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.
Calling it discrimination is quite a stretch. By that logic our gun laws are discrimination, too and why can't I buy enriched uranium in stores? I'm being discriminated against!!! Muh pearls! Some laws exist to protect people from themselves and I would welcome a law like this in Germany. Cigarettes and vapes don't do anything that you can't do in other ways, without harming others. Except maybe get you more breaks at work :P
I disagree. It's not the same, because everyone can buy a gun if they have the paperwork for it (and noone can buy the uranium). It's not only an exclusive group of old people, people with spots on their skin or people with green eyes. Otherwise it would be discrimination, because it creates differential treatment based solely on age, skin type, eye color...
We also discriminate against young people to protect their vulnerable health via alcohol, tobacco regulations. But it's justifiable and 'good' discrimination, because they're not of age yet and need to be protected.
I'm not smoking or anything btw so I'm not emotionally involved in this argument, I'm just curious about the debate :D
Not everyone can buy a gun, to get the paperwork you need to meet a somewhat arbitrary age requirement and you have to be "mentally stable". So we are discriminating against mentally handicapped people. It makes sense, I don't even disagree with it, just saying that it's the same logic as op's.
Okay, maybe a better example: if you're interested in becoming president you have to be at least 40. Sounds like age discrimination to me :P
I don't smoke so I'm not super invested in this either. However, I travel a lot by train and besides the trains always being late what annoys me most are smokers. Smoking is already banned at all train stations and bus stops but the first thing some people do when exiting a train is lighting a cigarette. In the middle of a crowd. Imo the only way to stop them from doing that in crowds is by banning smoking completely & this law is a good way to do that, but it would have to be an EU-wide measure imo. Otherwise it's too easy to just drive to a neighbouring country and buy a pack of cigarettes.
Not everyone can buy a gun, to get the paperwork you need to meet a somewhat arbitrary age requirement and you have to be "mentally stable". So we are discriminating against mentally handicapped people.
Sure, that's exactly what we do. And there's a good reason for that. I'm also not against dropping it, just because it's discriminatory.
Okay, maybe a better example: if you're interested in becoming president you have to be at least 40. Sounds like age discrimination to me :P
Sure. In this case I don't see a rightful reason for it to exist though, which is why it has to be abolished.
I hate second hand smoke as much as every other non-smoker, but I'm not a fan of banning smoking, just because I think it's annoying. Let people ruin their health if they want it that bad. We live in a time where second hand smoke is almost completely avoidable. At least in Germany. With the vapes it's even less of a problem now. If I breathe in smoke from some other guys' cigarette once a month it won't affect my health.
However there's a much much bigger problem regarding breathing in toxic fumes, which we should address immediately: cars.
It is avoidable overall but it always requires an effort on my part which is the wrong way around imo.
Ultimately my stance on it is that it's annoying but there's only so much we can reasonably do about it. I don't expect dB or the police to patrol train stations to make sure nobody is smoking. It's largely avoidable and if people want to kill themselves then they're free to do that. We have much bigger problems to focus on, like the one you mentioned: cars. (And maybe if more people used the train instead of cars there'd be more of an incentive make sure most of your customers aren't being bothered by a minority)
Let's hope it will turn out like you said, I'm all for it.
I mean, if you have the equipment and chemicals, i think you can buy uranium ores and manually process them for a tiny amount of u235
