- 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
You’ve obviously never been a nicotine addict. Nothing you said here would have stopped me from getting my drug, before I quit
I started smoking when I was 14. Smoked a pack a day for a while, smoked my last in my thirties.
The point of a rolling ban isn’t meant to make you quit, it’s to stop people from starting and it will work. Not for everyone, but for a lot of people it will.
Its taking away personal freedoms and works against a free market. Keep the government out of your personal choices.
If the free market is so great where are the free market roads, or the free market fire fighters, or the free market court systems, or the free market affordable health care?
… okay… so let’s mix in local government, taxes, and legal systems?
I don’t even know what to say
Your take is very absolutist. If you’ve never smoked a cigarette, you might not realize how powerful the pull is. It’s not a normal craving. It takes over every free thought when it hits. It changes your brain in specific areas identifiable on brain scans. This shit is sugar coated poison.
I smoked for 20 years, I also I have had other addictions… changes nothing
I smoked for 15 years and that take is bullshit, or at least not as common among smokers as you think it is.
So you’re saying it’s not bullshit… just not your take. I assure you, there are many I know personally who have been trying to quit for decades on and off with little success. This is not a normal craving like cake. For such an expensive addiction, it’s borderline theft. Some dumb 13yr old gets tricked into trying one and over the course of the next 20yrs spends more money on cigarettes than anything else in their life…. Gtfo if you think that’s normal.
Meanwhile one of my friend smokes and never gets hit with craving. It’s case by case.
Once again you’re trying to characterize all experiences by one that’s relatively uncommon, -yeah, you’re slinging bullshit
Oh no, not the free market!
Where’s your line between “keeping the government out of your personal choices” vs. “regulations that keep us safe”? Like, I’m sure you’re ok with regulations that keep poisons like lead, arsenic, etc. out of consumable goods, right?
I kinda agree with the other commenter that said all drugs should be legalized, but also, I’ve had close personal experiences with how addictive and harmful nicotine is, so I can also understand why it would be the target of bans.
You choose to smoke. If someone wants to buy sawdust to put into their bread separately that’s fine. regulations are to stop a market from poisoning the base product, if the product is poison then it’s on the consumer.
Things that you choose to consume aren’t the same as utilities.
Mkay but food isn’t a utility, and neither are cigarettes/cigars/vapes/etc, so I don’t really understand what you’re getting at here
End of the day it’s a question of personal freedoms
My right to swing my bat ends at your face. There is an interface where personal freedoms need to be restricted unless you don’t mind living in fear 24/7.
Cute?
Then why did you bring up utilities
Im all for that, honestly, but lets include all the drugs
Oh no, not the free market!
You are looking at it from the perspective of someone who is already addicted, not from the perspective of an entire population of people who have never had access to legal cigarettes. This isn’t for people who are already addicted. This is to achieve fewer people from becoming addicted.
Yes, statistics show most smokers start smoking before the age of 16, so obtaining cigarettes legally isn’t stopping them. But the sheer number of smokers dropped when it became harder to find places to smoke after bar/restaurant/public area bans. It’s interesting looking at the trends of smokers over time. Adult use in the US has held a VERY consistent downward trend since the 1970s, holding around the same slope for 50 years. However, youth use dropped significantly right around the time cities and states implemented smoking bans in bars/restaurants/public areas. That is correlation, not necessarily causation, so I am not claiming it as fact.
I will say it is absolutely jarring to travel to Europe from the US. I travel a lot, and going from a city where very few people smoke (well, they smoke, just not tobacco) to almost any city in Europe is a shock to my nose. It doesn’t stop me visiting Europe every year, but man it does make walking on the streets there less enjoyable.
I believe in the freedom to choose what I do with .you body. Period.
While negatively impacting everyone around you.
You favorite food negatively impacts me, it stinks and it needs to be banned. See how dumb that sounds?
People smoking in their homes is not impacting you.
If you live around people you must accept a level of smells and noise that offend you. That’s fucking life.
Cost of freedom
But governments will continue to allow nicotine delivery devices like vapes and pouches.
They should be banning nicotine as a controlled drug. Take nicotine out and people will see no reason to smoke or vape. It’s been government sanctioned addiction for over 100 years.