I’m initially skeptical on tractability—at least of an outright ban, although maybe I am applying too much of a US perspective. Presumably most adults who indulge in indoor tanning know that it’s bad for you. There’s no clear addictive process (e.g., smoking), third-party harms (e.g., alcohol), or difficulty avoiding the harm—factors which mitigate the paternalism objection when bans or restrictions on other dangerous activities are proposed.
Moreover, slightly less than half of US states even ban all minors from using tanning beds, and society is more willing to support paternalistic bans for minors. That makes me question how politically viable a ban for adults would be. “[T]he indoor tanning lobby” may not be very powerful, but it would be fighting for its very existence, and it would have the support of its consumers.
On the other side of the equation, the benefits don’t strike me as obviously large in size. Most skin-cancer mortality comes from melanomas (8,430/year in the US), but if I am reading this correctly then only 6,200 of the 212,200 melanomas in the US each year are attributed to indoor tanning. The average five-year survival for melanoma in the US is 94%. So the number of lives saved may not be particularly high here.
I’m initially skeptical on tractability—at least of an outright ban, although maybe I am applying too much of a US perspective. Presumably most adults who indulge in indoor tanning know that it’s bad for you. There’s no clear addictive process (e.g., smoking), third-party harms (e.g., alcohol), or difficulty avoiding the harm—factors which mitigate the paternalism objection when bans or restrictions on other dangerous activities are proposed.
Moreover, slightly less than half of US states even ban all minors from using tanning beds, and society is more willing to support paternalistic bans for minors. That makes me question how politically viable a ban for adults would be. “[T]he indoor tanning lobby” may not be very powerful, but it would be fighting for its very existence, and it would have the support of its consumers.
On the other side of the equation, the benefits don’t strike me as obviously large in size. Most skin-cancer mortality comes from melanomas (8,430/year in the US), but if I am reading this correctly then only 6,200 of the 212,200 melanomas in the US each year are attributed to indoor tanning. The average five-year survival for melanoma in the US is 94%. So the number of lives saved may not be particularly high here.
Yeah, it looks like the impact is probably not that big, if compared to say lives that could be saved via alcohol or tobacco control policy advocacy.