Ah yes, because prohibition has worked wonders over the years!
All this would do would be to boost the sales of black market tobacco, decreasing tax revenue with no tangible impact on health. Let’s face it most drugs are banned and people still seek them out because they are addicted.
Over half of brits wanted Brexit. Over half of brits are cunts.
There would probably be some kind of disadvantage to letting a slim 52% majority in a single poll decide to enact something that’s going to affect other people more than it will them.
Ask em again after telling them the amount of tax it brings in compared to what it costs. Then add in the saving in pensions as smokers die younger. It costs about 2.5 bn to pay for smoking related treatment and brings in over 10.6bn in tax alone add the savings from pensions and you are probably closer to 11bn a year.
Plus you’d still have the smoking costs to the NHS from smokers who have smoked for decades. Then a fuck load of other costs from black market tobacco.
11bn is a substantial amount of tax revenue to lose.
I’d like alcohol banned. I could live without it, it hurts people individually and collectively, it has a culture associated with it in this country that I personally think is garbage, etc
But I don’t want it banned.
Morally I believe people should be free to put what they want in to their own bodies. I don’t want the state EVER interfering on those grounds, whether it’s for a perceived positive or to negate a perceived consequence on my behalf. It’s none of their god damn business.
Prohibition is whack-a-mole. You’re not solving the root causes of why people indulge in the first place, such as, working like a slave all week only to lose most of your pay in taxes and bills. Or the shit weather and lack of things do in winter. Etc.
None smoker here, what about all the people who are smokers, with that nicotine addiction now facing withdrawal symptoms all at once across the country.
I only foresee riots if it was banned over night.
Edit: aware this is conjecture, raising the age limit each year seems like the best approach
The problem is addiction. People who are addicted to something will still find a way to do it, this creates a black market, which in turn funds organised crime rather than legitimate businesses. In my opinion, second hand smoke is less of a societal problem than organised crime.
Criminalizing drugs often ends up with the drugs in question becoming more dangerous because of the lack of government oversight, if something is illegal, there aren’t standard checks of product quality, there aren’t recommended doses and your pharmacist/corner shop owner is less likely to stab you for looking at them funny.
Also, draconian measures like banning cigarette sales may undermine the public’s faith in the law. This is what happened in the US during prohibition and it led to a significant increase in crimes of all kinds, not just related to alchohol, because people didn’t think that the law was reasonable and so were more inclined to break it. In fact, during prohibition, quite a few of the people who originally campaigned for it (mostly women who had been abused by their drunk husbands) realised that banning alchohol made their situation worse and became some of the harshest critics of prohibition.
Becoming accustomed to freedoms being taken away in the U.K.
First they came for the…
I normally hate the term “nanny state”, but I think this is an appropriate context for it.
Just create a cutoff date. “People born after 2010 cannot buy cigarettes” or something like that.
No please it’s my slow burn suicide attempt being spread out over a few decades.
In all seriousness this will drive so many old fellas down the pub onto the black market.
Prohibition never works.
If they put people in prison for this it will make saying “I’m a chain smoker” hit different.
Why are the public like this?
I don’t smoke, and I think it’s stupid. But come on..
I’m not a smoker, and obviously it’s bad for you, but I don’t really like the state deciding what you can and can’t have.
Tax it, sure. Ban it? Not for me.
We have our vices because it makes life easier. I think we need to allow that more now than ever.
Cigarettes are disgusting but I’m more concerned with vaping which appears to be completely unregulated and out of control.
The number of vape shops in my small town alone is insane. At least cigs are hidden away behind shutters.
An underground black market for tobacco products could well be the catalyst that kick starts a new economic boom in the UK. Sales of fast cars and boats up, new pretend retail stores, new police training colleges, satellite surveillance infrastructure, underground tunnels, 6 million more customs officials, all up the return of happy days, all brought to you by Tory Enterprises Inc.
I’d prefer legalisation, or at least decriminalisation, of all drugs, rather than making another one illegal.
They also want an end to inflated energy prices and the removal of the second self appointed PM but that’s not happening.
A significant number of the British population have an authoritarian streak.
If people want to smoke themselves to death, so be it.
I would love for it to be banned in public places though – it smells awful and the litter is everywhere.
Ah the typical British way. “I don’t like something so it needs to be banned”
Oh yeah that’s a good idea, let’s ask people their opinion. Even better, let’s have a referendum on that. You know since it worked that well last time.
By the way how can the survey say « half of brits » since they haven’t asked everyone.
And why don’t you phase out alcohol and processed food as well you absolute wastes of space.
I’d like an immediate ban on Daily Mail readers and German car drivers.
Its dictatorship of the minority by the majority which is wrong and in some ways akin to the road Germany went down in the 1920’s.
Just because the majority is in favour of something doesnt make it right.
How to increase organised crime overnight?
Ban tobacco.
A meaningless poll.
No survey size, they may as well be making numbers up.
But I like smoking my weed with tobacco! This concerns me deeply
Oh god, the merry go round starts again, banning and prohibition only creates black markets.
When will the out of touch boomers running the country ever learn?
This is a bit morbid, but isn’t smoking actually tax positive? I believe I read a study outlining that the tax collected from cigarette sales was more than the tax cost of treating smoking related illnesses.
I don’t smoke myself and can’t understand why anybody would do so, especially when less harmful alternatives exist in the form of electronic cigarettes. I accept that if cigarettes were invented or discovered in the more recent past and the government hadn’t benefited by taxation then they would likely be outlawed.
But outlawing something that has been legal for so long is just going to push it underground and expose a lot of people to crime who wouldn’t ordinarily have needed to expose themselves to it.
I’d like gambling banned personally or if not banned have it capped in some way to protect people
I have never smoked and most of the people I know who did have either given up or switched to vaping. I don’t know that many people who smoke anymore.
But I don’t want smoking banned.
Over the years the number of places you can smoke has reduced to ether outside or in your own home. For the vast majority of people smokers have absolutely no impact on them. Its not considered cool anymore and is gradually getting less and less. It will eventually die out of its own accord.
As a Smoker, I fully agree that it is an awful habit which everyone will be better off without. Unfortunately the cats out of the bag and banning cigarettes and tobacco will only drive it underground and unregulated.
I think instead we should continue to tax it, perhaps even increase the tax in order to fund a stop smoking service. Right now, a pack of cigs is cheaper than 1 week of nicotine replacement therapy and that needs to change.
Well I suppose it would criminalise a lot of people!
Well I suppose it would criminalise a lot of people, also you would also create another market for dealers..
Let me guess, over 50% don’t smoke? Look I don’t smoke but if someone wants to they should be able to it’s up to them.
Because the war on drugs is going so well that we should be going to war with more drugs
~50% of the population are below average intelligence, we need much higher thresholds for changing the status quo.
I’m worried on what else will be taxed to cover the loss in taxes.
Trust nothing written or reported in the Daily Mail.
Just think about how many people you know who are reactionary arseholes who believe they are right 100% of the time and think the best solution to everything is for the government to ban the shit they personally don’t like or that causes them mild inconvenience. Y’know – the ‘Fun Police’ types. Those people are why we get survey results like this here. The majority of people in the UK are authoritarians of convenience and will always assume the answer to something bad is to just outright ban it.
Of course, we know *exactly* how well prohibition of the sale of drugs goes, don’t we.
As a nicotine addict (vaper rather than smoker these days), I can confirm that within 3-24 hours, there will be a violent uprising of fellow addicts enduring enforced cold turkey….
By all means restrict the sale and use of tobacco products in public (as we already do), but allow citizens the freedom of choice in their own homes
Allow people to have liberty. It’s quite simple. If individuals want to argue about access to certain types of healthcare for smokers etc. there might be some arguments, but the idea that we would make it illegal to harm your own body is insane. If I want to go and cut my finger off tomorrow that is not illegal, and after doing so I could still go to A&E. Second to this the consequences of alcohol on society and individuals far outweighs the consequences of smoking tobacco. However, we should have the liberty to drink, and if we get hurt we still go to the hospital. This is so basic, how is this even a debate.
That’s actually astonishing, and I say that as someone who detests smoking, but who’s not sure banning it immediately is a good idea…
Almost half of Britons do not want a tobacco ban.
I dislike tobacco, but banning a plant seems contrary to a lot of other things I believe.
I don’t smoke but leave people alone. If they want to smoke then let then and stop trying to dictate what they can or can’t do.
Living in Britain is intensely depressing. Largely because of the British… who frequently want to control the behaviour habits and actions of their neighbours. Even the amount of people umming and ahhing about it here in the comments. “Maybe it would help smokers avoid temptation.” Oh what paragons of virtue you are. So considerate.
Is there really something that complicated about the concept of personal freedom?
46 comments
Ah yes, because prohibition has worked wonders over the years!
All this would do would be to boost the sales of black market tobacco, decreasing tax revenue with no tangible impact on health. Let’s face it most drugs are banned and people still seek them out because they are addicted.
Over half of brits wanted Brexit. Over half of brits are cunts.
There would probably be some kind of disadvantage to letting a slim 52% majority in a single poll decide to enact something that’s going to affect other people more than it will them.
Ask em again after telling them the amount of tax it brings in compared to what it costs. Then add in the saving in pensions as smokers die younger. It costs about 2.5 bn to pay for smoking related treatment and brings in over 10.6bn in tax alone add the savings from pensions and you are probably closer to 11bn a year.
Plus you’d still have the smoking costs to the NHS from smokers who have smoked for decades. Then a fuck load of other costs from black market tobacco.
11bn is a substantial amount of tax revenue to lose.
I’d like alcohol banned. I could live without it, it hurts people individually and collectively, it has a culture associated with it in this country that I personally think is garbage, etc
But I don’t want it banned.
Morally I believe people should be free to put what they want in to their own bodies. I don’t want the state EVER interfering on those grounds, whether it’s for a perceived positive or to negate a perceived consequence on my behalf. It’s none of their god damn business.
Prohibition is whack-a-mole. You’re not solving the root causes of why people indulge in the first place, such as, working like a slave all week only to lose most of your pay in taxes and bills. Or the shit weather and lack of things do in winter. Etc.
None smoker here, what about all the people who are smokers, with that nicotine addiction now facing withdrawal symptoms all at once across the country.
I only foresee riots if it was banned over night.
Edit: aware this is conjecture, raising the age limit each year seems like the best approach
The problem is addiction. People who are addicted to something will still find a way to do it, this creates a black market, which in turn funds organised crime rather than legitimate businesses. In my opinion, second hand smoke is less of a societal problem than organised crime.
Criminalizing drugs often ends up with the drugs in question becoming more dangerous because of the lack of government oversight, if something is illegal, there aren’t standard checks of product quality, there aren’t recommended doses and your pharmacist/corner shop owner is less likely to stab you for looking at them funny.
Also, draconian measures like banning cigarette sales may undermine the public’s faith in the law. This is what happened in the US during prohibition and it led to a significant increase in crimes of all kinds, not just related to alchohol, because people didn’t think that the law was reasonable and so were more inclined to break it. In fact, during prohibition, quite a few of the people who originally campaigned for it (mostly women who had been abused by their drunk husbands) realised that banning alchohol made their situation worse and became some of the harshest critics of prohibition.
Becoming accustomed to freedoms being taken away in the U.K.
First they came for the…
I normally hate the term “nanny state”, but I think this is an appropriate context for it.
Just create a cutoff date. “People born after 2010 cannot buy cigarettes” or something like that.
No please it’s my slow burn suicide attempt being spread out over a few decades.
In all seriousness this will drive so many old fellas down the pub onto the black market.
Prohibition never works.
If they put people in prison for this it will make saying “I’m a chain smoker” hit different.
Why are the public like this?
I don’t smoke, and I think it’s stupid. But come on..
I’m not a smoker, and obviously it’s bad for you, but I don’t really like the state deciding what you can and can’t have.
Tax it, sure. Ban it? Not for me.
We have our vices because it makes life easier. I think we need to allow that more now than ever.
Cigarettes are disgusting but I’m more concerned with vaping which appears to be completely unregulated and out of control.
The number of vape shops in my small town alone is insane. At least cigs are hidden away behind shutters.
An underground black market for tobacco products could well be the catalyst that kick starts a new economic boom in the UK. Sales of fast cars and boats up, new pretend retail stores, new police training colleges, satellite surveillance infrastructure, underground tunnels, 6 million more customs officials, all up the return of happy days, all brought to you by Tory Enterprises Inc.
I’d prefer legalisation, or at least decriminalisation, of all drugs, rather than making another one illegal.
They also want an end to inflated energy prices and the removal of the second self appointed PM but that’s not happening.
A significant number of the British population have an authoritarian streak.
If people want to smoke themselves to death, so be it.
I would love for it to be banned in public places though – it smells awful and the litter is everywhere.
Ah the typical British way. “I don’t like something so it needs to be banned”
Oh yeah that’s a good idea, let’s ask people their opinion. Even better, let’s have a referendum on that. You know since it worked that well last time.
By the way how can the survey say « half of brits » since they haven’t asked everyone.
And why don’t you phase out alcohol and processed food as well you absolute wastes of space.
I’d like an immediate ban on Daily Mail readers and German car drivers.
Its dictatorship of the minority by the majority which is wrong and in some ways akin to the road Germany went down in the 1920’s.
Just because the majority is in favour of something doesnt make it right.
How to increase organised crime overnight?
Ban tobacco.
A meaningless poll.
No survey size, they may as well be making numbers up.
But I like smoking my weed with tobacco! This concerns me deeply
Oh god, the merry go round starts again, banning and prohibition only creates black markets.
When will the out of touch boomers running the country ever learn?
This is a bit morbid, but isn’t smoking actually tax positive? I believe I read a study outlining that the tax collected from cigarette sales was more than the tax cost of treating smoking related illnesses.
I don’t smoke myself and can’t understand why anybody would do so, especially when less harmful alternatives exist in the form of electronic cigarettes. I accept that if cigarettes were invented or discovered in the more recent past and the government hadn’t benefited by taxation then they would likely be outlawed.
But outlawing something that has been legal for so long is just going to push it underground and expose a lot of people to crime who wouldn’t ordinarily have needed to expose themselves to it.
I’d like gambling banned personally or if not banned have it capped in some way to protect people
I have never smoked and most of the people I know who did have either given up or switched to vaping. I don’t know that many people who smoke anymore.
But I don’t want smoking banned.
Over the years the number of places you can smoke has reduced to ether outside or in your own home. For the vast majority of people smokers have absolutely no impact on them. Its not considered cool anymore and is gradually getting less and less. It will eventually die out of its own accord.
As a Smoker, I fully agree that it is an awful habit which everyone will be better off without. Unfortunately the cats out of the bag and banning cigarettes and tobacco will only drive it underground and unregulated.
I think instead we should continue to tax it, perhaps even increase the tax in order to fund a stop smoking service. Right now, a pack of cigs is cheaper than 1 week of nicotine replacement therapy and that needs to change.
Well I suppose it would criminalise a lot of people!
Well I suppose it would criminalise a lot of people, also you would also create another market for dealers..
Let me guess, over 50% don’t smoke? Look I don’t smoke but if someone wants to they should be able to it’s up to them.
Because the war on drugs is going so well that we should be going to war with more drugs
~50% of the population are below average intelligence, we need much higher thresholds for changing the status quo.
I’m worried on what else will be taxed to cover the loss in taxes.
Trust nothing written or reported in the Daily Mail.
Just think about how many people you know who are reactionary arseholes who believe they are right 100% of the time and think the best solution to everything is for the government to ban the shit they personally don’t like or that causes them mild inconvenience. Y’know – the ‘Fun Police’ types. Those people are why we get survey results like this here. The majority of people in the UK are authoritarians of convenience and will always assume the answer to something bad is to just outright ban it.
Of course, we know *exactly* how well prohibition of the sale of drugs goes, don’t we.
As a nicotine addict (vaper rather than smoker these days), I can confirm that within 3-24 hours, there will be a violent uprising of fellow addicts enduring enforced cold turkey….
By all means restrict the sale and use of tobacco products in public (as we already do), but allow citizens the freedom of choice in their own homes
Allow people to have liberty. It’s quite simple. If individuals want to argue about access to certain types of healthcare for smokers etc. there might be some arguments, but the idea that we would make it illegal to harm your own body is insane. If I want to go and cut my finger off tomorrow that is not illegal, and after doing so I could still go to A&E. Second to this the consequences of alcohol on society and individuals far outweighs the consequences of smoking tobacco. However, we should have the liberty to drink, and if we get hurt we still go to the hospital. This is so basic, how is this even a debate.
That’s actually astonishing, and I say that as someone who detests smoking, but who’s not sure banning it immediately is a good idea…
Almost half of Britons do not want a tobacco ban.
I dislike tobacco, but banning a plant seems contrary to a lot of other things I believe.
I don’t smoke but leave people alone. If they want to smoke then let then and stop trying to dictate what they can or can’t do.
Living in Britain is intensely depressing. Largely because of the British… who frequently want to control the behaviour habits and actions of their neighbours. Even the amount of people umming and ahhing about it here in the comments. “Maybe it would help smokers avoid temptation.” Oh what paragons of virtue you are. So considerate.
Is there really something that complicated about the concept of personal freedom?