Exclusive: Sources say law could gradually increase smoking age to ultimately prevent sales to people born after certain year
Rishi Sunak is considering introducing some of the world’s toughest anti-smoking measures that would in effect ban the next generation from ever being able to buy cigarettes, the Guardian has learned.
Whitehall sources said the prime minister was looking at measures similar to those brought in by New Zealand last December. They involved steadily increasing the legal smoking age so tobacco would end up never being sold to anyone born on or after 1 January 2009.
In fairness, smoking tobacco is one of the few routes of administration where outlawing makes sense. The overall societal cost is very high, even for non-smokers, as in second-hand smokers and cigarette butts littering. It's one of the few substances that health experts often recommend to make as unattractive as possible, be it through taxation or law.
I don't really mind vaping or heating that much, I'd be fine with making cigarettes illegal while keeping the alternatives. Unfortunately, latest legislation has imposed higher burdens on the latter while doing jack about smoking.
Using the litter aspects of cigarettes as a reason to curb smoking has always been a tough one for me. Say someone quits smoking and takes up vaping. Now we have introduced plastic waste & to an extent e-waste in the form of batteries in the disposable vapes.
I don't have an answer to it but I have at least thought about how there is no 100% environmentally friendly alternative outside of smoking straight tobacco leaf in rolling papers.
My understanding is that cig smokers actually save our NHS a fair bit of cash, as they die early & rapidly, and they're a boon to the Exchequer due to the huge sin taxes we have
I think a larger more unnoticed social harm is the damage it does to single payer/socialized medicine. When you only have one insurance pool every person receiving healthcare related to smoking is funding that could have gone to treating diseases that aren't as easily preventable.
The same goes for things like diabetes, which is absolutely destroying medicare. Right now one out of every three medicare dollars are being used to treat a completely preventable disease for the vast majority of those inflicted with it.
I think that if you want to smoke or drink tons of soda, that's fine. But we shouldn't be lessening the scope of healthcare coverage for other people just because of your bad habits. Either the industry making the money needs to subsidize the healthcare cost of their consumers, or the consumers themselves need to do it.
Just like every other drug. Everyone wants to legalise marijuana, ostensibly for the tax money (but not really), and yet it has far greater social costs than tax will recover. Even the states that legalise it (and consequently becoming tourist destinations) are not actually benefiting from it even though the "Las Vegas effect" means that they should disproportionately benefit from it.
There can be some significant downside to a black market though. De-regulation could pose additional health risks to users as the product may be exposed to unknown and untested chemicals. Not to mention the additional violence and related crimes that always seem to accompany a black market. Prohibition didn't work for alcohol. Prohibition isn't working for Weed. Why do we think it will work for nicotine?
Honestly, tobaco is pretty crap as a recreational drug. It would surprise me if non-smokers would go out of their way to get black market cigarettes like they would with alcohol if it got banned.
you can make it illegal to sell and only a fine for getting caught. Major retailers won't do it, cornershops("/bodegas" for the US) that sell under the counter will do it until they get caught, new ones won't bother because they want their business to be a success, and honestly, probably make more money on chewing gum than black market fags
nicotine high isn't worth the effort to a dealer to sell if you're used to selling fent, coke, weed, triple sod, clarky cat etc
gone within a generation. if you really want it, go to France, smuggle it. it's probably not worth it.
Mostly just the New York City area. In the Boston area they're "packies" (not an ethnic slur -- it's "package store") and most of the rest of the country it's a "convenience store" or "corner store".
Except we have cleaner alternatives in the form of vaping. This isn't like prohibition where all alcoholic beverages were banned, or like drug prohibition where all narcotics and hallucinogens are only accessible for medical need.
If you need nicotine, you can still buy it. Just not in cigarette form.
Do it. First decision I've heard him make that isn't about making profit for himself.... unless he has invested in vape shops ... ah that makes more sense. Fuck Rishi
we have already taken steps to reduce smoking rates. This includes providing 1 million smokers in England with free vape kits via our world-first ‘swap to stop’ scheme
Which family member do you think invested heavily in whichever company got the contract for these vapes?
All these progressively restrictive laws have been good to me. I'm of the generation who remembers smoking on planes, and my grandmother smoking in her hospital bed.
I was probably at two packs a day in the nineties because it was cheap and acceptable.
These days, a pack will last me a week, and I only ever smoke in my backyard at home, in clothing dedicated to the habit that get washed separately from my other clothes.
Bans and social stigma have forced me into near non-smoking without ever consciously trying.
Do I ever have an occasional night of celebratory drinking where I exceed that trend? You betcha, and I don't feel sorry about it. But I'm glad that I'm not the chain smoking beef jerky with a voice three octaves lower than it should be that my grandparents were.
I still believe that people should be able to enjoy vice and that you shouldn't be completely ostracized from society for not living a perfect organic free range fair trade intoxicant free perfectly vegan whatever else life.
But to phase out tobacco as it has been going, I have found that I haven't minded at all in the long term.
(As to the occasional celebratory night, for completely different reasons, I hardly drink anymore. Also was not a conscious choice or effort. It just lost its attraction for me)
Stopping cigarette companies giving away packs of 5 outside colleges if you could prove you were over 16 was a sensible progressively restrictive law that followed to them not being displayed in shops and having warnings in the packets for example.
About bloody time. Cigarettes are disgusting and do nothing but immense harm to those who smoke them, and those around them.
Sunak is a tosser, but cigarettes are a no brainer. Sure, old boomers still smoke them, but only the dumbest young people still smoke, and most of them use e-cigs (which are still bad, but nowhere remotely near as bad).
Several of my grandparents died before I could ever know them because of smoking, for example. Fuck smoking. Smoking kills.
Two of my grandparents died before my birth because they smoked. I smoked. I still vape. I hate that companies make money on addiction. This is still stupid.
That's a load of bullshit. If you're not taking in secondhand smoke (which you shouldn't be forced to,) then it's completely harmless for other people.
Good on you! That’s awesome. thankfully I’m not inhaling anything anymore, but damn if it’s hard to quit the substance entirely. Big ups to everyone who made it out though.
American prohibition and the war on drugs has shown that toal band like that really just make consumption worse while piling a whole new slew of problems onto an existing issue.
I'm very pro-legalization but honestly tobacco is a shit drug. No real high, very addictive and awful health effects. I don't see many people going through the hassle of maintaining their addiction illegally if it was banned everywhere.
banning is never the answer. some people will migrate to a different dissociative substance, but overall it'll increase bootleggers and criminal activity.
Didn't he just say yesterday that he didn't want the government to butt into people's lives? I thought that was why he abandoned all those laws which didn't exist. You know, the meat tax and the 7 bins xD
The (stopped?) trend in the US had been to tax cigs to make them unaffordable. Just before the last major hike, my brand was about $5/pack. Now it is $10-12. So glad I quit.
Is that a viable strategy, to continue tax/price hikes?
I was paying $14 a pack when I quit 6 weeks ago in NYS. The gum is working out great so far and I feel so much better. 17 years smoking regularly. They should be banned everywhere, sorry fellow smokers. It's a disgusting, nasty habit that is incredibly hard to break.
I’ve been on zyns for a while now, my lungs do feel so much better. It’s hard to quit the substance, but it’s easier than ever to take it in without inhaling anything.
I actually want to know, because every complaint against vape that I have seen has been about the nicotine ones, which are more prevalent for sure but I want to know if non nicotine vapes are also bad.
IMHO they should ban all types of smoking. If people want to eat weed brownies and nicotine chewing gums, I don't care. But smoking just smells bad and is really unpleasant to be around in the street.
Just ban smoking drugs and combustion engine. I just want clean air.
Living in a tolerant society means that we need to be willing to deal with these little inconveniences in our lives. One of my neighbours has kids who love to play on a go-kart and wake me up at 6am on a Saturday morning, sometimes I can smell people barbecuing even though I’m vegan, and so on.
As long as it’s not a direct risk to health (e.g. smoking indoors) and not extremely obnoxious (playing extremely loud music and refusing to turn it down) people should be able to do what they want to.
One of my neighbours has kids who love to play on a go-kart and wake me up at 6am on a Saturday morning
As long as it’s not ... extremely obnoxious (playing extremely loud music and refusing to turn it down)
I'm not sure I see a meaningful difference here. And why is it you don't see polluting the air to be a direct health risk? If you wanted to ride a bike or walk instead of drive everywhere, I'm sure you'd see how car exhaust doesn't just disappear immediately.
I remember when they had the same idea around 2014, to ban smoking for anyone born in the UK from 2000 onwards. That would have been easier to enforce.
Not drinking at all and drinking far less is actually trending up significantly with younger demographics in the UK. It's the older generations who've got the real problems. A law like this wouldn't do anything to help with that.
I wouldn't count too much on younger generations drinking less forever. Smoking was in decline here for years for younger demographics but recently went back up. The same might happen for alcohol. You never know.
Things like edibles, sure let 'em have it, but we've only just gotten to the point where life doesn't smell like nicotine anymore, we shouldn't be replacing that with everything smelling like weed.
Generally I agree with you, but with cigarettes you are not making the choice only for yourself. Every time you walk down the street with a cigarette in hand you are forcing other people to inhale it.
I was born in a world without a cigarette ban in restaurants and clubs and the current situation is 1000 time more preferable imo.
I've been suggesting they do this in the states for a while now.
I smoke. I like smoking, and I don't plan to quit. But it's obvious that most people want smoking to go away. They keep increasing the price of cigarettes, they keep banning smoking in new areas, and every time they'll tell you it's to keep kids from smoking. It's a lie - they want everyone to stop smoking.
So fine. Set a date, and make it illegal for anyone born after that date to smoke. Then leave us smokers alone. If it's as bad for us as you say it is, we'll all die soon anyway.
Will some people born after that date smoke? Sure. But the majority won't. And it'll be a constant annoyance for them that they can't just go buy a carton at the store, which will encourage them to quit. I'd feel sorry for them, but I was told it was bad for me, not that I'd be standing outside in -50° weather puffing as fast as I can because I can't smoke in my hotel room, or that I'd spend more on cigarettes than I do electricity. They at least know they'll never be allowed to smoke.
they keep banning smoking in new areas, and every time they’ll tell you it’s to keep kids from smoking. It’s a lie - they want everyone to stop smoking.
That's just not the case, at all. I'm a very recent ex-smoker and non-smoking areas absolutely helped me stop, but not for the reason you might think.
In Australia it's the same - cigarettes getting more expensive and the number of places you can smoke reducing.
No one ever suggested that it's to keep kids from smoking - the message has always been pretty clear: every cigarette is doing harm, so less places to smoke means less harm.
The main benefit of non-smoking areas is that it made me realise that withdrawals and cravings are really no big deal. About 5 years ago I was terrified of trying to stop because I had convinced myself that the withdrawals would be awful. Then I took a job at a place where it just wasn't possible to smoke even on breaks. The most noticeable thing was that getting through the entire day without a smoke was actually no big deal - the symptoms were very manageable.
So, to say "they" want everyone to smoke is an odd take IMO. The assumption is that everyone want's to stop - and non-smoking areas assist with that.
I don't really believe that you do enjoy smoking. I mean, sitting with friends and having a few beers and smokes is certainly an enjoyable activity - but it's not the smoking that makes it enjoyable. Anyhow, even if you did truly enjoy smoking, I guess you unfortunately just have to cater for the majority who do not.
I think this is a cultural difference. In the US it's not uncommon for common sense health regulation to get ignored - such as the amount of sugar in soda - because people cause an uproar about freedoms being taken away.
But if you say it's about the health of sweet, innocent children... well then suddenly it's a lot more palatable for the public.
So here in the US, you can want everyone to stop smoking, but make the case that it is for the benefit of children in order to help achieve that goal.
Maybe things are different down under, but here in the states they very much do use the "keep kids from smoking" excuse. Every. Single. Time.
I don't mind going outside or whatever so much. That wasn't the point I was making. When I started smoking, you could still smoke in restaurants, airplanes, offices, etc. They still had ashtrays at the end of every aisle at the supermarket when I was a kid. Picking up smoking wasn't a radical thing to do.
They've pushed us out to the fringes, but that's fine. But their goal is to eliminate smoking. What I'm saying is that enough is enough. Let us smoke off away from everyone and die out.
People saying that's a good decision are simply unqualified to talk about it, they're completely clueless and willingly ignorant, just like sunak and his fking delusional confidence. How is it not obvious that people will refer to black market tobacco? Has history AND WHATS HAPPENING LIKE RIGHT NOW IN GOD DAMN REAL TIME not fking taught you all what banning drugs does? Because of people like you other people will die. That's also YOUR responsibility, not just theirs. It's YOU who affect their decision. And it's not just the fact that it's black market and people will just die, it's also the fact that underground, potentially mafia-like organisations will have MORE POWER. You all LEGIT make me believe in totalitarian governments. I simply can not handle the confident ignorance.
Like imagine a society where 1/4 of the population is forced to quit cold turkey. Y'all are fking insane
It's very easy to compare this to The Prohibition but the reality is alcohol is much more popular than tobacco. For someone who doesn't drink, understanding the appeal of drinking in a social setting is way easier. With this law I don't think there is a need for a black market of tobacco like there was with alcohol as it will still be available to purchase, just more controlled. The effect will be a reduction in exposure in younger generations that simply won't find the need to start smoking. This works and in my province of Quebec since laws have been getting stricter the only people that still smoke are poor or raised by heavy smoker parents.
Also, doing home made alcohol is pretty easy and pretty dangerous too, this is why is better to have it legal, regulated and restricted. Try to grow up your own tobacco.
"WELL WHAT ABOUT" shut up, oh shut up. Ban drug = force people to do unsafe things to get an unsafe version of the drug. It's simple. That's how it worked, that's how it works RIGHT NOW, and that's how it will continue to work unless something fundamental changes in the society. Exposure won't be reduced. Kids get tobacco illegally anyways. Nothing is changing for them. Next step after that is underground production of tobacco products which means PEOPLE WILL DIE
Did you read the article? The legislation steadily increases the legal age limit so that kids don't get hooked on tobacco in the first place. No one will have to "quit cold turkey".
One of the biggest issues with the war on drugs is that it criminalizes the use of certain drugs. This doesn't do that.
As for your claim about a black market and a mafia:
we have already taken steps to reduce smoking rates. This includes providing 1 million smokers in England with free vape kits via our world-first ‘swap to stop’ scheme
They're still providing people with tobacco, just a less-deadly kind. Comparing that to the war on drugs is ridiculous. The point of the war on drugs isn't to get people to quit using dangerous drugs recreationally, every reasonable person wants that. The point of it is to control minorities and poor people. That's absolutely not what's happening here.
None of this is to defend Sunak btw, he's a broken clock that happens to be right in this instance.
You left out the part where kids get tobacco anyways and this will just make it unsafe for them and that WILL cost their lives. It WILL kill someone's child.
Btw war on tobacco is war on drugs. Tobacco is a drug. Making it irrelevant in people's minds is the way, not formally banning it
The fact rushi sunak is brutally cutting down on the NHS, and benefits for the general populace, those who are addicted will simply be blamed. It's such a textbook tactic and has been used for decades now.
Well maybe think a bit better idk? Maybe learn to read too? Cuz I literally pointed out objective (emphasis on this word) reasons why that's a bad idea
Yes, but it is a drug with very little upside. It is more addictive than caffeine and produces an incredibly short and mild effect, in comparison. The vasoconstriction is not worth the very mild buzz from nicotine.