#FREETOCHOOSE

The Government very often acts like our nanny by passing laws to preserve ‘morality’, ‘decency’ or ‘public health’. A free society comprises of individuals with a wide array of personal choices. Do we need a Nanny State to dictate certain decisions for everyone?

The August 2015 report from Public Health England, an arm of the U.K.’s health service, reported that e-cigarettes are 95% safer than cigarettes. This April the Royal College of Physicians cited that figure and urged smokers to switch to vaping.

Media reports have fed the idea that e-cigs pose all sorts of dangers. In January 2015 the New England Journal of Medicine published a study that showed toxic levels of formaldehyde could be produced by a high-powered vaporizer. The report also noted that no one would ever heat e-liquid to that temperature. Likewise, when a Harvard study showed the presence of the chemical diacetyl in 75% of e-liquids, there were headlines about e-cigs causing irreversible scarring of the lungs, despite the fact that diacetyl is present in extremely low doses. The toxic chemical is hundreds of times more plentiful in traditional cigarettes.

WHO is considering prohibitive taxes and regulations on e-cigarettes. These laws will keep people from quitting, which can potentially cut millions of lives shorter.

Adults are free to vote, and even marry, before they can legally consume alcohol in some Indian states. But government regulation has done us no good.

Regulations don’t end the demand for alcohol. Instead, high taxes drive consumers towards cheaper and stronger alcoholic drinks. That’s why lighter drinks like beer, which are very popular all over the world, constitute only 50% of the market in India. Even within beer, 85% Indians prefer stronger variants of beer. India is also the largest consumer of whisky. Cheaper, unlicensed hooch is widely available. Sadly, it has made thousands of people blind and was the cause of 1,700 deaths just in 2014.

To the extent that bans, taxes and drinking age laws make it difficult to access alcohol, people substitute other vices like cannabis and cigarettes. Hardly any good has come off this policy, and we don’t want any more of it!

"Prohibition, like so many other policies imposed from the moral high-ground, typically by those who do not drink, disproportionately affects the poor who resort to illegally brewed alcohol when they want a drink, not infrequently leading to their death, and are more likely to be harassed by the police."

-Vikram Patel, Public Health Foundation of India

Adults are free to vote, and even marry, before they can legally consume alcohol in some Indian states. But government regulation has done us no good.

"Prohibition, like so many other policies imposed from the moral high-ground, typically by those who do not drink, disproportionately affects the poor who resort to illegally brewed alcohol when they want a drink, not infrequently leading to their death, and are more likely to be harassed by the police."
-Vikram Patel, Public Health Foundation of India

High taxes increase the incentive for producing illegal cigarettes completely outside the tax regime. In this case, cigarettes are produced in illegal, unregulated factories and sold on the black market. According to a recent FICCI study, the overall market for illegal cigarettes in India is now estimated at 22.8 per cent of the cigarette industry. The share of legally manufactured cigarettes in total tobacco consumption in India has declined from 21% in 1981-82 to 12%. During the same period, overall tobacco consumption increased by 42%.

Many smokers respond to cigarette taxes in dangerous ways by switching to cigarettes that are higher in tar and nicotine. But because high-tar cigarettes pose a greater risk, this response undermines the goal of improving public health.

Studies have shown that in the tobacco industry, consumers’ willingness to switch from smoking legally purchased cigarettes and tobacco to contraband products increases with tax hikes.

The Kerala Government has imposed a 14.5% “fat tax” on fast food such as burgers and pizzas. It wants to curb the consumption of junk food. Arbitrarily enough the tax applies only to branded fast food chains.

Denmark tried this experiment. After being voted for by an overwhelming majority of MPs, the tax on saturated fat led to inflation, cross-border shopping, job losses and huge administrative costs. It had very little effect on the consumption of saturated fat because Danish shoppers downgraded to cheaper brands from budget supermarkets, often in cheaper countries. It did, however, clobber the poor — as indirect taxes usually do. It is unlikely to have had any impact on health. Once it became clear that the fat tax was creating lots of costs and no benefits, 15 months after it was introduced, it was abolished.

The unpopular Danish experiment should have been a guide for policy makers seeking to control food habits through regulations. People should be free to choose what to eat and make decisions for their health.

Consumption and trade of marijuana is a criminal offence in India. Drug related offences are usually not treated as the gravest ones internationally. However, in India the punishment can be as severe as a death penalty.

Therefore, smugglers and peddlers have created networks to meet the underlying demand. Most cases of death from drugs happen because of intoxicants and overdose, which are unlikely to happen with standardised products and quality control measures in a legal market.

Legalisation doesn’t increased the number of dependents. Despite the War on Drugs, America has the highest rates of cocaine and marijuana use in the world, and while most of the E.U. has more liberal drug laws than the U.S., it has less drug use. Following decriminalization, Portugal had the lowest rate of lifetime marijuana use in people.

Let people choose, we don’t need you nanny.

EVER MORE FREQUENTLY, MORE LAWS ARE PASSED WHICH LIMIT OUR INDIVIDUAL FREEDOMS

This is true for our consumer behavior as much as our personal behavior, regulating what we can buy, sell, consume, eat, drink, smoke, vape, gamble, and much more.

This puts products like meat and sugar in the same category as tobacco and alcohol, and reduces our capacity for choice at the behest of the Nanny State.

That's why we say #NoNanny.

What’s your favourite stupid law?

MY LIFE MY CHOICE

#NONANNY

South Asia Students For Liberty is launching a quiz on lifestyle regulation to bring attention to the absurd regulations in place in India which limit our individual freedoms and choices.

This quiz is part of a movement to fight against the laws and rules put in place by governmental agencies who want to tell us how to live our lives and what we should put into our bodies. These regulations limit not only our personal choices in our own lives, but also in the marketplace. Young people cherish their freedom and cherish their ability to make their own individual decisions without the Nanny State's interference. #NoNanny needed!

#FreetoChoose

When the state tries to tell us what we should consume, there are no limits. Sugar and chocolate bars could be slapped with extra taxes or mandated plain packaging just as much as alcohol or cigarettes. And it just doesn’t work.

A detailed study by London Economics on the introduction of plain packaging in Australia in 2013 revealed there has been “no statistically significant change in smoking prevalence among adult Australians” since it was mandated.

Individuals can make better decisions about their own lives. No nanny needed.

"The lifestyle choices people make before the nanny state gets involved are the choices they want to make. They are the choices that give them maximum benefit. After the nanny state gets involved, they are forced to either settle for their second or third choice, or to pay more and get less benefit from their preferred choice." -- Chris Snowdon, Institute of Economic Affairs

#FreetoChoose

Individuals can make better decisions about their own lives. No nanny needed.

#NoNanny

Whether it’s video games, alcohol, sex, gambling, eating, or even laughing, the government thinks it knows best. But today’s young people don’t need a nanny and don’t need the state to run their lives and tell them which activity is fun and which isn’t. Legalize choice. No nanny needed.

#NoNanny

#FreetoChoose

Laws which tell businesses how long they can be open are well-intentioned but actually do more harm then good.

An article in the Journal of Health Economics analyzed the liberalization of closing times for pubs in England and Wales in 2005 and found that letting bars stay open much later caused traffic accidents to significantly decrease. Accidents on Friday and Saturday nights decreased by 32.5 percent. Rather than being forced onto the roads after a night at the pub because the state mandates a closing time, drinkers can take their time and responsibly get home when they’re ready. No nanny needed.

#FreetoChoose

Laws which tell businesses how long they can be open are well-intentioned but actually do more harm then good.

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YOUNG PEOPLE ATTENDED OUR EVENTS IN 2015 AND ARE LEADING THE MOVEMENT TO PROTECT INDIVIDUAL FREEDOMS ALL OVER THE WORLD

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INVITE PEOPLE TO TAKE THE QUIZ AND TAKE PART!

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#FREETOCHOOSE

EVER MORE FREQUENTLY, MORE LAWS ARE PASSED WHICH LIMIT OUR INDIVIDUAL FREEDOMS

MY LIFE MY CHOICE

#FreetoChoose

#FreetoChoose

#NoNanny

#NoNanny

#FreetoChoose

#FreetoChoose

What are you waiting for?Try our quiz!

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Try our quiz!