You’re missing the part when the country was flooded with black market cigarettes smuggled through Mohawk territory and the government had to roll back taxes.
Changing social norms and behaviours killed smoking. Taxes just gave the shift a boost.
If government just has to pull levers to prod citizens away from unhealthy behaviour, why do we have growing rates of obesity and a plague of overdoses?
we dont have a plague of overdoses, we have, proportionate to the rest of the population, a tiny number of them, probably far less than the number of drinking and driving deaths we had in the 60's and 70's, they just have increased from the even tinier number we had 5 or 6 years ago.
As to obesity, vast portions of sugar and starch based junk food is incredibly cheap
You’re missing the part when the country was flooded with black market cigarettes smuggled through Mohawk territory and the government had to roll back taxes.
Changing social norms and behaviours killed smoking. Taxes just gave the shift a boost.
If government just has to pull levers to prod citizens away from unhealthy behaviour, why do we have growing rates of obesity and a plague of overdoses?
Vast majority of people didn't buy black market cigarettes so it worked. Not being able to smoke indoors anywhere obviously had a difference. Changing social norms happened because smokers were made to go stand out in the snow and pay a lot of money for cigarettes, not because they just went out of style.
What levers have they pulled for obesity? Overdoses is a long term problem that will need many changes for a fix - being soft on drugs is still portrayed as a weakness in elections. Governments have effed up on drugs forever, so not a surprise this isn't fixed.
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And while everyone is focused on mask battles and vaccine mandates and Afghanistan and Ida and California wildfires...
Texas more or less just overturned Roe v Wade. Abortion banned at 6 weeks, before most women know they're pregnant. SCOTUS was tasked with issuing an injunction by midnight CST and they punted on it.
Texas is just the beginning. Overturning Roe v Wade is the GOP's ultimate wet dream, and with a conservative-stacked Supreme Court they're as close as they've ever been to making that happen. Scary times down there right now.
What makes the Texas law different is its unusual enforcement scheme.
Rather than have officials responsible for enforcing the law, private citizens are authorized to sue abortion providers and anyone involved in facilitating abortions. Among other situations, that would include anyone who drives a woman to a clinic to get an abortion.
Under the law, anyone who successfully sues another person would be entitled to at least $10,000 US.
Abortion opponents who wrote the law also made it difficult to challenge the law in court, in part because it's hard to know whom to sue.
That's some ####ed up #### right there. Like, I don't even know how something so dysfunctional could be thought up. Will Uber drivers need to screen their passengers?
The private citizen doesn't even have to be in Texas. Anyone from anywhere. And if the lawsuit is against a clinic, and it wins, the clinic has to shut down.
The law seems like was designed entirely to avoid being reviewed by federal courts, gaming the system. Normally groups would file a lawsuit against the state officials responsible for enforcing the new law. But here it's being enforced by individual anti-abortion activists. There's no one to sue.
The more I read about it the more crazy it seems.
They've basically overturned Roe.
__________________ Uncertainty is an uncomfortable position.
But certainty is an absurd one.
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And now confirmed, the Trump experiment worked, because officially, SCOTUS just fatally wounded Roe with an actual decision. I am equally infuriated and also just so damn sad that we let this happen.
It won't stop abortion, it'll push it underground into some very dangerous situations. Very sad day in the United States.
I actually think the evidence shows they types of morality movements regarding reproductive rights increase the number of abortions. So it's even worse, it will make the simultaneously more frequent and more dangerous.
So? Maybe that's good, the court is already a political entity, formalize that, make it clear to voters that's what they're voting for.
Ya it almost doesn't matter who the actual president is. They can do damage for 4 years, but the next president can quickly undo their legacy as Biden is showing. The real impact is who they appoint to the supreme court, as they can overrule every other branch of government and sit for life. Americans need to realize the court is more important than whatever policies the president wants to put in place
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