- 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
Well there’s certainly no way this will create a black market, and become impossible to enforce!
Come to Australia. A legit carton of fags is about 90% tax, and dodgy darts are outselling them. Vapes are prescription-only. No doctor will prescribe it, and no pharmacy will dispense it. So vapes are effectively banned too.
The black market is huge.
At the current exchange rate, a 20 pack goes for £25 GBP:
Holy smokes! That’s more than double the local plug! Roll up jimpson weed or rabbit tobacco (or questionable adulterated weed) is probably what locals here would do.
Why will no doctor prescribe them? They are much healthier than smoking. And all the patient has to do is say they’re trying to quit smoking.
Same reason people in the UK think cocaine is safer then cannabis, public stigma.
Please tell me this is a joke. Is it because all you Europeans roll your joints with tobacco?
There surely will become somewhat of a black market, but not in the same way as weed or harder drugs. Smoking doesn’t really give you a buzz except for the first few times, so people won’t go to the black market for the effect, but rather to keep the withdrawels at bay. It would seem incredibly silly to buy cigarettes like people buy weed, when all it really does for a first timer is taste horrible, make you cough, and if you actually manage to inhale, make you a bit dizzy. Sure, some people from 2009 and onwards will start to smoke, but it’ll be a whole lot less people than today.
Do you remember being a teenager? You’re describing something that is extremely addictive AND the government is banning you from trying it because you were born too late. This is just asking for a shit show. I’d rather the cigs be guaranteed not to contain lead (or whatever). Forcing a black market just removes all regulation on the vice. Each year that market will get larger. It’s literally a guaranteed increase of demand in the black market over time.
I really think the methods used in the US to reduce smoking really need to be duplicated in other countries. The US literally has like one good thing that we got right somehow. In comparison to Asia or a lot of Europe I never see people smoking.
Vapes are a whole different story. But, even before vapes were a thing the US really did a good job at making smoking socially unacceptable through multiple policies.
We literally have examples of methods that work well AND methods that don’t. Outright bans never work with vices.
You realize in the 1930s there was a black market for cigerettes when they weren’t even illegal, right?
Mafias had support from the people, because mobs supplied booze, which WAS illegal. They made so much money from that, they started robbing cigerette trucks. Then selling legal cigerettes, at full cost, simply because the people trusted the mob over the government.
There’s a huge black market for tobacco products here in Australia and it’s completely legal, simply having the tax on it so high has led to massive smuggling operations, black market cigarettes in many convenience stores, and a fire bombing epidemic of those same convenience stores for carrying competitors black market cigs. It doesn’t even need to be illegal. Just too expensive.
Yup, a local substance plug sells cigarettes in addition to other goods and services, the cigarettes are less than the shops.
1930s didnt have overwhelming evidence that smoking was stupid, addictive, and disastrously dangerous to your health.
Smoking doesnt produce the same euphoria and consistency of drugs on the current blackarket. The juice wont be worth the squeeze. Financially, there wont be enough “consumers” for a cigarette black market.
I think you misunderestimate how addictive cigerettes are. My friends mom goes through $80 worth of cigerettes every 2-3 days.
Real question- is that volume or branding? Depending on where you are/what brand, that might be a 1.5-2 pack a day habit of higher quality smokes; not unheard of for a typical heavy smoker. If you’re spending that much on ass-end packs that cost you $6/ea, that’s pushing 4 packs a day, which is like legendary status few can achieve anymore.
Oh, I thought you were replying to thr other message. Still, it’s just below here, where I said she smokes 5-8 packs a day.
She also has this bag of loose tabacco where she rolls her own. She uses that when she can’t afford marlborrow.
Right,but theyre not banning it for people like her… theyre banning it for people born after 2008. Is your mom 18 years old?
Are you claiming that minors don’t smoke because it’s not legal? That’s what you’re going with?
God youre annoying.
Youre just looking to be combative. Youre cool dude, so cool, just so so cool that you should go back to reddit. So fucking cool how you intentionally need to argue the most braindead niche “uhm actually” talking point you can muster.
You can just not respond next time mate. When you type out a comment like this; just go “nah” and hit “discard” next time.
Also, your entire point rests on “they won’t do it because it’s bad for them AND illegal”.
Have you ever been a teenager? Something that they are told “your too young to do that” is like crack for them. It’s not “niche” to consider this major factor of how people get addicted early in life.
How much is a packet there?
About $8, but she smokes 5-8 packs a day.
Holy shitballs.
Is she just smoking nonstop the whole day?
I’ve seen her laying on the couch, asleep, sits up, eyes not open, reaches in the drawer, lights her own hair on fire, sits there on fire, smoking an unlit cigerette as the rest of us scramble to put her out.
There already is a big, thriving black market for cigarettes in the EU country I’m in, simply due to high tobacco taxes. I can only assume the same will be true for other places that tax similarly. Are you really saying that an outright ban won’t result in a greater unmet demand, and thus more customers shopping at the black markets? It sounds unlikely to me that black market dealers will close up shop, because of a ban on the legal sale of cigarettes. The black market is already banned, but that’s not exactly stopping them.
Cigarette companies add things to make them more addictive, including chemical flavorings and extra nicotine. It doesn’t negate what you said, but enhances it.
Sure, but a lot has changed since then, and while that totally could happen, I’m doubting it’ll be widespread in any way.
“yeah, but, nah, trust me bro”
would have been a better response. At least build your conclusion from something. You’re responding to someone giving a historical example.
“Times are different” just means it could be worse or better. It doesn’t conclude which or to what degree. You didn’t say anything.
I think it might be different nowadays. We know now that smoking causes cancer. Also the world is in color, which makes not smoking more enjoyable.
That must explain the reason for having the “T” in ATF then.
No no no. You’re missing the H.
Aqua Teen Hunger Force.
They’re number one in the hood, G!
Mate, you got no fucking clue. This will create entire new organised crime markets.
Exactly.
They don’t give you a buzz right now. You think prohibition liquor was just as safe as what was produced afterwards, what with all those ridiculous safety regulations gone?
OMG so many dead people from radiator gin.
i knew which corner stores to get smokes at before i was 18.
the process regardless is very simple:
they need to look at an ID for the camera but that’s all
also, once I became an adult smoking wasn’t that fun anymore and i quit
As someone pretty addicted to nicotine, im sort of for it cause i hate how much of my life its consumed, but at the same time… iunno it’s a landmine of an issue.
Surely this won’t establish avenues for kids to get harder drugs once they get the black market vapes!
But wouldn’t those people just vape instead? Which is not healthy, but is still healthier than tobacco.
Only healthier if you avoid the additives. Shit like essential oils and flavorings does not belong in your lungs.
I’m not sure about the oils, but the cadmium and lead aren’t great.
Exactly!
It’s not. It’s just too new to have studies confirmed. These kids that are in their early 20s may have been vaping since as young as 14, but that still 8 years at most, and that’s stretching it in both directions.
I would say those studies won’t come out until they’re in their 70s, or maybe already dead.
Vaping will cause cancer just the same as cigerettes. You’re inhaling unnatural addictive chemicals. In the case of nicotine, it’s artificially added to some/most vapes. We know how bad that stuff is. A vape is nothing more then an unnatural liquid chemical compound, which is then burned and smoked. Tobacco is a leaf, vapes are a liquid. In both cases they add a shitload of unhealthy compounds.
Hell, at this point WATER is unhealthy! Tons of microplastics in all water.
The unhealthiness of the chemicals in cigarette smoke is not subtle. I would be surprised if the vapes turned out to be just as unhealthy.
Using “unnatural” as the main adjective to argue for something being unhealthy is a huge red flag for pseudoscience. Unnatural is not a synonym for dangerous.
As an example, the 100% natural chemicals in even ecologically grown cigarettes are perfectly capable of being extremely dangerous.
Combustion in and of itself creates a lot of bad shit, tobacco or otherwise. The smoke from the paper itself is harmful.
Not just chemicals, but a lot of particulates.
What enforcement? Anyone born after 2008 would be at most 17. Not sure about British law, but assuming majority is at 18, they weren’t supposed to smoke anyway. It creates no black market that doesn’t already exist.
You realize this law keeps rolling, right? So today, a 17 year old is ineligable because he’s not 18. But a year from now that same 17 year old is now 18, but becomes ineligable because they aren’t 19. And when they turn 19, they aren’t 20. And 10 years from now the 17 year old today would be 27, ineligable because he’s not 28.
That’s how it creates a black market.
Like a ladder that is being constantly pulled up.