Love the “if I don’t do it, neither should anyone else” mentality among children in these threads.
It’s the same people who are alcoholics and obese… screaming how bad tobacco is, when like 95%+ of the population no longer uses it. Tobacco isn’t killing people at the rate it used to, obesity is our number one killer and healthcare cost now and no one wants to admit it.
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I think they should raise it by 1 year every 2 years.
Yeah, I agree. That will give people time to not get hooked, but not screw over the kids who started smoking when they were 18.
Every year should be fine, illegal to buy cigarettes if you’re born after 1945 so we can finally stomp out the tobacco
So we would eliminate smoking the same way we eliminated drug use…by making it illegal.
/S if necessary
I’m generally pro legalization of drugs, but will say this is likely to be much more effective than the war on drugs ever was.
You don’t outlaw possession, just the sales age. You’ll see significantly fewer new starters as time goes because after 20 years 40 year olds that can buy wont be bothered to support fresh 18 year olds looking to start a new habit or whatever. The ones that really want to start can buy from abroad without any form of punishment.
I think it’s different because I don’t think anyone turns to their first cigarette looking to try and attain some new feeling. It’s usually one of those things like… My friends were so I grabbed one from them and blah blah.
I would say I’m for the progressive increase in age, and I wrestle with my own hypocrisy seeing that I support legalizing other drugs. But maybe that’s rooted in the basis that I’ve never had a pothead or dude on shrooms negatively impact me. Cigarettes however–littered everywhere, get smoke in your face, etc
people could easily say they hate the smell of weed - is that a good reason to outlaw?
I keep thinking of the rat experiments where rats in cages took drugs until they died but happy rats in rat societies turned away from drugs.
I think people take drugs, including cigarettes, to cope. If they didn’t need to cope with terrible conditions, they wouldn’t use the drugs (except a few outliers). To me, taking away people’s cope is punching down.
We can’t get rid of tobacco like we can quaaludes or some synthetic drug. It’s going to be available to people. The question is do you want to create a huge black market for it (where people can easily lace cigarettes with fentanal, bonus? ), or do you want to address the reasons that people chain smoke?
It’s worth noting that even the happy rats would go get the occasional hit, they just weren’t dependent on the drugs. They did it for fun once in a while, not frequently as an escape from reality. This is how healthy people enjoy drugs.
That doesn’t change the end result though. Addiction is the result of profound despair, not the cause of it. Giving people hope and support keeps them from needing to escape.
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Is there any evidence to suggest a gradual ban actually prevents a black market?
I think people want to do things they are not allowed to. They will go through the effort to find a way. In a lot of states that legalized Marijuana, its use went down after legalization. Once it was normalized, some people lost interest. I think the opposite happens when you make it illegal, you’re basically making it cool again. This isn’t just drug use, it’s with a lot of things, if you forbid it, people will suddenly want that thing more than they did before. Religion comes to mind. Authoritarian countries that want to stamp out a religion or all religion often cause a religious resurgence. There’s nothing quite like being told you can’t do something to make you want to do it or visa versa. People are naturally oppositional.
Yeah, lots of bad faith comparisons to drug legalization. People outright against age-gated laws. So I guess that means it’s ok for 4 year olds to drive around?
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Finally something sensible from this guy. Last week it was all big auto lobby nonsense.
He should also star making crimes illegal so that they can live in a society without crime /s.
That’s gonna work splendidly since underage people would never dare to smoke!
Ehhhhhh, you make it permanently harder for a generation and eventually, barring a political change, you need to find an 80 year old to boot cigarettes for you from that one shop down the road that still caters to a rapidly shrinking audience.
Not to say that this is a good idea or one with which but long-term, it could work. (Or at least reduce smoking to a relatively minor few.)
Eventually stores will just stop selling them. Why stock cigarette when you only sell 10 packs a month.
I think it’s a great idea. People will create a black market for them, but it will be really small and die out.
It’s not like you really get anything from it like you do from alcohol or other drugs.
It’s not like you really get anything from it like you do from alcohol or other drugs.
Similar ehhhhhh as earlier.
There are moments when a cigarette gives you an amazing or just right, feeling, for lack of a better word. In reality you’re just sating a self inflicted addiction, but it can feel great to do so.
I don’t think it’s a good trade, that’s why I no longer smoke, but I understand the simple pleasure. Even if in the long, medium, heck, often even short term that pleasure has stupid costs.
People will create a black market for them, but it will be really small and die out.
There’s already a black market for tobacco, and it will just grow in size not shrink. You can buy 50g for like £5 on DNMs.
Yeah, the risk is that if the black market becomes large enough, it will mean youths will have easier access to cheaper cigarettes than the current situation (with the added issue of cigarettes being entirely unregulated, meaning they’re going to put God knows what in them).
This is a woefully ignorant take
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It’s a nice theory but it does sort of forget that other countries exist - the black marketeers will just smuggle tobacco in. They’re also going to be guaranteed a market of younger immigrants who’ve gotten addicted in another country.
Sure, at first, absolutely, though even then you are raising the cost of smokes, not just financially but convenience, potential customer base (not everyone has the connections or would feel comfortable buying on the resale market) etc.
Long run, sure, smokers will probably always exist. But at the point where it’s awkward to smoke in public you’ve probably cut down on a good percentage of smoking at all.
It’s still gonna slowly reduce use. And that’s better than nothing.
I think this is deeply illiberal. There are some cases where bans make sense like the XXL Bully dog ban that has been mooted. But I don’t think the government should be able to decide what an adult puts in their own body.
My dad was an oncologist for years and he said that one of the reasons we’re having trouble in the NHS is that people have stopped smoking. Unfortunately if you are stricken with lung cancer then your prognosis is not good - and while this is a tragedy - you potentially could end up costing much more money in terms of social care and hospital visits if you carry on to live to a later age but get stricken with a more complex degenerative disease.
This is disappointing. Honestly I has found Sunak to be a relief on the whole after our previous few Prime Ministers, probably on par with Therasa May. In my opinion this is a cynical attempt to steal a policy that Labour’s Wes Streeting was going to announce soon in order to take the wind out of his sails.
So the NHS would be better off if more people just died and didn’t waste your dad’s time. Nice.
He’s retired now but one of the arguments being put forward for the ban is that it will help the NHS. Purely actuarially, his anecdotal experience was that people living longer has been one of the biggest factors in the budget being squeezed over the years. Interestingly the other huge money sink was litigation by patients but that’s a separate thing to what we’re discussing.
Edit: Not that it should be relevant but he also smoked for the majority of his career as a doctor. The observation is more about how wider behaviour of the population affected their budgets.
But I don’t think the government should be able to decide what an adult puts in their own body.
What if nicotine is legal, and only the smoking is illegal?
I think that is what’s being proposed by the policy. I suppose I have two objections to that: Firstly, I think people should be able to make bad choices provided they aren’t harming others. Secondly, it could be counterproductive creating an artifical scarcity for younger generations; like it could end up making smoking cool again like cannabis (arguably) is.
Second hand smoke is very harmful.
I don’t know if that’s feasible given that adults are adults after all. But maybe just restrict the sale of cigarettes and make it so burdensome to sell them in shops so most don’t even bother. And do the same for vapes. Vapes are ridiculously easy to buy so stick them in the same locked cabinet that other nicotine products go in and ban all advertising and signage.
just restrict the sale of cigarettes and make it so burdensome to sell them in shops so most don’t even bother
I think that might help. Increasing friction for an activity makes it less likely to happen (like when your TV remote is in another room).
And do the same for vapes. Vapes are ridiculously easy to buy so stick them in the same locked cabinet that other nicotine products go in
That needs a bit more differentiation, no? After all, there are vapes without nicotine. I would also differentiate between single-use vapes (just ban these, wtf) and refillables. They’re also (most probably) much less unhealthy compared to smoking tobacco.
In my country (Germany), vapes are only available in shops, and most sadly only offer single-use vapes. Cigarettes were (are?) also sold in vending machines, on streets or in bars. So from my point of view, vapes are already harder to buy than cigarettes. What situation did you have in mind?
All in all, I think it would make sense to make access to these things harder / price higher based on how harmful they are, and how addictive they are.
ban all advertising
All for it!
How is this supposed to be enforced? In a decade’s time are shopkeepers going to have to challenge anyone buying a packet of fags who looks under 28? And then later it’ll be “sorry mate, can you prove you’re 44?” and so on.
It’s not enforceable.
India is about as united as Afghanistan. We’ll see shops in Delhi follow the law and the government enforcing it.
Everywhere else probably won’t even know this is happening. If they did, they’ll take is as an opportunity to gauge young people buying tobacco. No law enforcement will occur.
Rishi Sunak is brittish PM btw.
I think you answered your own question.
Asking for ID when buying cigarettes is not exactly an outlandish proposal. It’s already done around the current legal smoking age.
Arguably, this proposal makes it easier, since there’s a fixed cutoff date of birth instead of calculating their age.
Is it legal to discriminate against people who are over 21 years old in the UK? I think you couldn’t even pass a law like that in Germany.
Discrimination has an actual legal protected definition, it doesn’t just mean I want to do something and I’m not allowed.
Care to share it? I’m quite sure it’s applicable in this case.
Allowing the future 45-year old to smoke, while making it illegal for the future 44-year old, sounds like text book age-based discrimination to me. And the health based age argument (protecting the youth), which is the main reason for smoking/alcohol regulations, doesn’t make sense here, cause they’re not teens anymore.
By the time they’re 44 hopefully they’re not such crybabies and have learned to accept a law that’s been there their whole life. Or they just get someone else to buy them.
Either way it limits access and I think that’s good, even if not perfect.
That’s such a ridiculous and unnecessary scenario. Just make it illegal in 20 years and be done with it. Why put so much money and effort into such a badly designed solution?
Why not right now? Waiting 20 years is such a ridiculous and unnecessary scenario
Imagining a 70 year old hanging around a store for some 80 year old to come by to ask them if they could buy them some cigs.
Calling it discrimination is quite a stretch. By that logic our gun laws are discrimination, too and why can’t I buy enriched uranium in stores? I’m being discriminated against!!! Muh pearls! Some laws exist to protect people from themselves and I would welcome a law like this in Germany. Cigarettes and vapes don’t do anything that you can’t do in other ways, without harming others. Except maybe get you more breaks at work :P
I disagree. It’s not the same, because everyone can buy a gun if they have the paperwork for it (and noone can buy the uranium). It’s not only an exclusive group of old people, people with spots on their skin or people with green eyes. Otherwise it would be discrimination, because it creates differential treatment based solely on age, skin type, eye color…
We also discriminate against young people to protect their vulnerable health via alcohol, tobacco regulations. But it’s justifiable and ‘good’ discrimination, because they’re not of age yet and need to be protected.
I’m not smoking or anything btw so I’m not emotionally involved in this argument, I’m just curious about the debate :D
Not everyone can buy a gun, to get the paperwork you need to meet a somewhat arbitrary age requirement and you have to be “mentally stable”. So we are discriminating against mentally handicapped people. It makes sense, I don’t even disagree with it, just saying that it’s the same logic as op’s.
Okay, maybe a better example: if you’re interested in becoming president you have to be at least 40. Sounds like age discrimination to me :P
I don’t smoke so I’m not super invested in this either. However, I travel a lot by train and besides the trains always being late what annoys me most are smokers. Smoking is already banned at all train stations and bus stops but the first thing some people do when exiting a train is lighting a cigarette. In the middle of a crowd. Imo the only way to stop them from doing that in crowds is by banning smoking completely & this law is a good way to do that, but it would have to be an EU-wide measure imo. Otherwise it’s too easy to just drive to a neighbouring country and buy a pack of cigarettes.
Not everyone can buy a gun, to get the paperwork you need to meet a somewhat arbitrary age requirement and you have to be “mentally stable”. So we are discriminating against mentally handicapped people.
Sure, that’s exactly what we do. And there’s a good reason for that. I’m also not against dropping it, just because it’s discriminatory.
Okay, maybe a better example: if you’re interested in becoming president you have to be at least 40. Sounds like age discrimination to me :P
Sure. In this case I don’t see a rightful reason for it to exist though, which is why it has to be abolished.
I hate second hand smoke as much as every other non-smoker, but I’m not a fan of banning smoking, just because I think it’s annoying. Let people ruin their health if they want it that bad. We live in a time where second hand smoke is almost completely avoidable. At least in Germany. With the vapes it’s even less of a problem now. If I breathe in smoke from some other guys’ cigarette once a month it won’t affect my health.
However there’s a much much bigger problem regarding breathing in toxic fumes, which we should address immediately: cars.
It is avoidable overall but it always requires an effort on my part which is the wrong way around imo.
Ultimately my stance on it is that it’s annoying but there’s only so much we can reasonably do about it. I don’t expect dB or the police to patrol train stations to make sure nobody is smoking. It’s largely avoidable and if people want to kill themselves then they’re free to do that. We have much bigger problems to focus on, like the one you mentioned: cars. (And maybe if more people used the train instead of cars there’d be more of an incentive make sure most of your customers aren’t being bothered by a minority)
I mean, if you have the equipment and chemicals, i think you can buy uranium ores and manually process them for a tiny amount of u235
Imagine turning 18 (or whatever the smoking age is in the UK) and starting to smoke during the year this rule takes effect. Then, every year from that point forward, you’d have to wait for your birthday to start smoking again.
Oh, the horror!
It’s DOB not age.
It is 18.
But this law will be designed to target current 14 year olds. In theory they will never legally be allowed to smoke.
If you’re smoking now, this will not affect you.
Most people who “start smoking” don’t just pick up a pack and BOOM addicted. It’s a psychological conditioning over many months or even years that leads to full on addiction. It starts with a drag or two off a friends cig, then it’s a pack purchased for weekend partying, then it’s “I’ll have a cig with my coffee”, then it’s “I smoke half a pack a day”. A public awareness campaign coupled with the “one more year” approach to smoking laws would basically eliminate all new young smokers. Vaping on the other hand is actively being pushed onto kids. Kids don’t want actual tobacco anymore.
Thanks, I’m well aware of these issues. My point is that they should just prohibit what they think should be prohibited, and that they should do so for everyone, not just those that sit below an arbitrary age threshold. The sole point of this proposal is to pass laws selectively so that they don’t affect age groups with whom they would be unpopular, and I don’t think this is how laws should be passed.
If a rule were implemented it would most likely be "no one born before 2005 can purchase cigarettes.
Then 18 year olds born on January 1 or December 31st of 2005 can purchase cigarettes for the rest of their lives but if you were 17 when the rule was implemented you’re banned for life.
Or just… don’t smoke?
I don’t and never have, but this doesn’t make the proposed rule less ridiculous.
Ah yes, because making drugs illegal has worked so well in the past.
Setting age limits on substance use is a little different from criminalizing possession/use. In the case of smoking, it has helped reduce rates. This is something backed by people working in public health, who also support decriminalization for possession and bringing in safe consumption sites. It’s all about finding the right approach for an issue.
I’d rather focus on calling out the OTHER bad stuff his government is doing, instead of turning this one partisan based on which party introduced it
It’s not really an age limit when you’ll never reach it, it’s just gradual criminalization.
That’s not true. It’s a ban on the sale not possession or consumption. The end user is not being criminalized.
Theoretically there’s nothing stopping from importation (barring implementation of another law).
But this isn’t am age limit, its using an age limit as a hack to basically grandfather in a smoking ban. It is about finding the right approach, and this ain’t it.
Why isn’t this it?
For the same reason prohibition of alcohol didn’t work, for the same reason the drug war didn’t work, for the same reason prescription requirements for medically useful narcotics doesn’t work. It doesn’t matter what the law is, people will make their own choices, and if the things are available, legally or not, people that want to use them will use them.
Look at the US. For all it’s faults, it has handled smoking very very well. The younger generation basically doesn’t smoke cigarettes. They’re not banned from it for life, they just were informed about it and so they find it disgusting and don’t really do it. You can’t even really get a date anymore with someone if you smoke cigarettes and you’re under like 40.
Making things easily available increases their rates of use
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28850065/
ASH surveys showed a rise in the prevalence of ever use of e-cigarettes from 7% (2016) to 11% (2017) but prevalence of regular use did not change remaining at 1%. In summary, surveys across the UK show a consistent pattern: most e-cigarette experimentation does not turn into regular use, and levels of regular use in young people who have never smoked remain very low.
Except it doesn’t. Vapes are super easy for kids to get, yet somehow they don’t stick with it.
reports from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found people who started smoking before age 21 are more likely to have a high nicotine dependence, and raising the age to buy tobacco to 21 impacts the sale of such products.
found average monthly cigarette sales in Hawaii dropped about 4.4% following the new law. California sales declined 11.7%, and mainland sales dropped 10.6%.
This really varies by state, based on the smoking policies. In Republican led states, smoking policies have led to shorter life spans.
Whilst I agree with you in that I don’t think this is an optimal approach, at the same time I’m curious as to whether this would create a significant black market for cigarettes.
Anybody already addicted will continue to have access. Anyone not addicted has to overcome the barrier of acquiring it illicitly, which works in tandem with education about the harm it does.
Considering how bulky cigarettes are compared to most other drugs, I wonder whether most dealers would carry around loads of cigarettes - particularly if they’d be at risk of being prosecuted for having them (which I don’t think is the case here, though).
However, it would probably increase the rate at which weed is cut with tobacco as it increases the addictiveness and ensures customer dependency for the dealers.
I got my first cigarette from a uda (local gang) dealer. So yes there would be a black market for cigs
Raising age limits on smoking has not reduced rates, making tobacco use taboo in society and knowing how dangerous it is for you has. In the US like 9% use any form of tobacco (which it’s more likely around 7% or less because they include people who have smoked in their lives and quit as well). At this point no one is really smoking… going after tobacco still is just stupid.
reports from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found people who started smoking before age 21 are more likely to have a high nicotine dependence, and raising the age to buy tobacco to 21 impacts the sale of such products.
found average monthly cigarette sales in Hawaii dropped about 4.4% following the new law. California sales declined 11.7%, and mainland sales dropped 10.6%.
It’s more like 18-19% in the US.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10168602/#:~:text=In 2021%2C an estimated 46,hookah)*%20(0.9%25).
Edit: not sure why the link got all fucky but it still works, somehow.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/1717/Tobacco-Smoking.aspx
%11…not 18-19% at all.
That’s smoking, not tobacco products use. Vaping, for instance, is its own category.
Tobacco use includes more options, so the numbers will be higher
Not really, cigar and pipe tobacco smokers are a rounding error against the population…nasal snuff users even less. Vaping is only added to pad the numbers. Let’s get real here, cigarette smokers are what is being effected, not other forms of tobacco use which are basically non existent.
By “pad the numbers” you mean “accurately reflect reality?”
I am aware that cigarette smokers are who is affected by this policy but that is not the discussion at hand.
Also raising age limits did reduce smoking rates, but also neither here nor there as this policy is not strictly about raising age to purchase but effectively forming a generational cutoff.
Sunak is really reaching here, to say the least, but the data is the data. It’s not worth trying to ignore reality.
Read the article for fucks sake.
They’re not making the drug illegal, just cigarettes. People who want nicotine still have other options.
It’s like how no one goes out of their way to make/sell pure ethanol, because you can still buy beer or vodka.
That’s still prohibition… it’s flat out dumb. A kid isn’t smoking a $10 cigar…
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Yeah I don’t think so.
Afaik NZ has already implemented such a rule.
It has.
So many things wrong with this. First thing that pops to mind is that Sunak thinks we actually pay attention to these age restrictions.
A show of hands, who here has smoked before it was legal for you to do so? How about drank alcoholic beverages?
The second thing, how much interest does Sunak have in tobacco alternatives? Probably a lot, considering how much he’s pushing it…
E: autocorrect mishaps.
But what will boebert do while jerking off dudes at movie theaters?
This won’t affect her as Sunak is the Prime Minister of the UK.
No, no, they have a point.
She was vaping, not smoking.
no difference
She went from suck to blow
Fucking surveillance state you have there
It’s a camera… in private property…
I don’t see anything wrong with having cameras in cinemas and theatres.
You say that, but yet bringing a camera is guaranteed to get you kicked out of a cinema.
I meant a security camera.
And no shit you would get kicked out for taking a regular one. They don’t want you to record the movie.
Ohhhhhh, is that why.
I mean yeah, why else would they not want you taking a camera?
