Rishi Sunak announces radical law to ban children aged 14 now from EVER buying cigarettes despite Tory outrage over ‘illiberal’ smoke-free plan
by dailymail
Rishi Sunak announces radical law to ban children aged 14 now from EVER buying cigarettes despite Tory outrage over ‘illiberal’ smoke-free plan
by dailymail
33 comments
Rishi Sunak today formally announced bold plans to ban today’s children from ever being able to buy cigarettes, despite a Tory revolt over his ‘illiberal’ smoke-free ambition.
If the law is eventually given the go ahead, kids born after 2009 will never legally be able to buy tobacco.
The Prime Minister has argued he is building ‘a better future for our children’. Health campaigners, experts and charities have all commended the move, described as the ‘biggest public health intervention in a generation’.
The full report:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-12719811/Rishi-Sunak-defies-Tory-revolt-vows-create-smoke-free-generation-law-banning-children-aged-14-buying-cigarettes.html?ito=social-reddit
This law has worked well in Australia to reduce smoking.
It’s difficult for me to understand the mentality of those that argue against this kind of law.
The government are saying “hey, let’s stop these children from being harmed and becoming addicted to this poison”.
And somehow people think this is a bad thing.
Which would you prefer?
A state having the power to stop you doing things that they deem as bad for you.
Or
A state who funds research & educational programs and lets you make a choice.
I personally prefer option 2 & I really hate smoking so I find it hard *to understand how anyone would want 1.
I do wonder if anyone would pick 1 for smoking but then hate the idea for other stuff like weed, alcohol, energy drinks, playing games for more than an hour a day, the list could keep going and get quite absurd.
*Edit, extra two words.
Should include vapes too, but unfortunately governments have allowed those companies to take root, reducing any success this new law might have to a pyrrhic victory at best, from a public health perspective at least.*
Governments should be honest about the fact that these products – cigarettes and vapes – are huge net contributors to tax revenue. Without them, alcohol prices would need to pushed up (even) further, which would be deeply unpopular. Therefore it’s in the interest of successive governments for people to continue smoking – or vaping, now – they just can’t say it out loud.
* Yes, I know vaping isn’t as harmful as smoking. But there’s still a lot we don’t know about vaping, the uptake among young people is higher than smoking has been for some time, and I don’t think you’ll find many healthcare professionals who think actively or tacitly guiding generation after generation into addiction is a good plan.
I’m conflicted …… it’s a “good thing” but is this kind of nanny state intervention really wanted.
The logical next step with this kind of thinking is to ban alcohol – far more damaging to society…….. but of course there’d be pushback on that.
Despite the fact there will be benefits I’m not sure I want the state mandating personal choices at this level.
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Is the plan to make buying cigarettes a criminal offence or selling cigarettes a criminal offence? Because the latter is reasonable but the former just creates another thing the state can use to punish citizens who do things the government doesn’t like.
Redditors will unironically moan about weed (and harder) drugs being illegal and spout off about the war on drugs yet absolutely wank themselves in to a frenzy about how great banning smoking is.
Cannot fucking stand this authoritarian wank. If people want to buy and smoke cigs as an adult they should have the freedom to do so. Alcohol causes likely and equally big issue especially when so many people clearly drink over the limit but believe themselves to not be heavy drinkers. But I doubt even half the people backing this move with cigs would back it for Alcohol.
I’m not sure how I feel about this.
Something about in 20 odd years, two adults 35 and 34 years old could both want to buy cigarettes. But the 34 year old is not allowed to buy them, but the 35 year old can just feels a bit odd.
But I also can’t really think of an alternative in how you get to a smoke free society
While we’re there, why don’t we ban alcohol too? Off the top of my head we could solve alcohol poisoning, drastically reduce antisocial behaviour, domestic violence, drunk driving, A+E strain, Ambulance call outs, vomit piles on pavement and obesity.
Oh wait, no one wants to ban that? Would be crazy right? Nanny state and all that?
I give it three days until we find out Rishi has shares in E-cigarettes
Tory performative outrage at its finest about illiberal practices.
They’re happy to ban cannabis that is a natural plant, has significant medical benefits and requires zero processing all while their connections grow medical cannabis legally and profit from that. (Practically all other illegal drugs are processed in someway).
I’m a smoker, but I’m not against a ban like this. However for me, the economic case has to be made that the costs of tobacco related illness outweigh the tax receipts the government receives for this to make real sense.
To be honest I’m all for this, there’s no mention of them not being allowed to smoke cigarettes. Ban them from buying it from the shops, I’ll be able to drive round shotting tobacco out to people at a 50% markup and finally be able to afford to buy a house 😁
Going to be interesting when I’m 50 and there’s 30 year olds begging be to buy them fags in the shop haha
I don’t even hate the idea. Vapes will still be legal to buy and while long term effects of vaping (25 years plus) are unknown, it definitely mitigates some of the other negative effects that smoking causes.
People will still be able to try tobacco abroad should they wish and my guess is the black market of selling tobacco bought on duty free will increase.
I’m guessing shisha bars will have to start doing ID checks which will be a bit inconvenient though.
Having lost relatives and family friends to smoking-related illnesses, good. I understand why are some upset about it though.
It’s a shame they’ll all be vaping from the age of 14 instead though.
Alcohol related issues cost the NHS approx. £3.5b a year in England.
Smoking related issues cost the NHS approx. £2.5b a year.
So, we’ll be doing the same for alcohol, then?
It will go under ground there making more problems
On one hand you should be able to put whatever you want in your body. Otherwise how far does this reach? Ban alcohol while you’re at it. Ban processed food. Ban McDonald’s. Ban meat.
On the other hand, we all pay the price because healthcare is free, paid for by people’s taxes.
This is an age old power struggle between the individual and the group. Do we limit individual freedoms to benefit the group or not?
How very authoritarian of them, disgusting. This is the kind of rubbish I’d expect to see in North Korea or Soviet states but hey, some of you continue to clap at the erosion of personal freedoms and choice. What a load of nonsense, if you are on board with the government taking away personal choice you should be ashamed.
I think this is all really tricky to manage. One of those issues where I think both sides actually have really legitimate arguments and concerns and god knows where I land on the issue.
I know firsthand that I wish tobacco hasn’t been freely available and socially acceptable when I was 16.
Does anybody know the details on this with regards to non ciggarette tobacco products?
I recently quit vaping to replace it with Snuff, which I purchase from a tobacconist, I was suprised to learn that Pipe Tobacco, Cigars (Even Cigarillos) and Snuff are sold in the branded packaging still – so I read that as the plain packaging laws only apply to ciggarettes and rolling tobacco, will this be the same for this law?
Can a 14 year old buy Cafe Creme cigarillos with no filter but not Silk Cut when this law passes?
What about Shisha?
Guessing that big tobacco have diversified enough to ensure that the sale of highly addictive nicotine can continue via their monopolies. Tories wouldn’t risk losing donor money for such a “nanny state” policy in any other case. It is probably cheaper to sell nicotine via vapes, perhaps produced synthetically by the old tobacco companies which will now likely lead to poor tobacco farmers losing business.
But it’s all good: the tories get to look like they are doing something good for humanity and the already thriving black market that exists around counterfeit/stolen tobacco products, smuggling and distribution will see a huge spike in revenue.
People will just find other vices. I’m surprised they’re doing it, they’ll lose tax money, there must be more to it, the government don’t give a shit about anyone but themselves.
Can someone please think of the children!
When are we going to deal with 8 year olds on vapes again?
So you can’t buy cigarettes as a legal adult but you can take life altering hormones to alter your gender at age 12 lmao
Big tobacco clearly aren’t the big party donors they used to be.
Or Rishi’s in laws have no investments in it. Or maybe some other addictive substances like alcohol.
The only people against this are people who profit from the sale of cigarettes
Bit hypocritical with the average weight of MPs, combined with their drug use.
I’m pretty sure alcohol is just as dangerous and deadly as nicotine, why doesn’t that ever get any attention?
People who drink are sadder than those who smoke imo, rather be around a nicotine addict over a alcoholic anyway of the week.
Slippery slope allowing a government so much control over your life though.
Heroin is banned. Many harmful things are banned. Should evidentially harmful substances be banned?
This is a way of banning tobacco in a manner that doesn’t suddenly criminalise people who got hooked on it at a time when it was legal and promoted through adverts even.