Maldives just made it illegal for anyone born after 2007 to smoke

7 comments

1. I thought that was a strange way of phrasing an 18yo age limit, but no, that’s a national phase-out.

   >The Maldives has become the first country to impose a generational smoking ban – making smoking, buying and selling tobacco illegal for anyone born after January 1, 2007.

2. This is unambiguously good for public health, but I can’t say I’m thrilled with such draconian laws against basic drugs like tobacco. I don’t think things like this should ever be outright banned.

3. We’re doing the same thing in the UK for anyone born after Jan 2009. I don’t support it. It’s another in the long line of bullshit nanny state policy where the government feels like it has to step in to prevent people having the agency to make bad choices.

   But also, prohibition just doesn’t work. We have more than sufficient evidence of this being the case. It didn’t work in the US with alcohol, it doesn’t work here or anywhere else with drugs, it doesn’t even work here with people underage to buy cigarettes. All this will really do is create a larger market for the people already selling unlicensed tobacco and ironically make tobacco more appealing to young people.

4. It’s easy to make laws that only affect people who can’t vote yet… I mean cigarettes suck but as an ex smoker who started as a teenager, a law like this would just make me want to smoke even harder

5. While this sounds like a good idea in theory, I imagine this will make smoking exponentially more appealing and “cool” for those born after 2007.

   I suppose we’ll see how it goes…

6. I have never been a smoker/vaper and I hate this.

   Print the cancer warnings, curb tobacco’s ability to advertise, but stop directly limiting our freedom by making our vices prohibitively expensive or just illegal.

   It just fucks over poor people while rich people continue to indulge in privacy.

7. I’m going to go against the grain and disagree with the other commenters here. It sounds like a good way to reduce pushback and increase acceptance to removing tobacco and the health risks, pollution, litter, and financial costs to citizens. It might even actually work unlike prohibition because of this. Older people are more likely to be set in their ways and have already tried alcohol and are more likely to be addicted to it. The young who were already banned until a certain age have never experienced it and are certain to not be addicted and are thus more likely to obey the law and be fine with it

   Eventually hopefully they could move on to removing other harmful substances and methods as smoking gets phased out completely.

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