning that particular platform for all ages on pure national security grounds alone.  Or alternatively, perhaps "quarantining" it temporarily, and then buying and fully nationalizing it.  It is effectively a CCP spying app masquerading as a social media platform, and any mental health concerns are an afterthought in comparison to that.  And plenty of alternative platforms already exist now, and if those alternatives are somehow not good enough, it's really not that hard to create new ones that are.

UPDATE 4:  While research evidence is quite mixed at best, it is probably safe to conclude that, yes, Virginia, there really is a "there", there.  But it still does NOT follow that bans or undue age discrimination are the solution, as this problem calls for a scalpel, not a sledgehammer.  The Law of Unintended Consequences (aka Murphy's Law) is all too real.

Instead, things that require social media to be safer by design, like the California Kids' Code that goes into effect in 2024, would be a better idea.  The next logical step after that would be the COPPA 2.0 bill.  Ditto for many other ways to design it to be safer and less addictive as well, such as adding a bit more "friction".  Think harm reduction, not prohibition. 

See the youth-led advocacy movement Design It For Us, for more information in that regard.

Also note how The Netherlands appears to have dodged the supposedly global teen mental health crisis thus far.  Could it be that is at least in part because they are the overall most "permissive" society in the world for children and young people IRL?

UPDATE 5:  And don't forget to read Mike Males' famous rebuttals to Jon Haidt as well.  To wit, the real mental health crisis is the massive epidemic of toxic, dysfunctional adults, whose toxicity/dysfunction then inevitably rubs off on the young people in their lives.  Not to say that social media is not a potential causal factor in such toxicity overall, but clearly silencing the skeptics is another mistake to never make again.

It Bears Repeating: Vices Are NOT Crimes

One of the most important timeless lessons learned, then forgotten, then learned again, then forgotten again, and so on, is Lysander Spooner's famous maxim that "vices are not crimes".  And to forget this crucial distinction, is to ultimately lead to numerous evils, from 1) amoralism and nihilism on the one hand, and 2) the most egregiously tyrannical abuses and overreach of government power (from things like Prohibition, the War on (people who use a few particular) Drugs, the 21 drinking age, tobacco bans, media censorship, restrictions on sexual activities between consenting adults, etc. all the way to slavery, eugenics, and sometimes even full-blown genocide) on the other, typically disguised as either protecting the nation's "moral fiber", and/or "progressive" social engineering for the "greater good".  In truth, it is anything but moral or progressive.  Thus, individual rights must be inalienable, and the government should never stray from its original mission of protecting life, liberty, and property.  Once the natural right to self-ownership becomes usurped by the state, the very foundation for individual rights ceases to exist, and of course that invites all kinds of trouble, as history has so painfully shown time and again.

To quote Spooner, from his Vices Are Not Crimes; A Vindication of Moral Liberty (1875):

"Vices are those acts by which a man harms himself or his property. Crimes are those acts by which one man harms the person or property of another…In vices, the very essence of crime—that is, the design to injure the person or property of another—is wanting." 

"Unless this clear distinction between vices and crimes be made and recognized by the laws, there can be…no such thing as individual right, liberty, or property; no such things as the right of one man to the control of his own person and property." 

"If these questions…are not to be left free and open for experiment by all, each person is deprived of the highest of all his rights as a human being, to wit: his right to…ascertain for himself, what is, to him, virtue, and what is, to him, vice…If this great right is not to be left free and open to all, then each man’s whole right, as a reasoning human being, to 'liberty and the pursuit of happiness,' is denied him." 

"What man, or what body of men, has the right to say, in regard to any particular action, or course of action, 'We have tried this experiment, and determined every question involved in it…not only for ourselves, but for all…And, as to all those who are weaker than we, we will coerce them to act in obedience to our conclusion?'" 

"[A] government, formed by voluntary association, would never have been thought of, if the object proposed had been the punishment of all vices…nobody…would voluntarily submit to it. But a government, formed by voluntary association, for the punishment of all crimes is a reasonable matter; because everybody wants protection for himself against all crimes by others." 

"It is a natural impossibility that a government should have a right to punish men for their vices; because it is impossible that a government should have any rights, except such as the individuals composing it had previously had, as individuals. They could not delegate to a government any rights which they did not themselves possess." 

"Nobody but a fool or an impostor pretends that he, as an individual, has a right to punish other men for their vices. But…everybody has a natural right…to defend his own person and property against aggressors…And government has no rightful existence, except in so far as it embodies, and is limited by, this natural right of individuals...It is only those who claim that government has some rightful power, which no individual or individuals ever did, or could, delegate to it, that claim that government has any rightful power to punish vices." 

"To punish men for their vices…is a sheer and utter absurdity for any government claiming to derive its power wholly from the grant of the governed…because it would be granting away their own right to seek their own happiness." 

"Everybody wishes to be protected, in his person and property, against the aggressions of other men. But nobody wishes to be protected… against himself…He only wishes to promote his own happiness, and to be his own judge as to what will promote, and does promote, his own happiness." 

"The object aimed at in the punishment of crimes is to secure, to each and every man alike, the fullest liberty he possibly can have—consistently with the equal rights of others—to pursue his own happiness, under the guidance of his own judgment, and by the use of his own property…the object aimed at in the punishment of vices is to deprive every man of his natural right and liberty to pursue his own happiness, under the guidance of his own judgment, and by the use of his own property."

"[People]…must be permitted to control themselves and their property… each man’s life is his own."

We ignore such sound advice at our own peril.

And we know that the late Peter McWilliams, author of Ain't Nobody's Business if You Do:  The Absurdity of Consensual Crimes in Our Free Society (1996), would certainly agree with Spooner 100%.

And to avoid any weaseling, dilution, or vitiation, via subjectivism, relativism, and/or denial of agency, of Spooner's (and McWilliams') basic maxim, we should clarify that only acts that objectively harm the person or property of nonconsenting others should be considered crimes in a free society. 

UPDATE:  People will undoubtedly ask, so what about children, or young persons below the legal age of majority?  Well, as John Stuart Mill had famously noted, such a maxim would not apply directly to them, at least insofar as consent is concerned.  But even then, to impose criminal penalties on the children or young people themselves (as opposed to the adults involved) for acts that are otherwise legal for adults while simultaneously denying them any agency to consent to such acts is the very height of hypocrisy.  And regardless, whatever age we set as the age of majority, for anyone above that age the maxim would apply completely, full stop.  In other words, in a free society, once you are an adult, you are an adult.  That is something most of the world understands.

Also, as Emile Durkheim famously said, "When mores are sufficient, laws are unnecessary. When mores are insufficient, laws are unenforceable".  From another angle, that is a good argument against the other side's specious claim that our society is currently somehow too immoral, weak, fractured, spoiled, undisciplined, individualistic, heterogeneous, or whatever to trust people with personal liberty and bodily autonomy.

And finally, there is that classic Pigouvian argument from externalities.  The best response to that is that it is literally impossible for humans to exist at all without imposing both positive and negative externalities on others to one degree or another.  So arbitrarily designating select vices as crimes is both over- and under-inclusive.  And externalities are generally better dealt with via education, persuasion, and mutual consent, or failing that, via targeted taxes and subsidies.  Prohibition is far too blunt an instrument to deal with most externalities, and typically does far more harm than good in practice.