- 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
Because it isn’t just your body in your home. It is the entire healthcare system that has to deal with the impacts of smokers. It is the neighbors who have to smell it from your house. It is the kids of parents who are smokers.
Your phone causes health complications and should be banned. Almost all the food you eat causes health complications and should be banned. Exercising causes health complications and should be banned.
Or maybe we don’t do authoritarian bullshit and stop trying to regulate what people do to themselves.
Sure. But how many other things do we do that are bad for us. Alcohol, red meat (according to some), skydiving (mostly a joke). So who chooses which vices are okay to burden the healthcare system with, and which aren’t. I have no problem with making it illegal to cause others to have to smell it, nor with exposing children to it. That is impacting someone else’s rights.
Should the government ban snack foods for obese households then? Or take away their kids before they pass on their unhealthy ways?
Tobacco legislation is just as much an over reach as that would be, and if you accept their proposal, they will come back and take more from you in the name of health. It’s a steady walk into fascism while you’re distracted with the handful of countries that are speed running it.