- Technically, the new law will raise the legal age requirement in the UK for buying cigarettes, cigars or tobacco, which is currently 18, by one year in every subsequent year, starting on January 1, 2027
- This will effectively mean that people born on or after January 1, 2009 will never be eligible to buy them
- Retailers will face financial penalties for selling the products to those not entitled to them
- The government will also be empowered to impose a new registration system for smoking and vaping products entering the country, seeking to improve oversight
- The bill will expand the UK’s indoor smoking ban to a series of outdoor public spaces, for instance in children’s playgrounds, outside schools and hospitals
- Most indoor spaces that are designated smoke-free will become vape-free as well
- Smoking in designated areas outside pubs and bars and other hospitality settings will remain permissible
- Smoking and vaping will remain legal in people’s homes
- Vaping will become illegal in cars if someone under the age of 18 is inside, to match existing rules on smoking
- Advertising for smoking and vaping products will be banned
- People aged 18 or older will remain eligible to purchase vaping products, but some items targeted at younger consumers like disposable vapes have already been outlawed as part of the program
I think people should be allowed to harm themselves with drugs of they want. Maybe I’m a radical.
This is one of the few bans that actually makes sense. Carcinogens are genuinely bad for a person’s future.
We all know that banning drugs means that people will stop using them. Or so.
Not including vaping is kinda… Odd.
How kind of the government to decide that people born after 2008 have fewer freedoms than those born before it!
This law was originally implemented within New Zealand some years ago and I believe it is based on the same principles. I am all for it because it doesn’t affect those that already smoke, just the ones that would potentially get into it in the future. And it has a rolling eligibility year so every year it will move, stopping all future generations from potentially being able to try it legally. Eventually it would get to the point where the generations that currently smoke die off completely and then it would be most likely looked at from an antiquated perspective. Unfortunately, in our case, as soon as the latest conservative parliament got into power, they completely rolled it back. We never got to see the long term potential positive implications of it in practice.
Why should grown adults not be allowed to partake in these things? Why are people okay with giving up freedoms? Little things like this are what makes life worth living for some people.
90% of the NZ population was right behind this… And then the tobacco lobby got their fingers into the govt and they folded like the cheap 1-ply TP they are. Fuckers!
Lemmites normally: smoking is bad and should be banned.
UK government: ok then.
Lemmites now: YO WHAT THE FUCK.
If people over 18 can buy it then that’s fine. I do think under 18 is too young for cigs. Way to ruin your lungs. Though I am wary of how totalitarian the UK is becoming especially for young people - no phones, no social media. Prohibition and banning people turns us into North Korea, China, and Russia. It’s a fine line to cross. However, we definitely do need tighter regulations for certain things. But I think the gov is diving in head first instead of finding a more nuanced approach with things. This feels more like it’s about control and policing society rather than making a healthy and happier society.
A blanket ban is much more reasonable in the UK where health care is publicly funded than in some place like the US. Someone may think they deserve the right to smoke if they feel like it, but that doesn’t go well with the idea that someone should also get healthcare for free when their bad decision results in the natural health consequences.
Banning something that’s highly addictive is almost certainly going to lead to a black market. But, maybe that’s better than the alternative? It doesn’t sound like it though. Australia’s cigarette black market has not only resulted in black market cigarettes, it has also resulted in gang wars over territory to sell those illegal cigarettes.
It seems to me like high taxes are a better idea. If someone wants to kill themselves slowly and inconvenience anybody around them while they indulge their disgusting addiction, make them pay everybody for that privilege. But, if it’s just super high taxes, that’s also going to result in a black market. Apparently in the UK nearly 90% of the cost of a cigarette is taxes already. Maybe they could have an effect with different tax levels for different ways of obtaining cigarettes. For example, a convenience store could have the highest tax rates, serving people who were truly desperate. Or, you could order from a heavily regulated delivery retailer that would deliver a monthly supply. Maybe a low-ish tax rate if you were ordering only 20 cigarettes per month through this site, and a high rate if you were ordering 60+, but not as high as the corner store rate. That would encourage people to keep their consumption low, and discourage them from buying extra cigarettes on top of their regular monthly supply.
A ban doesn’t sound like it will work. In particular a ban that only affects some people based on a lottery on when they were born. Especially if that lottery means they’ll never legally be able to do something that someone born days earlier who might be part of their friend group can legally do. I don’t think that’s ever going to work out. If they wanted to ramp up the age, it would make sense to either make it slower or faster. If it were slower, (like, people born in 2008 could legally start smoking at 20, 2010 -> 21, 2011 -> 22, etc.) then people might decide to follow the law and then realize that they don’t actually want to smoke when their year comes up. Or make it faster so at first it’s people born in 2008 and after who can’t legally smoke, then people born in 2005 or earlier, then 2000 or earlier. If you’re a smoker and you want to avoid that ban, you’ll know it’s coming and have time to try to quit before your year rolls around. Then it’s not just generation 2008 that has fewer rights, it’s just that their year came up first.
Chalk up another imminent failure for the war on drugs
Prohibition is never good, removing individual freedom is never good. I can see the point for some of these restrictions, to provide a safe basis for other people around (because we can’t ask people to simply be nice), but more than that… meh.
I will not be up in arms to defend smoking rights, but that’s probably not the way to do it.
if removing individual freedom is never good, then you shouldn’t be able to smoke, because people should have the individual freedom to not breathe your fucking tar smoke.
removing individual freedom is never good
I generally agree that prohibition doesn’t work, and is bad, but having an absolutist position like this is usually problematic. For example we have to restrict some people’s freedoms. Like some people want to harm or kill others, that should not be a freedom people have.
Most things in life have a lot of nuance, which means we can’t usually make blanket rule for things.
In saying all that… Prohibition usually doesn’t solve the issue, sometimes makes it worse, and often ends up hurting people who are already suffering (usually why they resort to harmful substances)
In Australia the government just applies a very hefty tax to tobacco products, they banned vapes, you need a doctors prescription to buy them. But all these measures have done is create a huge black market for both, it’s really easy to buy cheap smokes or vapes. But we also now get all the lovely things that come along with that much criminal activity like innocent people being killed in turf wars.
The government legislation is still way behind so while in theory there are penalties for selling illegal tobacco it’s more of a slap on the wrist and it’s only the end sellers getting in trouble, the heads of the networks are shielded and raking in the money.
Honest ignorant question: What would happen if you ban the products and not the act?
You never get charged for smoking, but you can have the cigarettes seized. No imports and no factories.
I have no idea how that would change thing. I just base myself on previous (and current) attempts at banning things. It never goes well.
We used to drink beer for breakfast in this country and now you’re asking to give the officers reason to stop and search you to check if you’ve bought the cigarettes from a legitimate place?
Smoking is bad, but prohibition of drugs just drives them underground and denies freedom. Bad call UK
The black market is going to thrive.
I tend to agree, but if they are only making it illegal for the population that isn’t addicted, not many are going to go out of their way to get black market tobacco and become addicted. It isn’t a prohibition for those already sucked in by big tobacco, which would 100% lead to underground exchanges. But for the rest, I feel like there’s better drugs if you’re looking for a good time
You underestimate the number of teens that currently smoke and number of new teens that will take up smoking even under this system.
cool shit
I believe in freedom, I don’t smoke but others can choose to smoke but there should be rules but the too many rules and if the rules are too strict people will rebel
The thing is, by smoking you’re not just hurting yourself.
If I had a nickle for evey behavior that harms a third party but is explicitly legal because it makes a rich dude richer I’d own my own tobacco company. And beyond that the black markets that would rise if they ban it wont care what reason they said they used.
