New smoking ban for anyone born after 2009

[Volbeat]

Hey all, just wondering what people's thoughts are on the smoking ban that will come into force which mean anyone born after 2009 will never legally be able to buy cigarettes.

My opinion is that it will be good for public health in general and I say this as a smoker. But what about all the tax etc generated from cigarette and vape sales?

Apologies if this is already being discussed, I've not seen it anywhere on here yet.

That is quite a funny image! I agree though it is quite ludicrous to think my 17 year old can buy them in a year, my 13 year old won’t be able to. I obviously hope that neither of them partake in smoking but when they’re in their 40s, 50s, 60s will this be something that will realistically be policed. It just appears gimmicky to me. Maybe I live in an particularly healthy area but when I’m in my Sainsburys or Tesco local/metro, I’ve never seen teenagers buy cigarettes or those in their early twenties.

Agree with the observation about illegal drugs.

I'd raise the minimum age to 18 or 21, and the penalty for a shop selling to someone underage would be something meaningful. Enforced shop closure for a period or the shop losing the licence to sell alcohol and tobacco.

If the government wants to ban smoking then why doesn’t it ban the sale of cigarettes, tobacco and vapes.
Why spend millions on the idiotic new scheme? It’s so easy for young people to circumvent it. It puts intense pressure on shops. The courts will be packed with offenders.
Alcohol kills and is dangerous to people.
Drunk drivers cause catastrophic injuries and death.
Old people are often badly addicted and would rather give food than smoking.
Just ban tobacco completely.

@GasPanic both probably. But I mean in the sense that one person smoking does affect those around them for eg passive smoking. But I do agree with you about the fast food, maybe that will be next. But smoking is definitely long long overdue

@Newbutoldfather I just don't see 60 year olds in 50 years time being that bothered about getting cigarettes because they will have grown up knowing how bad it is for you and it won't be a "cool" thing by then. I genuinely think it will just fizzle out eventually for the next generation

I’m not a smoker but I just feel like this is a way of getting more control on people. I would never dream of telling adults they can’t smoke.

Is telling adults they can’t murder, rape or steal also a way of getting more control on people?

Utter nonsense. Huge lung cancer rates in Japan: https://www.jto.org/article/S1556-0864(21)03394-3/fulltext#:~:text=Cancer%20statistics%20in%20Japan%202021.&text=Lung%20cancer–related%20deaths%20among,ranked%20second%20with%2022%2C300%20deaths.

And air pollution is a major cause of lung cancer in non-smokers.

This is not a good analogy though as those are all crimes that nobody is allowed to commit; age doesn’t come into it. Your analogy would be accurate if you stated that those under 15 cannot steal, 15+ you can steal!

people cant smoke at work (inside), inside pubs and other public spaces. Adults can still smoke outside. its just being phased out by age

To me the ‘war on drugs’ has been a clear and demonstrable failure. Those who want drugs can easily access them and fuel the criminal underworld. Meanwhile the harms to health are immense.

Why anyone would expect cigarettes to be any different is beyond me.

That must be why young people don't take drugs then.

Ex smoker here.

I began smoking at 16, in my first Saturday job, at a shoe shop, because (without exception) everyone else I worked with had significantly more breaks than me. I raised the issue with my boss who said "you know what the answer is" and offered me a smoke. That was the early noughties.

I smoked all the way through uni and much of my twenties but began to curtail the habit after the government made laws that directly affected me. The most effective control they brought in was around my 30th birthday: the total and complete removal of 10 packs. I would still buy 10 packs for nights at the pub. The perfect size to smoke for 6 hours and then not smoke again until next Saturday.
(Eventually it was starting a family that knocked smoking on the head for good though.)

Recently, I have been offered cigarettes at parties and other events and had no problem politely declining, and so I know I'm done. And it is such a relief. I found quitting really, really hard. I was never a heavy smoker but I was a consistent one. Marlboroughs on pay day. Amber leaf rollies by the 25th of the month. And always, always when I had a drink.

I think what is often forgotten when we talk about these complete bans is that quitting is so hard. People "know" that it's hard, but unless you've lived it or lived with someone that has, it's hard to really quantify. It's so much more than just "a lack of willpower". Smoking becomes a part of you, like needing a wee when you wake up.

For many years the NHS and government focused a lot of time and resources on cessation. (And I tried much of it - patches, little white pens that hum when you "inhale". Everything just made me want a smoke more.) Smoking cessation, in a world where cigarettes are still available and especially if you hang around with people and in places where smoking is "normal".

I regret that first cigarette, (even as a person that likes to say "oh I don't have any regrets" in that serene way, when asked.)

I have absolutely nothing against the smoking ban. It will save us more money that it costs us. It will save more lives than we can even metricate. Our children's children will be the first generation to grow up barely even knowing what a cigarette is. No longer a real thing but some arcane symbol from the Patty and Selmer of yesteryear. What is more, they will never be the children who have to go to school in yellowed shirts, smelling like an ashtray.

One final thing - for the sake of our NHS, they simply cannot legalise cannabis whilst tobacco is legal. And, whatever your views on cannabis, legalisation is happening every year in other countries across the globe. There will be plenty of tax in marijuana.

Alcohol and cannabis are not adequate comparisons to make to smoking. It's a different part of you that says "let's light up" - something deep and innate. And, whilst I have no doubt that and alcoholic's emotional response to alcohol is similar to that of a smoker's response to nicotine, it is not the norm. Most people that drink are not addicts. Most people that smoke are addicts.

Something that IS comparable is vaping. It "boils my piss" to quote a MN classic that we are not taking it seriously. 95% better than smoking is not good enough. It's 95% better in the ways we know of. It's going to be the next health crisis.

To me the ‘war on drugs’ has been a clear and demonstrable failure.

It was really a war on intelligence. And intelligence lost.

Obesity affects everyone, because health resources obese people consume means less resources for everyone else.

When it comes down to it there is very little that you can do that doesn't affect the greater society in some way or another. It's just a matter of degree.

@GasPanic firstly, I don't think drugs are the same as smoking. Smoking is seen as grim and disgusting, especially with younger generations.

And I didn't mean the effect on public health in general with costs etc, I meant the effect on people walking past smokers and getting a mouthful of smoke. THAT'S what I meant with smoking being that much worse. Obviously smoking AND obesity both cost the NHS.

And I don't mean that drugs aren't an issue. I mean they're seen differently to smoking especially by young people? Smoking is seen as old fashioned and unattractive.

@Volbeat Smoker here too. I honestly don't know how it's going to work. Anyone can get fake IDs, find somewhere where they can buy snide tobacco...
I did get a bit mad with the news last night, talking about how much the NHS spends on treating smokers, they never mentioned the massive revenue it brings in for the government though!

somewhere where they can buy snide tobacco...

or grow their own

https://www.wikihow.com/Grow-Tobacco

It's a good idea, I support the ban.

it is an excellent policy.

I used to smoke and now vape as I cannot give up fully.

Nicotine is the only drug to which you become addicted very quickly, but which give you nothing in return except the need to keep doing it.

There is no upside, unlike drink or drugs which at least get you high for a while

I think it’s a fantastic idea and I speak san occasional smoker.

Why is smoking cigarettes any less grim and disgusting than smoking weed ? what this tells you is that it is a fad, a fashion. And fashions come and go.

What matters to a non smoking individual is the health impact and cost. My guess is passive smoking + actual smoking costs the NHS far less than obesity and the taxes collected more than compensate for the treatment because they are so high.

You can argue there is a greater aspect to it, like lost productivity through smoking breaks. But if that is the case, why not ban coffee as well ?

As a non smoker, obesity through its monopolisation of resources poses far more of a threat to me than passive smoking, yet the government chooses not to attack that but attack smokers instead, who are already paying significant taxes to compensate for the damage smoking does.

To me it all smacks of distraction. The government wants to divert peoples attention away from real policy that will actually cost them money or make them unpopular, so let's ban something that a minority of people want while ignoring the elephant in the room because that will make us unelectable.

One way of looking at this is that bodily autonomy can take a back seat to the health of society, Not a weapon I would wish to hand my enemy, really.

Exactly. No one ever smoked a cigarette and then beat the s out of some innocent passer-by or got in to a car and mowed down an innocent person.