Either you ban it for everyone or you don’t, right?
It’s easier to prevent a new generation from smoking than to stop an old one who already does. This might be a better compromise approach than an outright ban.
Straight up prohibition never works, especially with something like nicotine. Doing it by age will create a populous where it was never an option.
New Zealand were going to do this before and honestly I thought it was a good way to phase out smoking for a population. They shelved it is I remember correctly.
Doing it by age will create a populous where it was never an option.
Because nobody would smoke if they were underage!
You don’t think this will have no impact? Do you think it needs to be perfect to be worthwhile?
The only impact it will have is it will make smoking more dangerous, by removing what few regulations there already are in regards to the production of tobacco products. Alcohol prohibition in the US didn’t get rid of alcoholism, it just made drinking more dangerous as people turned to bathtub spirits that were made under questionable means. The amount of people who quit drinking directly because of prohibition is absolutely negligible.
Are they getting rid of regulations on tobacco products? Article says there will be more oversight. And because there are still legitimate avenues for people who aren’t impacted, there won’t be much support for black markets to develop.
Some of the changes will prevent exposure of other people to smoke. That’s going to overall reduce danger from tobacco products at the population level. Even if it makes smoking more dangerous for those that defy the law, the number of people overall exposed to both firsthand and secondhand smoke is going to be reduced. I’d take that trade-off, but I don’t think the danger to would be smokers is going to increase.
The amount of people who quit drinking directly because of prohibition was about 70% of the population at first decreasing to about 40% as prohibition continued. That’s not negligible. There are plenty of negative consequences that happened because of it, though. I don’t, however, think the UK is going to get a vape mafia.
I’m not sure if it will have much of an impact, but I think it’s worth a shot.
otherwise it’s just blatant ageism
It is a shitty law in a technical sense, but I can’t think of another way to claw this cancerous rot from society (smoking)
It’s probably a step towards that
Considering healthcare costs are ultimately socialized in some way or another, I think cigarette smoking bans make sense anywhere, but they make even more sense somewhere with universal healthcare…
Actually people growing old and developing dementia or Alzheimer are much more expensive than people dying (relatively) young of lung cancer from smoking.
Sure, but one of those is caused by negligence or willful neglect, the other is at this time considered incidental/accidental.
Seems obvious why one of them should be illegal, doesn’t it?
Damnit John you have dementia because you worked at a dry cleaner doesn’t ring quite the same way as Damnit John you have lung cancer because you smoked cigarettes everyday of your life.
Obviously you’re right, and morally this is terrible, but the other guy still has a point financially speaking. It doesn’t matter if it’s your fault or not, the best thing to happen to your social systems like public health care and retirement would be if you worked for 30 years and then died of a stroke or something fast like that. Cigarettes are great for that.
man that is a dark bleak way to view the world, I don’t condemn it, but I also don’t condone it.
People are not numbers.
I agree, it’s a terrible way to look at things and if someone actually thinks like that I would definitely assume they are a complete psychopath.
I just was trying to elaborate a bit on the point that that guy made. I don’t know if he came up with it on his own, but this whole issue is discussed in the movie „Thank you for smoking“
I would kinda disagree with you on the part about smoking being voluntary tho. Not a smoker anymore, but it’s by far the most addictive drug I know and I tried my share. I used to be quite addicted to Nicotine and it’s incredibly hard to get off it. To the point where I still get cravings years later when I walk past someone smoking. Most people start when they are kids and easily manipulated into it. Addiction is a sickness, not a choice.
We don’t have health care in the United States… maybe in Europe
article is about the uk mate.
Also, despite not having healthcare in the USA the costs are STILL eventually socialized, its just we give the companies socialized profits, instead of just paying the exact amount things cost… Like they do in a universal healthcare system.
What do you think hospitals do when too many bills go unpaid? They raise the prices for everyone else.
There is a single payer at the end of the day, its the rest of us.
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This isn’t good news. This is going to make it harder to stop, unless they aren’t making it a criminal offense.
Ban the sale, sure. Penalize people peddling this poison, but encourage smokers to get help. Make it harder to start and to keep going, but make it easier and more incentivized to stop.
Laws do not, have not, and will not ever stop people from abusing subatances. They just make it harder to get help and create stigma.
Bans just lead to an underground market for this stuff.
Pretty sure children in UK are more threatened by getting stabbed or criminal gangs than smoking.
The US has a significantly higher incidence of knife crime than the UK.
Lol, so what? What is your point? Are those threats mutually exclusive or something?
Let’s make stabbing people illegal instead of banning smoking I guess!
Not at all, but what just annoys me is that the UK is harming on things that restricts the population in some way (even tho banning smoking is objectively a good thing), but doesn’t do anything to tackle the rampant gang violence or the myriad of other problems that country currently goes through.
Don’t think the UK or the government as single monolithic entity, people tend to do that. Those in charge of the smoking ban hardly would be the same people that are in charge of tackling the problem of gang violence or many other problems. One team of people not succeeding at their task doesn’t prevent others to do theirs.
Two people can work on two things at the same time.
Oh I’m well aware of that. I’m not saying because they are banning smoking, they can’t ban anything else.
My point is that they tackle the lesser problem first and with much more resolve than they tackle the really critical problems. This isn’t necessarily a UK thing, it’s something that I see with many europeans governments lately, but it just bothers me to see it over and over again.
My point is that those working on lesser problems might come up with solutions much faster than those working on bigger problems, making it seem that they go after them first.
Also not doing anything about anything until the worst problem is completely solved is completely idiotic. You’d end up never doing anything at all.
