Rishi Sunak is considering introducing some of the world’s toughest anti-smoking measures that would in effect ban the next generation from ever being able to buy cigarettes, the Guardian has learned.
Whitehall sources said the prime minister was looking at measures similar to those brought in by New Zealand last December. They involved steadily increasing the legal smoking age so tobacco would end up never being sold to anyone born on or after 1 January 2009.
My country already has a cigarette black market for cheaper imported cigs. Banning them won’t work it’ll only make it harder to regulate the industry.
Once you spark up it’s not obvious at a glance if the cigarette is duty paid or not. There’s a marked difference between a lit cigarette and no cigarette.
People will just smoke in bushes. Teens already do so they don’t get caught by their parents.
So by your logic, cigarettes shouldn’t be taxed at all?
Also, the way this is proposed kind of avoids the issue. People importing cigarettes already smoke, and they’ll be able to in the future because this only targets people born after a certain date to deter them from starting.