Summary
The UK has introduced the Tobacco and Vapes Bill, aiming to make it illegal for future generations to buy cigarettes. The bill proposes gradually raising the minimum smoking age, so those born after January 1, 2009, will never be able to purchase tobacco legally.
It also includes restrictions on vape flavors and packaging to prevent youth addiction and bans smoking in certain outdoor spaces, though pub beer gardens are exempt.
Supported by the Labour Party’s majority, the legislation seeks to create a “smoke-free U.K.” and combat smoking-related deaths.
And then what about everything outside of that ridiculous context? Arrest people for possession of a plant? That’s always been a good idea.
Tobacco is important to people. If you ban it, there will be a black market. Especially for something like a plant that can simply be grown.
Ban the sale of it. That’s it. You want to cultivate it yourself, no problem. Share it with friends and family, OK. Just no more industrialized tobacco.
There will be a black market. So what? The problem isn’t that people are using it. The problem is ubiquity. A black market isn’t nearly as ubiquitous as selling it in every shop across the country.
What are you even talking about? I didn’t say anything about banning it.
You’re talking about making it a prescription drug only allowed for cessation purposes. That sure sounds like a ban on recreational use to me. What happens when someone without a prescription is caught with tobacco under this system you’re proposing? What makes this preferable to just letting people smoke?
You said nothing about recreational use. But something that overloads the healthcare system and costs a ton of money should not be allowed freely for recreational use.
https://www.england.nhs.uk/2023/12/hospital-admissions-due-to-smoking-up-nearly-5-per-cent-last-year-nhs-data-shows/
https://ash.org.uk/media-centre/news/press-releases/smoking-costs-society-17bn-5bn-more-than-previously-estimated
A fine. Like many things that people do that are illegal. Are you under the bizarre impression that the only possible thing you can do to someone who commits a crime is imprison them?
It helps them quit. Which is good. See above, re overloading the healthcare system and costing a ton of money.
I didn’t say anything about imprisoning people. Any legal consequence for possession of a plant is too far.
It leverages a nanny state that forces people to quit whether they want to or not.
When British taxpayers are the ones paying for the smokers’ illnesses, whether or not they personally want to quit is not the issue. You do know how socialized medicine works, yes? British nonsmokers should not have to foot the bill when they get emphysema or lung cancer.
I don’t know why you think they should.
Universal healthcare doesn’t give you license to police everyone else’s lifestyle to your preferred level of health-consciousness.
Costing the British taxpayers money for the sake of your disease-causing pleasure is some real nonsense. If you want to argue that smoking-related diseases should be exempt from the NHS, fine. But you want to have your cigarette and smoke it too.
You’re replying to an American. So, yes.
If it’s a fine then it’s effectively only illegal for poor people – unless the fine scales with wealth
Like Finland’s speeding fines. That’s reasonable.