Smoking ban

[OnHerSolidFoundations]

Why would you not support this?

Doing so will only push a black market..which pushes the currency into a black hole. More corruption, more exploitation.

I also think people need to educate themselves on how addictions work. It's acceptable to just withdraw fags but not alcohol..... Not going to mention those with eating disorders/medical conditions that cause hospital intervention or lack off because they are deemed unsafe to anesthitise.

I wish they had done it years ago.

Yes, for the next few years some young people might think they want to smoke as it will make them look older, but not of course too old.

Once every legal smoker is heading for 30, it will be something only old people do and even more unappealing.

Every smoker I know supports this ban and it's an idea I've heard discussed among smokers for 30+ years - every time with everyone agreeing they wished it had happened before they started smoking.

I'm generally very against anti-libertarian laws, but I think what sways me with this one is the clear fact that so many older smokers wish they had never started and counsel younger people never to start.

I think this is a good way of introducing the law. Like it or not, there are loads of people who are already seriously addicted, and you simply can't withdraw their 'grandad rights' from them now, without a whole load of negative effects, especially considering their addiction began completely legally.

Yes, younger people may indeed get older people to buy fags for them; but the idea of this law is that it's for the long-term. If it's brought in, the number of people who can legally smoke (or indeed buy them on behalf of younger ones) will gradually grow smaller and smaller, until eventually there will be nobody alive who can buy them.

True, banning things doesn't completely eradicate them, but it avoids sending mixed messages from a government saying "You really, absolutely must not smoke... but it's totally legal if you do". It does add another step for interested people to have to overcome, and a lot will just not bother, if it's not out there openly available in shops.

Every smoker I know supports this ban and it's an idea I've heard discussed among smokers for 30+ years - every time with everyone agreeing they wished it had happened before they started smoking.

Yes, this is the really critical factor for me.

I don't see how we as mature adults can know how very bad something is, how much of a huge negative toll it takes on you, how much those of us who have done it and now cannot stop hugely regret it - and yet still not do all we can to protect our young people from becoming new lifelong victims.

We all know how terrible asbestos is now, but whilst we let it remain in existing buildings where it is sealed away, we wouldn't dream of ensuring that it should remain legal and freely available for use in new buildings, just because we think it very unfair that future generations should not be allowed the 'opportunity' to die horrible and completely avoidable deaths as a direct cause of it.

If ever you've grabbed a toddler's hand to physically deny them the chance to run into fast-moving traffic and discover for themselves how tragically that can end for them, why would you not support the same for a teenager with smoking?

I'm against a smoking ban and I think the current proposals are impractical and unenforceable. I was completely against the previous legislation to restrict smoking in public and felt strongly that it should have been up to individual pubs, restaurants etc to decide whether they wanted to permit smoking on their premises. I recognise that the health of a huge proportion of people has been affected by smoking over the years - my family is no different and I've lost relatives to lung cancer and have other family members affected by smoking related diseases. I was a smoker for many years and gave up almost 30 years ago, but I still feel that people have the right to smoke if they wish to do so in their own homes, outside, or in other areas where the owners permit it.

No, it's taking away freedoms. Next thing they will ban sugar & salt, then junk food, it's a slippery slope. I never thought I would agree with any Tory, but I agree with all the ones who abstained or voted against it.

In theory I would support this. I'm an ex smoker and love the idea that my grandchild will never be able to start smoking.....

BUT

it's just a distraction from the Tories to gain votes! Why not ban alcohol? The numbers are not greatly different, 5% (alcohol) and 8% (tobacco). Alcohol is poisonous to our physical and mental health and also causes greater damage to wider society, but they won't ban that because that would definitely not be a vote winner. So for me it's virtue signalling to gain votes, and anyone with a brain cell will come to the conclusion that this does not distract from the absolute shit show that is the Tory government!

I wouldn't personally care if they did ban alcohol as I don't drink (or smoke) myself.

However, millions of people regularly enjoy alcohol moderately and only a small percentage of people who drink end up addicted to it. That isn't the same with smokers, where the vast, vast majority become addicted to it. Most drinkers don't have to stop work every hour for a 5 or 10-minute alcohol break.

Just look at the language that most people use. Those who drink alcohol will usually say "I fancy/wouldn't mind/could go a drink or two". Smokers never say "I rather fancy a fag" - it's always "I need one".

Street drugs are illegal, look what good that does. Alcohol was banned in the US and that didn’t end well.

Voted through to the next stage.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/apr/16/house-of-commons-votes-in-favour-of-smoking-ban-despite-opposition-from-dozens-of-tories

I agree, would welcome a ban on smoking publicly because no matter how many signs are up, people just won't move away from doors and it's awful having to walk through it when you have no choice.

If you are going to ban smoking than ban it. Half baked legislation makes no sense as those underage will ask someone else to get it for them. Also banning things only pushes it underground and will give the drug dealers a whole new stream of products. Nos, cigarettes, weed and vapes. Police are already stretched, who are they expecting to enforce this new law.

Not a smoker but against this. Smokers have already been marginalized sufficiently and numbers have been falling every year since I can remember. The government introduced the incremental pricing model to discourage it (inflation plus x % per year) in about 2010 I think. After banning smoking inside (fair enough) it was banning packs of 10, banning pictures on packets, and some countries have messages on each individual cigarette, while solemnly taking over 10 quid in duty per pack. The government wants to have it's cigarette and smoke it here basically and I don't approve of that level of intervention beyond what it's already done. It's a dying trend, just leave people to smoke if they want to.

I heard this and couldn't believe it /grasp it. We all know it's good for people's health, irrespective ie not ti smoke. But it's removing people's choice and I have an issue with that. Plus won't it just make it all go underground and thus more expensive and nasty and illegal black market trading. How can that be good.

Or to France.

Or to Ireland.

New Zealand is a long way from neighbouring countries, we aren't.

And it's not just about older people buying them. My grandmother was a life long smoker (until she went in to a care home but that's a different story) she had carer some in 3 times a day.

One thing they would do was go to the shop for her (a while ago I don't think they would now) and her relatives who lived near by would get her shopping too.

We will end up with a situation where a 90 year old might be going out in a snow storm to buy their fags because a willing child or grandchild isn't old enough.

As someone who used to phone trading standards to no avail when then 14 year-old son bought cigs I am glad this should be going through. He's a 40 a day man now but eldest gc was born in 2009 so should help his generation.

Almost everyone I know who ever smoked started long before they were the legal age to buy cigarettes, so making it illegal won't work for those who want to access cigarettes. They will continue through illegal means like they always have. I think smoking cigarettes in slowly going out of fashion with young people anyway so it could phase out over time without the need for a ban. Existing age restrictions and measures for smoking in public places are appropriate.

I think the more pressing issue should be to address the sale of vapes. They are often sold as a 'healthier' alternative to cigarettes, but there's increasing evidence that they may be as harmful. Vapes in wacky, child friendly flavours and colours are like the alcho-pops of the 90s and should be prioritised for tighter restrictions.

I would suggest putting the time, money and effort of this ban into health campaigns and cessation services.

I haven’t ever smoked, but think people should have the right to chose, I hate the nanny state, what else will gov then decide to ban next? Smoking is not the worst issue facing the UK right now, why not focus on the bigger issues.

I'm not sure I understand how this works. So when people who were born after 2009 turn 18 and are adults try to buy them in a shop they will be told no?

It's not taking away a freedom though is it? Fat and some sugars are essential parts of a diet, nicotine isn't.

From a litter picking point of view it'll be nice to have less cigarette litter to pick up in a decade or so. I'm sick of the stuff.

I agree it does seem completely weird to pick on a certain age group.

I know it would go underground. But the number of people smoking would be massively decreased if there was an outright ban.

Think how much money that would save the NHS.

I think they should ban crappy sweets too!

To be fair sassh, not many smokers make it to 90. Heart disease and cancer has usually already got them.

This.

True. My grandmother was 89 when she died, I sort of think of her as a generic 'old person', strangely it was my other, non smoking, grandmother who died from cancer.