[gloosx]

>the government act with expertise to solve the problem

Do you have an idea which problem did they solve? Did banning certain psychoactive drugs solved the problem of drug abuse? Maybe banning alcohol removed it from the streets during great depression? Banning gambling? Kids will find a way to get into their social media accounts anyway, and then these democrats will tell you they need to ban every VPN service and set-up Deep Packet Inspection devices for every ISP, make their own govt CA, and trust me all of it will be done in the name of people and child safety.

Sad to see a dysfunctional govt. which bans and calls it a solution to the problem. When I will be in the office I would ban the whole concept of banning itself once and forever, and any politician who proposed a single ban in his life would be banned from service. I will of course step out for proposing this ban immediately.

[gloosx]

For all the proponents of the ban here – I will just tell you what works – for your education. It is endorsing and subsidising healthy and active lifestyle, supporting and promoting strong family wellbeing as well as upholding public psychological and physiological health. Only doing these instead of issuing bans would really contribute to kids choosing virtues of real life over screen time, but unfortunately addressing root causes takes more effort and time than issuing a ban.

[thrixton]

That's great for those that can implement that, many cant (don't have the time, education, willpower, etc...), maybe the majority.

Given the challenges of rebuilding a proper society, maybe this is a step in the right direction (maybe).

We don't allow kids to have other addictive substances, there's definitely an argument (and the co's agree, with 13 yo minimums?) for restricting an addictive medium.

[123124dfasd]

Just because the War on Drugs failed does not mean the argument extend on to every other fields.

[gloosx]

Social media is similar to a drug because it is dopaminergic, and banning it is very similar to War on Drugs scenario, just a knee-jerk reaction, not an expertise-driven policy

[Timwi]

And yet, the argument does extend. It applied to Prohibition, too.

[123124dfasd]

And ban drunk driving works, banning gun works ? I'm not for these kind of policies either but people need more substantiate argument than that.

[gloosx]

Of course it all works. The world now has no drunk drivers, and it is impossible to buy a gun. Thanks to the loving government and caring politicians who had employed best experts, most brilliant minds they could find, to ban the bad things. bad things no-no. We're living in ponyland already just look out of the window!

[oblio]

Banning smoking in many places plus banning advertising it plus banning selling it to kids reduced smoking by unfathomable amounts.

[gloosx]

Do you have data do back it up? From quickly looking at historical records online, I can't see any unfathomable amounts reduction, It's levelled on 20-30% of smokers among kids, and it remains a core challenge for child and adolescent health to the current day (according to 2020 WHO report[0]), plus they started to smoke vapes. So did the bans you sampled really work, or do they just smoke more discreetly and use tricks to buy cigarettes now, making the whole thing more inaccessible and desirable for an average child?

[0] https://www.who.int/europe/news/item/05-06-2020-smoking-stil...

[somishere]

Well, in Australia at least, the number of smokers in the 18-54 age cohort has almost halved in the decade upto 2022 (older smokers still tend to smoke), and more than halved in the 15-24 category.

A "national tobacco strategy" was introduced in 2011/2012 that brought plain packaging, increased taxation and a bunch of other measures.

Official data is here if you're interested: https://www.abs.gov.au/articles/insights-australian-smokers-...

There's also Wikipedia and any number of other resources that go into more detail on the history of decline: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoking_in_Australia

[oblio]

Smoking used to be at much higher levels (50%+) and absolutely everywhere.

Also vaping is probably better than smoking, and don't worry, vaping is next on the ban list. It just takes time to build the case.

[Timwi]

I might be wrong but I read the OP’s comment as sarcastic.

[oblio]

You are wrong. Banning smoking worked.

[refurb]

How do you know?

At least in the US, smoking rates dropped substantially by the 1980's, long before many anti-smoking laws were in effect (you could still smoke on planes in the 80's!).

https://www.statista.com/statistics/184418/percentage-of-cig...

[oblio]

> In 1970, Congress took their anti-smoking initiative one step further and passed the Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act, banning the advertising of cigarettes on television and radio starting on 2 January 1971. In April 1970, President Nixon signed it into law.

Can you guys research this stuff before posting, please?

[gloosx]

Only worked for Australian politicians to pat themselves on the head. They are still getting money from tobacco companies, and they know where it is coming from. Kids in Australia still smoke a lot, exploring other ways of inhaling addictive substance, and no ban can really solve this problem

[ruthmarx]

People were already moving away from smoking. The aggressive policies don't deserve all the credit.

[oblio]

There are many articles and documentaries about the impact of smoking adoption due to tobacco companies advertising primarily to kids.

Even if we disregard all the science, the fact that the very companies themselves were targeting kids shows that they knew where their money was coming from.

[null0pointer]

They mean the root of this comment tree, not your parent comment.

[Aeolun]

The very graphic lessons at school showing what a smokers’ lung looks like after a life spent smoking didn’t hurt either.