- 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
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.
It can’t be taken 1:1. Vices being banned in the past was typically because they provided pleasure in lieu of productivity, not some external reason. Therefore making those bans inherently tyrannical to habitual users and certain non-users, incentivizing disobedience.
But this time, it’s being banned for a group that’s not habitually using already, meaning extraordinary reasons would require them to become habitual in the first place. And smoking is typically not very pleasant at the start to begin with, so there’s little incentive to start. And, unlike in the past, it’s no longer cool or uncontroversial to smoke. And of course there’s the knowledge that it will give you cancer and cut your lifespan.
There’s just not much vice left, so even if 1% slips through the cracks with an underground market, there isn’t the room for growth that sustains or spreads an illegal market like for eg. recreational drugs, which is why those bans need to be enforced to perfection to work, which is why they never work.
There are so many ways for people to harm themselves that we don’t need to ban because they come with severe risk to the person, so they self regulate. The only reason smoking needs that ban is because of how widespread smoking was, and so even if way less people start smoking than before, that’s still way too many people. A ban just needs to be successful at getting far less people to start, not absolutely halt every single usage, and eventually it will fade from culture on it’s own.