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.

In that case lets all start smoking 40 a day and encourage children to do so as well so the Exchequer can be replete with tax money

Instead I would like to see them coming down harder on supply of vapes for children.
Once they're older they can make their own mind up.

I think the ban is a great idea. People talk about personal freedom, but what about the freedoms of non-smokers who have to put up with the choices of those around them?

What choice do kids have if they are stuck in a car or a room with parents who smoke?

What choice to non-smokers have when it comes to seeing all the masses of litter smokers drop on our streets?

It's better for everyone if people just don't start smoking in the first place.

Exactly 😂

@heathspeedwell completely agree. And the amount of people I see smoking and driving is ridiculous, and throwing their cigarettes out of car windows 🤢 they can't even respect the law

If they can't buy them legally, either stop smoking or don't smoke in the first place 😂 if they want to buy fake ones, that's their choice

Ex-smoker here and we’ve had discussions about government initiatives to reduce smoking in my group of friends for decades. My never-smoked DH was convinced that plain packaging, gory pictures and price hikes was bound to reduce smoking but we laughed at him and pointed out that we didn’t care about packaging, didn’t care about the gory pictures and if the price went too high we downgraded brand or switched to rolling our own.

We said back then that if the government wanted to stop smoking they should just ban it. None of us were especially bothered about a ban as it made giving up easier. The non-smokers thought a ban was too harsh but the smokers were all for it.

I haven’t smoked for years but I’ve responded to the consultation about this and the one about vaping. As always it is clear that they have drafted them without any real understanding of the issues. If DH was to draft a consultation it would look like this. Same old story. Copycat ideas and plagiarised policies. Just ban tobacco.

I think in principle, it's a good idea to stop people before they start, I'm a smoker, I've spent 20 years giving up for periods of time and then failing, starting again and then the whole cycle starts again. I wish I'd never started.

I wish the addiction and the concequences were taken more seriously, it's recognised as highly addictive and for most things addiction is seen as an illness but I think because the damage isn't immediately apparent like it can be with other addictions, the attitude towards it is different.

It's my choice to smoke as it is to partake in anything, however the continuation has a lot to do with the nicotine addiction and that I've not found something that meets that addiction as well as smoking does, or reduces the addiction successfully and I'm in a constant cycle of withdrawal and then the 'reward' of starting again.

I do wonder how it will work in practice though, people fight against being challenged or monitored for anything and ultimately this will be the responsibility of those at the tills, who won't really have a choice if they want to keep their job but to make them available but also monitor who to and challenge people and face denied angry people or the concequences of getting it wrong. The only way I can see it working is to make it a legal requirement for anyone to show ID when buying tobacco, regardless of when they were born, because that's the only way it would be absolute. Otherwise you're still going to have the ambiguity of having to guess someone's age. And people won't like that either. As with anything that's subject to restrictions when buying, people will confuse customer service with legal obligations of the seller.

What I find interesting about this policy is that it is kind of like borrowing from the future.

It is a bit like finance. At the moment the government has pretty much reached the limit on how much it can borrow. The markets won't let it borrow any more. Hence we have to live more within our means.

This policy is a bit like borrowing political capital from the future. Implementing a policy now, that impacts no one who is likely to protest and the government may not even have to honour because it won't be in power 20 years down the line. It's like the extension of financial borrowing to some sort of "policy borrowing".

Similar things include rising the pension age, although this is politically more dangerous because the people affected wield voting power, promising net zero (which is so far in the future god knows who will be in power by then) and eliminating petrol/diesel cars (pushed back because it looked dangerously close to occuring on someones watch no doubt).

Is there a name for this or a better comprehensive analysis. I have heard obviuosly the expressions "kicking the can down the road" and "booting the problem into the long grass" in the context of social care, but I don't think that quite captures what is going on here.

I don't think the plan will be very effective. Those who sell cigarettes to people under the legal age facing a fine reminds me of the holiday parental one, you take a judgment about being caught.

I'd come down very hard on vape selling, raise the tobacco minimum age say to 21, and the penalty for shops selling to underage be meaningful. Say have combined alcohol and tobacco licences which are lost for any infringement, or the shop concerned be closed for a period.

As an ex smoker I think it's a great idea. People might buy them on the black market but I don't really think cigarettes give you enough of a high to go out of your way for them unless you are already addicted. But they aren't aiming it at people who are already addicted so I think it could work. I think they need to tackle vaping next.

Is the law going to include a clause that anyone buying cigarettes for those born after 2009 will be fined/prosecuted?

It's one thing being illegal to buy them but if someone gives you one when say, you're 18 or something, is there a law for that? Just interested to see how this plays out

Yes.

I'm not sure how that would work sounds good in theory.
I love how it is illegal to smoke in most public places in Australia

It won't stop people smoking. If smoking is so bad for people then why aren't they banning alcohol either. Alcohol causes so many issues, not just health wise but in society aswell. We're also taking choices away from people. It will be all under the table. People could smoke anything with any chemicals in them. People have a right to make their own choices in life. Its not up to anyone else to say what we can and can't do. Alcohol has a massive impact financially on the nhs more than smoking does. Why not bann that instead. They won't because eitd a massive money maker.

I agree with you about the freedom of choice. What next? banning smoking at home? Out of doors? This has echoes of Nazi in WW2.
Books were burned, indoctrination was used.
Young people will be keen to taste forbidden fruit and start smoking. I never thoughtl the UK would become a Fascist state.

I think it's a great idea, you can drink alcohol in moderation and be fine, smoking however is always harmful.
My aunt died from copd and was a heavy smoker, my nan has angina associated with smoking and always preached it was bad and us kids never to smoke.
My husband services ventilators of people who are provided free equipment to live on the NHS and still smoke heavily...
Just a shame they haven't banned it outright.

I don't like this law. I think it's paternalistic and oppressive. But then again, I also love smoking, so perhaps that is (as the banner upthread suggests) clouding my judgement. I don't think that my (very moderate) smoking habit is bad, but more importantly, I don't think it's anyone else's place to make that decision for me.

But, if you could go back in time, armed with the knowledge you have now, would you start? That's the point of this legislation, to prevent new young people starting. That can only be a good thing surely?
I've never smoked a cigarette in my life thankfully. But, if I did, I'm sure I'd regret it now.

Btw, good to see there's a thread in Chat about this. I've posted a few times on the other thread on this on the politics board. Only recently noticed this one. Probably more traffic here 😊

Genuinely, I don't regret it and I wouldn't change it. I do accept though that I am not a typical smoker (I smoke probably 1 pack a month, so not even one a day).

For me social moves aimed at discouraging smoking are better than bans. For example, I stopped smoking regularly when it started becoming less socially acceptable.

I think vapes should be diminishing prescription only and, like cigarettes now the packaging should be as bland and off putting as possible.

Anything else easily recognisable as illegal for sale.

There is massive problem with kids. And there are all sorts of knockoff vapes, containing God knows what. I actually don't know how those advising our way out of cigarettes couldn't have seen this coming and acted a long, long time ago. Money, money, money - too many vested interests.

I realise I didn't actually answer the question... I'm not at all against making it harder to start smoking, but you definitely need better awareness campaigns that older persons supplying under 18's cigarettes, alcohol or vapes is illegal and immoral.

And I agree wholeheartedly with pp saying that weed and drugs are so so prevalent now everywhere. Massive media campaign along the lines of the Aids campaign we had in the 80s required to make it clear that socially unacceptable, not cool, you need mental health support.

To those who say alcohol worse - it's not an either/or situation - much more needs done there too. I really don't think many young men or women are even aware of the increased risk of infertility and cancer, never mind anything else.

If you prohibit something, there will always be an unregulated, untaxed blackmarket. So think you need to tackle the social mindset as well.

No problem. All the kids are vaping these days anyway 🥴