For decades the government has been telling people that smoking cigarettes is bad for their health. For about a decade, the government has been telling people that smoking marijuana is good for their health (cures most illness!).
We know that coronavirus attacks smokers. Americans right now are as scared of coronavirus as they’ve ever been of anything. Could it be that the coronaplague will get people to stop smoking both tobacco and marijuana?
Cigarettes are taxed at the federal level, right? So we should be able to get clean data on how many are sold, no? All that I could find was a December 30, 2019 report on tobacco sales in 2018 (i.e., it took a year to get the data and report together).
Readers: Predictions?
I predict Coronavirus will affect smoking as much as AIDS affected having sex.
I admit that I find it hard to smoke the cigarettes I might want to sneak when my wife is within the circle of stench 24/7. So yes, cigarette smoking will go down. Marijuana smoking will probably increase.
I’m currently thinking about this ‘rona as something along the lines of a Nuclear bombing. It is something we should just accept and realize that our time is up. Instead of stepping outside to face the bright light, I’m going to grab a drink and go out by the pool and light up. The outcome will be certain. Death. Either by virus or mariticide.
Take a walk through a park. If you don’t smell marijuana, you should check whether you can smell anything else.
RE: Your previous post mentioning Sweden. Looks like not locking down didn’t work out so well:
https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1246539185051271170
https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situation-reports/20200404-sitrep-75-covid-19.pdf?sfvrsn=99251b2b_2 is the latest from WHO.
Sweden, Denmark, and Norway all have roughly the same numbers of new cases (within 24 hours), once you adjust for population. Norway has almost no deaths, but that is not because Sweden’s hospitals are overwhelmed. They still have plenty of ICU capacity (see https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/120805778/coronavirus-to-swedes-its-the-rest-of-the-world-engaging-in-a-reckless-experiment ). Either Norway is recording the cause of death differently (someone with an existing condition is marked down as a death related to that condition, for example) or Norway has some amazing treatment capability that Sweden doesn’t have or Norway is like the U.S. and just won’t give up no matter how negligible the chances of recovery.
Everyone wants Sweden to fail and for Swedes to drop dead in the street by the thousands. This will then justify their own fears and actions. See https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-04/sweden-girds-for-thousands-of-deaths-amid-laxer-virus-response for example. The journalists simply don’t mention the “new case” rate and focus on a small difference in the death rate between Sweden and Denmark (36:29). They don’t try to explain how Norway has a super low death rate (9). Denmark is “locked down” but Norway is “double secret locked down”?
If we assume it takes someone two weeks from diagnosis to death, let’s go back two weeks. Sure enough, Sweden had at that point substantially more new (and total) cases than did Denmark: https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situation-reports/20200321-sitrep-61-covid-19.pdf?sfvrsn=ce5ca11c_2 (but about the same as Norway, so this doesn’t explain why nobody dies in Norway or, if they do die, it isn’t from coronavirus)
“Either Norway is recording the cause of death differently (someone with an existing condition is marked down as a death related to that condition, for example) or Norway has some amazing treatment capability that Sweden doesn’t have or Norway is like the U.S. and just won’t give up no matter how negligible the chances of recovery.”
Neither. Norway is doing a lot of testing compared to both Denmark and Sweden: as of March 20, Denmark had tested 10,730 people, Sweden had tested 14,300, Norway had tested 43,735. (Source: Our World in Data.) So their confirmed case counts aren’t directly comparable, while their death counts are. This is why death counts are a more reliable way of tracking the virus. https://www.thelocal.se/20200320/fact-check-has-sweden-stopped-testing-people-for-the-coronavirus
“Everyone wants Sweden to fail and for Swedes to drop dead in the street by the thousands.”
Ignore the commentary and just check the daily numbers.
The entire country of South Africa (50M+) has outlawed the sale of cigarettes (and alcohol) under the lockdown regulations. The lucky few who stocked up beforehand (or can buy under the counter) are not affected. Needless to say this has caused much unhappiness! Walking it off is not possible, since outdoor excercise has also been outlawed. Cue up lots of stress, and an increase in domestic abuse…