@elomatreb Eh, I'd still say the government should have an interest in public health. Thats basically what they're for, after all, in one form or another. :/

@Angle True of course, but esp. the US government doesn't seem too concerned with that (considering e.g. gun laws)

@elomatreb Well no, but thats because lots of the people who make up said government aren't concerned with it. It doesn't mean they /shouldn't/ be concerned with it. :/

@Angle That's where the presence of a (more or less) tax-funded single-pot healthcare system comes in, because if the pot has to be very large it diverts taxes away from other things so there is an incentive

@elomatreb ...? I don;t follow. An incentive to care about public health? :/

@Angle Prevention is cheaper than treatment, so e.g. taking steps to reduce obesity would, in the long run, require less money in the healthcare system, freeing up money for other things.

(In concrete systems it's not as easy as that since e.g. in the German system the money for the healthcare system isn't directly transferable to the regular tax pots, but still)

@elomatreb Ah, gotcha. I would still think that the government should care about publich health in and of itself? But I guess you can;t rely on that, so structuring the system to add extra incentives is probably still worthwhile. :/

@Angle It all has its pros and cons, e.g. the upside of the even partially privatized German public health insurances is that they actually work and are the most secure of the social insurances in the country (i.e. they will survive the demographic change of the country, unlike the pension system), but the downside is that you sometimes have to fight them to get them to pay for stuff (e.g. they really don't like chronic illnesses with expensive medication)

@Azure Aye, thats a good point. So I guess I should have said, "How important of a law do you think this is, and how highly should it be prioritized?"

@Angle I /think/ so, yes. At least something along those lines.

But as to your original question I think there's some combination of:

How badly will it hurt others and how likely is that to happen? Are there ways it can be done WITHOUT hurting others and it's just a risk of screwing up?

When it hurts oneself, is it because it is a thing many people think WON'T hurt them or won't be as likely to hurt them as it is, but there's a systematic bias?

@Angle Are there actually GOOD outcomes? How likely are they? Does the likelihood change with skill?

Will disallowing it end up creating a black market, and can we just make it a tremendous pain in the neck instead?