Rishi Sunak considers banning cigarettes for next generation
Rishi Sunak considers banning cigarettes for next generation
www.theguardian.com
Rishi Sunak considers banning cigarettes for next generation
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.
Creating a new illegal drug market.
In fairness, smoking tobacco is one of the few routes of administration where outlawing makes sense. The overall societal cost is very high, even for non-smokers, as in second-hand smokers and cigarette butts littering. It's one of the few substances that health experts often recommend to make as unattractive as possible, be it through taxation or law.
I don't really mind vaping or heating that much, I'd be fine with making cigarettes illegal while keeping the alternatives. Unfortunately, latest legislation has imposed higher burdens on the latter while doing jack about smoking.
Using the litter aspects of cigarettes as a reason to curb smoking has always been a tough one for me. Say someone quits smoking and takes up vaping. Now we have introduced plastic waste & to an extent e-waste in the form of batteries in the disposable vapes.
I don't have an answer to it but I have at least thought about how there is no 100% environmentally friendly alternative outside of smoking straight tobacco leaf in rolling papers.
You're forgetting the harm from all the fires (house, grass, and forest) caused by smokers too.
https://cjr.ufv.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Fires-in-Canada-Originating-from-Smoking-Materials-March-2019.pdf
My understanding is that cig smokers actually save our NHS a fair bit of cash, as they die early & rapidly, and they're a boon to the Exchequer due to the huge sin taxes we have
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.
I think a larger more unnoticed social harm is the damage it does to single payer/socialized medicine. When you only have one insurance pool every person receiving healthcare related to smoking is funding that could have gone to treating diseases that aren't as easily preventable.
The same goes for things like diabetes, which is absolutely destroying medicare. Right now one out of every three medicare dollars are being used to treat a completely preventable disease for the vast majority of those inflicted with it.
I think that if you want to smoke or drink tons of soda, that's fine. But we shouldn't be lessening the scope of healthcare coverage for other people just because of your bad habits. Either the industry making the money needs to subsidize the healthcare cost of their consumers, or the consumers themselves need to do it.
"the overall societal cost is high"
Just like every other drug. Everyone wants to legalise marijuana, ostensibly for the tax money (but not really), and yet it has far greater social costs than tax will recover. Even the states that legalise it (and consequently becoming tourist destinations) are not actually benefiting from it even though the "Las Vegas effect" means that they should disproportionately benefit from it.
Shittest high ever. Only people already hooked would be interested and they could buy it legally anyway.
I got my first cig from a black market dealer. In my country black market dealers have popped up to get around taxes on cheaper foriegn cigs
For some. Some would ultimately quit and some would never start.
There can be some significant downside to a black market though. De-regulation could pose additional health risks to users as the product may be exposed to unknown and untested chemicals. Not to mention the additional violence and related crimes that always seem to accompany a black market. Prohibition didn't work for alcohol. Prohibition isn't working for Weed. Why do we think it will work for nicotine?
Honestly, tobaco is pretty crap as a recreational drug. It would surprise me if non-smokers would go out of their way to get black market cigarettes like they would with alcohol if it got banned.
There already is a cigarette black market for cheaper imported cigs atleast in my country.
you can make it illegal to sell and only a fine for getting caught. Major retailers won't do it, cornershops("/bodegas" for the US) that sell under the counter will do it until they get caught, new ones won't bother because they want their business to be a success, and honestly, probably make more money on chewing gum than black market fags
nicotine high isn't worth the effort to a dealer to sell if you're used to selling fent, coke, weed, triple sod, clarky cat etc
gone within a generation. if you really want it, go to France, smuggle it. it's probably not worth it.
Mostly just the New York City area. In the Boston area they're "packies" (not an ethnic slur -- it's "package store") and most of the rest of the country it's a "convenience store" or "corner store".
Black market cigarettes is a very real thing actually.
Except we have cleaner alternatives in the form of vaping. This isn't like prohibition where all alcoholic beverages were banned, or like drug prohibition where all narcotics and hallucinogens are only accessible for medical need.
If you need nicotine, you can still buy it. Just not in cigarette form.