Sunak proposes raising smoking age every year to create 'smoke-free' generation
Rishi Sunak has proposed raising the smoking age every year in a move welcomed by health charities but criticised by those in the tobacco industry.
Everyone here is arguing the benefits of prohibition. I'm just interested to know how much money Rishi (and/or his family members/friends/donors) have invested in vaping and nicotine alternatives.
It always confuses me to learn that when people want to ban smoking it somehow means ban "cigarettes" and not "nicotine"
In the US it's the opposite, which is absolutely bizarro land. Want to ban vapes but not cigarettes.
Nicotine is one of the safest stimulants we know, up there with caffeine in terms of safety. There's little meaningful reason to ban nicotine. You're more likely to harm yourself with any number of other things we readily allow.
The addiction potential of nicotine alone is also far lower than people assume, because smoking is highly addictive both due to the rituals and the other substances involved. I tried to get used to nicotine via patches years back to use as a safe stimulant, and not only did I not get addicted, I couldn't get used to it (and I was not willing to get myself used to smoking, given the harm that involves). That's not to say you can't develop addictions to patches or vapes etc. too, but much more easily when it's as a substitution for smoking than "from scratch".
Restrictions on delivery methods that are harmful or not well enough understood, and combining nicotine with other substances that make the addiction and harm potential greater, sure.
That isn't always the case though. Just look at climate scientists.
Some just want to ban smoking because they see how much damage it has done in their community.
But I'd also like to know if there was any vested interests.
It’s Rishi Sunak. Of course he has a financial interest somewhere.
It won’t work, though. Hell. He might be getting paid off by big Tabacco- make smoking edgy and rebellious again so more kids start up.
It’s the kind of thing those ghouls would try.
Rishi Sunak also just promised to ensure cars will be able to drive through heavily populated areas indefinitely and has pushed back plans to introduce electric-only cars. He absolutely does not care about peoples' health.
I see angry wankers want to moan for the sake of moaning.
Eliminating smoking is a goos thing! I'll take my wins whenever possible, doesn't happen all that often.
But but there are other things that are also bad and if one proposal doesn't solve everything it is complete trash!!!
Yea not everything is a partisan issue, and this seems like a good thing? Antismoking efforts have largely been successful in a lot of places.
It's not one of those things where someone is choosing to harm themselves only. Smoking affects the people around you
It’s gobsmacking what people will argue for. Shines a light in the general dimness of people.
Banning it for everyone is OK, telling some people that they can't ever because they were born too late is silly, discriminatory and will inevitably create a flourishing black market.
"If I don't like it, then neither should anyone else!" - you
If I never have to smell cigarette smoke again and also no one ever uses the medical system to cure the consequences of smoking then I don't care. Otherwise I am all for this.
First and foremost, people have the right to slowly kill themselves with cigarettes as long as it isn't harming innocent bystanders.
Arguably more importantly, the proposed ban is worryingly dystopian.
Finally, agreeing with anything Sunak does is unforgivable. And in this case would reflect neo-liberal sympathies.
to create 'smoke-free' generation
Of course, not counting the smoke, ash, and other toxic oxidized chemicals that will be kicked up by gas and diesel vehicles with his scrapping the HS2 Manchester line. What a fucking idiot. "Oh no, we brexited ourselves so hard that we're poor now and can't afford to build infrastructure that would stand to enrich multiple cities for hundreds of years!"
Such classic smooth brained thatcherite conservatives. It's mind numbing that people keep voting for them.
I mean, Sunak is a complete and utter bellend and cancelling half of HS2 is a ridiculous and nonsensical move.
But I think that the good old idiom about broken clocks might just apply here. Smoking bans are a good thing.
This is the smoking ban thread
It's hard to believe so many people vote for them
Ah yes, because making drugs illegal has worked so well in the past.
Setting age limits on substance use is a little different from criminalizing possession/use. In the case of smoking, it has helped reduce rates. This is something backed by people working in public health, who also support decriminalization for possession and bringing in safe consumption sites. It's all about finding the right approach for an issue.
I'd rather focus on calling out the OTHER bad stuff his government is doing, instead of turning this one partisan based on which party introduced it
Raising age limits on smoking has not reduced rates, making tobacco use taboo in society and knowing how dangerous it is for you has. In the US like 9% use any form of tobacco (which it's more likely around 7% or less because they include people who have smoked in their lives and quit as well). At this point no one is really smoking... going after tobacco still is just stupid.
Read the article for fucks sake.
They're not making the drug illegal, just cigarettes. People who want nicotine still have other options.
It's like how no one goes out of their way to make/sell pure ethanol, because you can still buy beer or vodka.
That's still prohibition.... it's flat out dumb. A kid isn't smoking a $10 cigar...
Smoking is redundant today. Kids are getting enough cancer from the environment already.
It's not redundant. Harms compound. It's not like people max out their carcinogenic index or something. 🙄
Pretty much anything in the state of California
That law is an excellent example of knowledge vs wisdom. Knowledge is knowing that some substances may be carcinogenic. Wisdom is knowing that the dosage of a carcinogen is so low it hardly poses any risk.
To be fair though that's hard to put on a warning label and harder to explain.
Great goal but like with all other narcotics, wouldn't this just create a huge black market and thus massively fund criminal organizations?
I'm not so sure
Cigarettes are not often seen with the same attraction as other drugs
The draw from younger potential customers is greatly outweighed by far less harmful stuff like weed or even shrooms
I don't think they're going to give people twenty years for selling cigarettes to minors.
I think chances are we are at a stage where most would-be smokers would just opt for vaping, given that while it sounds like he wants some restrictions on that as well, it doesn't like that'd be subjected to the year over year age increase?
So we would eliminate smoking the same way we eliminated drug use...by making it illegal.
/S if necessary
I'm generally pro legalization of drugs, but will say this is likely to be much more effective than the war on drugs ever was.
You don't outlaw possession, just the sales age. You'll see significantly fewer new starters as time goes because after 20 years 40 year olds that can buy wont be bothered to support fresh 18 year olds looking to start a new habit or whatever. The ones that really want to start can buy from abroad without any form of punishment.
I think it's different because I don't think anyone turns to their first cigarette looking to try and attain some new feeling. It's usually one of those things like... My friends were so I grabbed one from them and blah blah.
I would say I'm for the progressive increase in age, and I wrestle with my own hypocrisy seeing that I support legalizing other drugs. But maybe that's rooted in the basis that I've never had a pothead or dude on shrooms negatively impact me. Cigarettes however--littered everywhere, get smoke in your face, etc
people could easily say they hate the smell of weed - is that a good reason to outlaw?
I keep thinking of the rat experiments where rats in cages took drugs until they died but happy rats in rat societies turned away from drugs.
I think people take drugs, including cigarettes, to cope. If they didn't need to cope with terrible conditions, they wouldn't use the drugs (except a few outliers). To me, taking away people's cope is punching down.
We can't get rid of tobacco like we can quaaludes or some synthetic drug. It's going to be available to people. The question is do you want to create a huge black market for it (where people can easily lace cigarettes with fentanal, bonus? ), or do you want to address the reasons that people chain smoke?
I think people want to do things they are not allowed to. They will go through the effort to find a way. In a lot of states that legalized Marijuana, its use went down after legalization. Once it was normalized, some people lost interest. I think the opposite happens when you make it illegal, you're basically making it cool again. This isn't just drug use, it's with a lot of things, if you forbid it, people will suddenly want that thing more than they did before. Religion comes to mind. Authoritarian countries that want to stamp out a religion or all religion often cause a religious resurgence. There's nothing quite like being told you can't do something to make you want to do it or visa versa. People are naturally oppositional.
Yeah, lots of bad faith comparisons to drug legalization. People outright against age-gated laws. So I guess that means it's ok for 4 year olds to drive around?
Smoking's already dramatically fallen out of popularity with younger people, being replaced by vaping. So I don't think it really matters what they do at this point - smoking's a dinosaur waiting to die.
Although vaping is far more popular and at least better than smoking, it's still actively bad for health. I'd be interested to see how a similar policy to ban vapes would go over in the west like they're trying in Taiwan.
actively bad for health
Interesting turn of phrase. What is "actively bad for health", really? Experts seem to be pretty convinced that as bad as Vaping might be, it's not as bad as alcohol. And we in the US know what happens when you try to ban alcohol. I have Prohibition to thank for the incredible Whiskey industry of today.
Have you been literally anywhere in Europe? Smoking is not a dinosaur waiting to die
I keep hearing this and yet when I'm in Europe the amount of people smoking seems to go from tiny to slightly less tiny. Sure there are more smokers, but it's not a significant portion of the population anymore in most places. I just traveled all over France, which I thought was famous for being a smoking country and I noticed how seldom I was even around a smoker. Outside of Belarus I don't think smoking is even that significant anymore in Europe.
Yeah the only thing raising the smoking age will do is make smoking cool again.
From someone who has smoked and quit, I was really blind sided by how addictive nicotine was. People talk about adults and what they put in there body but nicotine really is a different monster
Huh. I gave it a try, and while drunk, i just went on and on, but overall it just smelled so bad that it never became a habit. I guess i'm lucky
Some people definitely don't respond the same and it real does take 1-3 days to really start to notice for some people
I never felt the same buzz after my first cigarette, it felt like I was fucking drunk after my first smoke lol.
After that I was basically just chasing the dragon, I was smoking about 15-30 cigarettes a day for about 1-2 years. Never again.
What I don't see is why smoking should be the main nicotine delivery device when it can easily be done without the cancerous smoke.
Isolated nicotine is apparently not cancerous. We just choose to enforce the continued coupling of nicotine and cancer, and refuse to permit alternatives that decouple if from cancer if their dosage isn't pitiful.
"Either get the weak alternatives, or the cancerous ones."
The moderate non-cancerous alternatives are illegal.
Or do it like Germany: make vaping extremely expensive so people go back to smoking. Stupid.
Absolutely obscene and short sighted what the German government have done. Everything is taxed per ml, even if it has no nicotine in it. As you say it's cheaper to actually smoke.
So are you for or against Sunak's proposal?
One problem: most smokers start as teens, all while it's forbidden to sell kids the cancer sticks.
Addition: I would punish the selling of tobbaco products to kids even more, including the ability of suing the adults for damages in the future (If it won't cause a cobra problem later on), and also give the ability to non-smoking workers to sue their employers if they give smokers more breaks.
My 13-year-old daughter already has friends who vape. That's how insidious it is and how deeply embedded in the public consciousness nicotine-based products are.
Most kids aren't vaping anything with nicotine in it. Most are vaping 0mg juices and trying to look cool blowing clouds. Nicotine isn't a super addictive chemical, it's about as addictive as caffeine. Smoking cigarettes and vaping are habit forming, it's why almost all smoking cessation forms fail multiple times for people.
I think New Zealand implemented a similar measure some years back, it should probably be good to see how well it works there. Hopefully this doesn't create a black market for tobacco.
And where does teens get the idea to smoke from? Is it from grandpa that coughs louder than a jet engine? Or is it the older cooler teens who got the idea from older teens, who got the....
You get the point.
I smoked as a teen because some of my friends did, they smoked because some of their friends did. And you don't have to look very far to find the 18-20 year olds who provided them.
Luckily, I never smoked much and mostly kept it to social smoking which made it very easy for me to quit once I grew up and developed some brain-cells that enjoyed co-operating with eachother.
Yeah but the 18 year old buys for the 15 year old-- brothers, sisters, upperclassmen, etc.
The more that gap becomes larger, the less likely they have social interaction and access. How many 40 year olds buy for 15 year olds today? In 20 something years, 40 year olds will be the youngest purchasers.
also give the ability to non-smoking workers to sue their employers if they give smokers more breaks.
Yeah, one of the best bits of WFH is that I can take as many breaks as my nicotine obsessed colleagues.
Afaik NZ has already implemented such a rule.
It has.
Finally something sensible from this guy. Last week it was all big auto lobby nonsense.
He should also star making crimes illegal so that they can live in a society without crime /s.
I feel we've done a good enough job at making smoking undesirable, effectively banning it is excessive. It would be better to focus on doing what was done to cigarettes to vapes. Kids arent smoking nearly as much but theyre vaping like mad. I see kids as young as 13-14 doing it. Vapes are allowed to look appealing, combine that with their nice smell and flavour, ofc young people are going to gravitate toward them instead.
Make it so vape packaging is bland and has similar warnings as cigarretes, and actually teach kids about addiction instead of just a hard "dont touch these". Everyone with a braincell knows that if you ban something from young people, theyre gonna do it more
the problem is there's actually zero evidence vapes alone (without nicotine etc) do any harm. The vapes which the industry is moving towards is just largely the same as steamed and cooling water vapour. It's totally harmless.
Sadly though, vaping is associated almost entirely with nicotine. I know plenty who vape, but no one who vapes 0% juice. I havent personally done much research about them but inhaling any fumes is a net negative. Although vapes are far less harmful tham cigarettes, nicotine addiction is still there, and these kids are getting it. Im one of the few of my generation that used vapes for their original purpose, quitting smoking and they work great, but its depressing af seeing kids caning vapes just knowing its already an addiction for them
I mean I very recently got diagnosed with polycythaemia that was caused by excessive vaping. Which has seen marked improvement since I stopped.
The problem is its still too new to do long term (10+ year) studies on vaping and health institutions still don't collect data on vape usage.
But what will boebert do while jerking off dudes at movie theaters?
This won't affect her as Sunak is the Prime Minister of the UK.
No, no, they have a point.
She was vaping, not smoking.
She went from suck to blow
no difference
Broken clock right twice a day type of deal with Sunak
I think they should raise it by 1 year every 2 years.
Every year should be fine, illegal to buy cigarettes if you're born after 1945 so we can finally stomp out the tobacco
Yeah, I agree. That will give people time to not get hooked, but not screw over the kids who started smoking when they were 18.
That's gonna work splendidly since underage people would never dare to smoke!
Ehhhhhh, you make it permanently harder for a generation and eventually, barring a political change, you need to find an 80 year old to boot cigarettes for you from that one shop down the road that still caters to a rapidly shrinking audience.
Not to say that this is a good idea or one with which but long-term, it could work. (Or at least reduce smoking to a relatively minor few.)
Eventually stores will just stop selling them. Why stock cigarette when you only sell 10 packs a month.
I think it’s a great idea. People will create a black market for them, but it will be really small and die out.
It’s not like you really get anything from it like you do from alcohol or other drugs.
It's still gonna slowly reduce use. And that's better than nothing.
How is this supposed to be enforced? In a decade's time are shopkeepers going to have to challenge anyone buying a packet of fags who looks under 28? And then later it'll be "sorry mate, can you prove you're 44?" and so on.
Asking for ID when buying cigarettes is not exactly an outlandish proposal. It's already done around the current legal smoking age.
Arguably, this proposal makes it easier, since there's a fixed cutoff date of birth instead of calculating their age.
I think you answered your own question.
It's not enforceable.
India is about as united as Afghanistan. We'll see shops in Delhi follow the law and the government enforcing it.
Everywhere else probably won't even know this is happening. If they did, they'll take is as an opportunity to gauge young people buying tobacco. No law enforcement will occur.
Rishi Sunak is brittish PM btw.
I loathe Sunak, his political party and their ideals... but this is pretty good actually Maybe he'll manage to do a single worthwhile thing
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Addressing the annual Tory party conference today, Mr Sunak also promised to restrict the availability of vapes under plans to "put the next generation first".
Read More:Rishi Sunak confirms northern leg from Birmingham to Manchester will be scrappedSunak says nobody wants an election - the truth is he can't risk one | Beth Rigby
Ministers have faced repeated calls to ban vapes to help protect children and reduce the significant environmental impact of the single-use products.
It commissioned a review, published last June and led by Dr Javed Khan, which made a series of recommendations, including increasing the legal age for buying tobacco.
Cancer Research UK's chief executive Michelle Mitchell said: "Raising the age of sale on tobacco products is a critical step on the road to creating the first ever smoke-free generation."
"Future generations of adults who are considered old enough to vote, pay taxes, drive a car and drink alcohol are going to be treated like children and denied the right to buy a product that can be purchased legally by people a year older than them."
The original article contains 665 words, the summary contains 179 words. Saved 73%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
I don't know if that's feasible given that adults are adults after all. But maybe just restrict the sale of cigarettes and make it so burdensome to sell them in shops so most don't even bother. And do the same for vapes. Vapes are ridiculously easy to buy so stick them in the same locked cabinet that other nicotine products go in and ban all advertising and signage.
just restrict the sale of cigarettes and make it so burdensome to sell them in shops so most don’t even bother
I think that might help. Increasing friction for an activity makes it less likely to happen (like when your TV remote is in another room).
And do the same for vapes. Vapes are ridiculously easy to buy so stick them in the same locked cabinet that other nicotine products go in
That needs a bit more differentiation, no? After all, there are vapes without nicotine. I would also differentiate between single-use vapes (just ban these, wtf) and refillables. They're also (most probably) much less unhealthy compared to smoking tobacco.
In my country (Germany), vapes are only available in shops, and most sadly only offer single-use vapes. Cigarettes were (are?) also sold in vending machines, on streets or in bars. So from my point of view, vapes are already harder to buy than cigarettes. What situation did you have in mind?
All in all, I think it would make sense to make access to these things harder / price higher based on how harmful they are, and how addictive they are.
ban all advertising
All for it!
Imagine turning 18 (or whatever the smoking age is in the UK) and starting to smoke during the year this rule takes effect. Then, every year from that point forward, you'd have to wait for your birthday to start smoking again.
It is 18.
But this law will be designed to target current 14 year olds. In theory they will never legally be allowed to smoke.
If you're smoking now, this will not affect you.
Oh, the horror!
It's DOB not age.
Or just... don't smoke?
I don't and never have, but this doesn't make the proposed rule less ridiculous.
Most people who "start smoking" don't just pick up a pack and BOOM addicted. It's a psychological conditioning over many months or even years that leads to full on addiction. It starts with a drag or two off a friends cig, then it's a pack purchased for weekend partying, then it's "I'll have a cig with my coffee", then it's "I smoke half a pack a day". A public awareness campaign coupled with the "one more year" approach to smoking laws would basically eliminate all new young smokers. Vaping on the other hand is actively being pushed onto kids. Kids don't want actual tobacco anymore.
Thanks, I'm well aware of these issues. My point is that they should just prohibit what they think should be prohibited, and that they should do so for everyone, not just those that sit below an arbitrary age threshold. The sole point of this proposal is to pass laws selectively so that they don't affect age groups with whom they would be unpopular, and I don't think this is how laws should be passed.
I don't agree with this type of stuff let people do whatever they're going to do freedom is more important
To me, you have the right to throw a punch. That right ends, however, at the tip of my nose.
I have no issue with smokers. I have a massive issue with the huge clouds of noxious smoke they produce. They also seem to be extremely oblivious to the effects they have on those around them.
It's akin to a drunk getting their cock out and pissing in the faces of people walking down the street.
I have no issue with nicotine use (so long as the additional health costs are covered by the taxes on it). I do have an issue with smokers, and their ability to ruin the day of those around them.
Fuck off, let me breathe and don't ruin my air quality. Cigarettes ruin the air quality of 15 meters around them depending on wind it also is small enough particulates to go through n95 masks. F U C K. O F F
you have the right to leave the area all the same
Meh. We're all going to be dead from climate change.
We are all going to be dead, why care at all?
Good point.
Edit: Heroin dealers apparently don't advertise on yelp. Anyone know where I can pick some up?
Speak for yourself.
So many things wrong with this. First thing that pops to mind is that Sunak thinks we actually pay attention to these age restrictions.
A show of hands, who here has smoked before it was legal for you to do so? How about drank alcoholic beverages?
The second thing, how much interest does Sunak have in tobacco alternatives? Probably a lot, considering how much he's pushing it...
E: autocorrect mishaps.
Love the "if I don't do it, neither should anyone else" mentality among children in these threads.
I think this is deeply illiberal. There are some cases where bans make sense like the XXL Bully dog ban that has been mooted. But I don't think the government should be able to decide what an adult puts in their own body.
My dad was an oncologist for years and he said that one of the reasons we're having trouble in the NHS is that people have stopped smoking. Unfortunately if you are stricken with lung cancer then your prognosis is not good - and while this is a tragedy - you potentially could end up costing much more money in terms of social care and hospital visits if you carry on to live to a later age but get stricken with a more complex degenerative disease.
This is disappointing. Honestly I has found Sunak to be a relief on the whole after our previous few Prime Ministers, probably on par with Therasa May. In my opinion this is a cynical attempt to steal a policy that Labour's Wes Streeting was going to announce soon in order to take the wind out of his sails.
So the NHS would be better off if more people just died and didn't waste your dad's time. Nice.
He's retired now but one of the arguments being put forward for the ban is that it will help the NHS. Purely actuarially, his anecdotal experience was that people living longer has been one of the biggest factors in the budget being squeezed over the years. Interestingly the other huge money sink was litigation by patients but that's a separate thing to what we're discussing.
Edit: Not that it should be relevant but he also smoked for the majority of his career as a doctor. The observation is more about how wider behaviour of the population affected their budgets.
But I don't think the government should be able to decide what an adult puts in their own body.
What if nicotine is legal, and only the smoking is illegal?
I think that is what's being proposed by the policy. I suppose I have two objections to that: Firstly, I think people should be able to make bad choices provided they aren't harming others. Secondly, it could be counterproductive creating an artifical scarcity for younger generations; like it could end up making smoking cool again like cannabis (arguably) is.
We must save people from themselves! Don't let them make any decisions since they could make bad ones!
I'd be more sympathetic if the harm was self contained. It isn't, so your choices should automatically come with restrictions.
So should we limit how much food one is allowed to buy because it's a drain on the NHS? How about banning alcohol, because alcoholism creates innumerable problems for people other than the alcoholic in question as well? Hell, might as well make them apply for home-cooking licenses so we make sure they don't give their relatives salmonilla this holiday, otherwise how can we know your grandma can trust you to cook for her? Can't trust you OR her to make their own decisions without daddy's your figurative abusive husband's the government's approval. Cor, blimey!
Fuck it, might as well hold people's hands their entire lives, wouldn't want them to make mistakes and possibly even grow and become better people would we? No wouldn't want that, better round down the edges of life until it's barely worth living, that'll do the trick.
Trash take. The "bad decision" in this case is severely detrimental health effects, including painful forms of death, that put a tax burden on the rest of the general public with increased health care costs.
No u. The "bad decision" resulting in "honk and blarg [Variables for generic bullshittery]" is moot, the decision to imbibe in a substance is the decision of the imbiber alone, you are not their daddy, you have no authority to decide what is "in their best interest."
Also, that whole "The NHS is an excuse for the government to further intrude on bodily autonomy, something which they seem more than willing to do with this abortion horseshit, as well as fingerprints not being covered by the 1a, not having the ability to do drugs unapproved by the state (the ones they sell are fine though, want a drink?), etc" thing is something I haven't thought about before. "Higher taxes" is one thing, but tbh I don't want free healthcare that comes at the price of more of my civil liberties.
Punishing the symptom, great idea
In a physical health perspective, smoking is the cause, or contributing factor, to a lot of problems. In what perspective is smoking a symptom?
So don't get me wrong, I fully support this kind of measure.
But there's potentially an argument to be made that there is an issue (or more likely multiple issues) that isn't being addressed properly that is leading people to choose to smoke. It's well known to be harmful, addictive, and frankly doesn't have many upsides. What that bigger issue could be is kind of up for debate- is it a failure of the education system or health system not doing enough to educate people about the harm and risks? Is it a mental health issue leading people to choose self destructive behaviors or possibly a conscious or subconscious attempt to self medicate those issue? Is it a societal issue like peer pressure, portrayals in the media, people emulating role models, or just plain old rebellion? Is it due to regulations or enforcement being too lax?
Whatever it is, there may a root cause that isn't being sufficiently addressed that makes people choose destructive behaviors like smoking, which makes smoking a symptom of that bigger issue. And what other vices are those same factors pushing people towards? Maybe addressing those kinds of underlying issues the right way might do more good than just getting people to stop smoking, maybe we'd kill 2 birds with one stone and also make headway on other substance abuse issues, or gambling addictions, etc.
Now again, I'm totally in support of this kind of regulation. Sometimes you need to treat the symptoms before/while to treat the underlying disease. But we need to be sure we're looking at it from both angles.
I take the view that smoking is a behavior that is largely impacted by socioeconomic factors. To put it plainly, it's something you mostly see among the poor.
In what perspective is smoking a symptom?
Any perspective that isn't being deliberately obtuse (if you cared you'd have looked it up and seen for yourself all of the evidence that exists, but it's easier to go the "personal responsibility" route and ignore the societal and economical factors, because acknowledging those makes you too uncomfortable)..
What a weird take. Nobody is punishing people who smoke.
