So we're banning trans-fats because they are unhealthy and cause heart issues for the people whom directly consume them?
But smoking is A-OK even though it harmfully impacts people around the smoker and not just the smoker?
I do not find "because it is unhealthy for you" a compelling enough reason to ban something that tastes good and provides a convenience (storage) if we aren't going to be consistent with the logic of "its banned because its bad for you".
my take:
[Optimistically] It's because heart disease is the #1 premature cause of death while lung disease is just #3 (though the percentage gap is much wider than their positions suggest) and therefore a good target for helping society at large through regulation[1]
[Pessimistically] the #1 cause of poor health conditions is heart disease, and therefore the medicare/medicade cost is too high for the govt to foot the bill, so they're finally regulating. :P
Smoking causes more cancers than just lung cancer. Cancer is the #1 cause of premature deaths - although that's including all 200 odd sum of cancers, not all smoking related.
For a more fair comparison you would have to sum together the cancers it is linked to, then factor the number of deaths of those cancers that were smoking-related. Which makes the math a bit trickier:
Not to mention there are non-death but still health-related issues that add up medical expenses. Which is a bit harder to quantify.
Also, as mentioned prior, other people suffer because of smokers from second-hand smoke. I feel strongly about this because I grew up with asthma and almost died at age 6 from an asthma attack that developed because of my father's smoking.
Smoking can kill the people around you. Eating transfats won't (unless they're sharing your food).
I'd argue you're the one being obtuse on purpose. I explained very clearly the connection between Banning A and Not Banning B for C reason when C is a shared reason.
>I do not find "because it is unhealthy for you" a compelling enough reason to ban something that tastes good and provides a convenience (storage) if we aren't going to be consistent with the logic of "its banned because its bad for you".
If they want to ban transfats because it is unhealthy for me with little to no benefits - I want them to ban smoking because it is unhealthy - and not just for me but for the people around me with little to no benefits.
If their reason for banning A (transfats) matches with banning B (smoking) and both are leading causes of death (C), have large medical expenses for Americans (C), are unhealthy with little/few/no health benefits (C), then it logically follows that if you ban A you should also ban B for C.
Because they are not banning B for reason C - I do not see that as a compelling enough reason to ban A because it not compelling enough to ban B; and A and B are equivalent issues for reasons C.
The answer is, of course, they profit vastly off B because of taxes. If they are profiting off of the deaths of Americans, wheres the problem?
But smoking is A-OK even though it harmfully impacts people around the smoker and not just the smoker?
I do not find "because it is unhealthy for you" a compelling enough reason to ban something that tastes good and provides a convenience (storage) if we aren't going to be consistent with the logic of "its banned because its bad for you".