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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.

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[-] Laser@feddit.de 84 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

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.

[-] Concave1142@lemmy.world 35 points 1 year ago

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.

[-] Laser@feddit.de 38 points 1 year ago

The "disposable" vapes are a different issue that needs to be tackled. I'm pretty sure that a meaningful deposit (5 or 10 euros) and the obligation for every seller to accept returns would solve the problem.

[-] fubo@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

It works for beer cans!

In my part of the US, we hardly ever see beer or soda containers in litter. We do see liquor bottles, wine bottles, and sports-drink bottles as litter. Guess which drink containers have a deposit and cash redemption and which don't?

The "bottle bill" works. It creates incentives for all sorts of people, from frugal homeowners to homeless folks, to collect and return containers. Applying it to other products that show up in litter would just make sense, especially dangerous ones like vape batteries or cartridges.

[-] Death_Equity@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

That is the most reasonable route. A "core charge" type of model where you get the addition fee waived if you bring in an old one.

Same scheme they use with car batteries and some auto parts. Although, some auto parts have a core charge as part of a dubious ploy to prevent the aftermarket from getting the headlight for duplication.

[-] Takumidesh@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I'm not doubting you, but like, what r&d firm is gonna go, welp, this $50 core charge is too much for us, guess we won't do it.

[-] Death_Equity@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

I forget what Chevy it was, but they just released a new model and the $2,500 headlight came with a $500 core.

Source: I ordered it.

[-] TWeaK@lemm.ee 13 points 1 year ago

I mean smoking itself isn't environmentally friendly. You're taking all the nicotine and smashing it with oxygen, producing lots of carbon particulates including CO2 and CO - greenhouse gases. Yes, it's only a tiny amount, but you don't get that with vaping. With vaping you just extract whole molecules, rather than breaking things down, at least as long as the temperature is properly controlled.

A good vape should have next to no waste. The vape itself should not be disposable, and batteries should last a year minimum even with heavy use. That just leaves whatever container you get your liquid in, which wouldn't be hard to recycle. Alternatively you could use a dry herb vape, along with pipe tobacco - but if we're honest if you have a dry herb vape you're probably not putting tobacco in it. You're going to put in things like lavender and thyme, of course.

[-] SPARKLEPONY@midwest.social 6 points 1 year ago

You can always ban disposable vapes? Requiring anyone that wants to vape to carry around those massive refillable batteries would do wonders to discourage people picking up the habit.

[-] Moonguide@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 year ago

There are refillable vapes that aren't that size. Though you do throw away the coil/juice container.

Haven't seen one of em biguns in a while.

[-] ComradeChairmanKGB@lemmygrad.ml -1 points 1 year ago

Using the litter aspects of cigarettes as a reason to curb smoking has always been a tough one for me.

Tell me you've never had to clean up after smokers without telling me you've never had to clean up after smokers.

[-] Concave1142@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Smoked cigarettes for 15 years and chewing tobacco for 5 years. Try again.

[-] ComradeChairmanKGB@lemmygrad.ml 1 points 1 year ago

So people had to clean up after you is what you're saying.

[-] BlameThePeacock@lemmy.ca 13 points 1 year ago

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

[-] irationslippers@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

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

[-] Dontfearthereaper123@lemm.ee 3 points 1 year ago

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.

[-] Raxiel@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Once you spark up it's not obvious at a glance if the cigarette is duty paid or not. There's a marked difference between a lit cigarette and no cigarette.

[-] Dontfearthereaper123@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago

People will just smoke in bushes. Teens already do so they don't get caught by their parents.

[-] Laser@feddit.de 1 points 1 year ago

So by your logic, cigarettes shouldn't be taxed at all?

Also, the way this is proposed kind of avoids the issue. People importing cigarettes already smoke, and they'll be able to in the future because this only targets people born after a certain date to deter them from starting.

[-] Dontfearthereaper123@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago

No, because I don't believe a solution that captures every single black market cigarette is possible. The best solution is to heavily regulate the industry and spread accurate information about cigarettes and I'd also personally ban cigarettes in movies under a certain age rating unless essential to the character in some way such as they develop cancer later in the movie or something.

[-] TranscendentalEmpire@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago

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.

[-] Laser@feddit.de 12 points 1 year ago

At least over here, taxation on cigarettes offsets the direct cost caused by smoking according to experts. That's why I left it out, I do believe you're allowed to be stupid and smoke. But keep the damage to yourself and make sure non-smokers aren't paying for it one way or another.

So yeah your demand is at least partially already reality over here.

[-] jasory@programming.dev 2 points 1 year ago

"taxation on cigarettes offsets the direct cost caused by smoking".

By about 25 percent. I calculated it a few years back combining the total US taxes on tobacco (state, federal and local) and comparing it to the Medicare expenditures on treating the percentage of lung cancer caused by tobacco smoking. This is actually pretty skewed against my claims since tobacco isn't always smoked so the tax from smoking is smaller than the total tobacco tax revenue, Medicare only pays for a portion of the lung cancer treatments (since not everyone uses Medicare but the private insurance data isn't as available), and this is only one albeit expensive aliment caused by tobacco smoking. So 25 percent is a generous estimate.

Long story short "sin taxes" don't actually pay for anything, it's a complete myth mostly promoted by people who want to use the product.

[-] usualsuspect191@lemmy.ca 6 points 1 year ago

I thought smokers ended up being cheaper for healthcare in the long run because they don't live as long?

[-] Lmaydev@programming.dev 6 points 1 year ago

Smokers on average don't die that much younger. But they do have a much less healthy end of life.

The life expectancy of male smokers, ex-smokers, and never-smokers at age 40 years was 38.5, 40.8, and 42.4 years respectively. In women, the corresponding life expectancies were 42.4, 42.1, and 46.1 years.

[-] Laser@feddit.de 5 points 1 year ago

Women: don't smoke, but if you do, never stop.

/s for good measure

[-] TranscendentalEmpire@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago

For private healthcare maybe? A lot of the reasons private insurance groups are even somewhat functional is because the vast majority of healthcare cost are shifted over to medicare once people start falling apart.

Most things like cardiovascular disease and lung cancer happen in the late 50s or older. People who aren't yet old enough for medicare will file for disability to access it earlier in the event of severe illnesses.

[-] irationslippers@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

I'm fairly sure cig smokers are a net gain on the Exchequer

[-] explodicle@local106.com 4 points 1 year ago

That becomes ammo against single payer, then. "If we get socialist medicine, they'll bring back prohibition!"

[-] PowerCrazy@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

For-Profit healthcare is the scam here, not people drinking or smoking "too much," whatever that means to you personally.

this post was submitted on 22 Sep 2023
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