507

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.

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[-] anewbeginning@lemmy.world 118 points 1 year ago

Creating a new illegal drug market.

[-] 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.

load more comments (4 replies)
[-] 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.

load more comments (5 replies)
[-] 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

load more comments (19 replies)
[-] burningmatches@feddit.uk 23 points 1 year ago

Shittest high ever. Only people already hooked would be interested and they could buy it legally anyway.

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] atlasraven31@lemm.ee 13 points 1 year ago

For some. Some would ultimately quit and some would never start.

load more comments (4 replies)
[-] Pili@lemmygrad.ml 9 points 1 year ago

Honestly, tobaco is pretty crap as a recreational drug. It would surprise me if non-smokers would go out of their way to get black market cigarettes like they would with alcohol if it got banned.

load more comments (5 replies)
load more comments (9 replies)
[-] Rand0mA@lemmy.world 64 points 1 year ago

Do it. First decision I've heard him make that isn't about making profit for himself.... unless he has invested in vape shops ... ah that makes more sense. Fuck Rishi

[-] PP_BOY_@lemmy.world 22 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

we have already taken steps to reduce smoking rates. This includes providing 1 million smokers in England with free vape kits via our world-first ‘swap to stop’ scheme

Which family member do you think invested heavily in whichever company got the contract for these vapes?

[-] quadropiss@lemmy.world 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

YES WASTE MORE MONEH ON WAR ON DRUGS!!!!!! It's not like it's completely ineffective and is literally killing people🥰😜

[-] jsdz@lemmy.ml 59 points 1 year ago

If they want to ban tobacco let them first legalise weed, acid, and psylocybin. That'd be a fair trade.

load more comments (8 replies)
[-] Got_Bent@lemmy.world 54 points 1 year ago

All these progressively restrictive laws have been good to me. I'm of the generation who remembers smoking on planes, and my grandmother smoking in her hospital bed.

I was probably at two packs a day in the nineties because it was cheap and acceptable.

These days, a pack will last me a week, and I only ever smoke in my backyard at home, in clothing dedicated to the habit that get washed separately from my other clothes.

Bans and social stigma have forced me into near non-smoking without ever consciously trying.

Do I ever have an occasional night of celebratory drinking where I exceed that trend? You betcha, and I don't feel sorry about it. But I'm glad that I'm not the chain smoking beef jerky with a voice three octaves lower than it should be that my grandparents were.

I still believe that people should be able to enjoy vice and that you shouldn't be completely ostracized from society for not living a perfect organic free range fair trade intoxicant free perfectly vegan whatever else life.

But to phase out tobacco as it has been going, I have found that I haven't minded at all in the long term.

(As to the occasional celebratory night, for completely different reasons, I hardly drink anymore. Also was not a conscious choice or effort. It just lost its attraction for me)

load more comments (9 replies)
[-] obinice@lemmy.world 45 points 1 year ago

About bloody time. Cigarettes are disgusting and do nothing but immense harm to those who smoke them, and those around them.

Sunak is a tosser, but cigarettes are a no brainer. Sure, old boomers still smoke them, but only the dumbest young people still smoke, and most of them use e-cigs (which are still bad, but nowhere remotely near as bad).

Several of my grandparents died before I could ever know them because of smoking, for example. Fuck smoking. Smoking kills.

[-] some_guy 10 points 1 year ago

Two of my grandparents died before my birth because they smoked. I smoked. I still vape. I hate that companies make money on addiction. This is still stupid.

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] Vode_An@lemmy.ml 44 points 1 year ago

Tried going cold Turkey today, made it like 14 hours.

It’s the right thing to do. It’s a very hard addiction to escape. I know a guy who beat heroin and can’t beat nicotine.

[-] SpeedLimit55@lemmy.world 16 points 1 year ago

It took me years to quit, I slowly cut cigs out of my daily activities.

[-] Vode_An@lemmy.ml 9 points 1 year ago

Good on you! That’s awesome. thankfully I’m not inhaling anything anymore, but damn if it’s hard to quit the substance entirely. Big ups to everyone who made it out though.

[-] SpeedLimit55@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago

Yeah its tough, just do your best and stick with it. Now my only nicotine is from a cigar a few times a year.

load more comments (2 replies)
[-] jagungal@lemmy.world 13 points 1 year ago

I knew someone who kicked a cocaine habit and stopped drinking alcohol, but died of cancer because he couldn't quit smoking.

load more comments (2 replies)
[-] rainynight65@feddit.de 37 points 1 year ago

Smoking is one of the very few things everyone is better off not doing.

load more comments (13 replies)
[-] DeathsEmbrace@lemmy.world 25 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Ban alcohol too or it's hypocrisy once again.

[-] ours@lemmy.film 36 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Checks history

Wait a minute...

[-] umbrella@lemmy.ml 23 points 1 year ago

ban every single drug and watch how wrong its gonna go

they simply cannot stop repeating the mistakes of the past can they

[-] loutr@sh.itjust.works 22 points 1 year ago

I'm very pro-legalization but honestly tobacco is a shit drug. No real high, very addictive and awful health effects. I don't see many people going through the hassle of maintaining their addiction illegally if it was banned everywhere.

load more comments (4 replies)
load more comments (5 replies)
load more comments (4 replies)
[-] Conercao@lemmy.world 23 points 1 year ago

Didn't he just say yesterday that he didn't want the government to butt into people's lives? I thought that was why he abandoned all those laws which didn't exist. You know, the meat tax and the 7 bins xD

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] _number8_@lemmy.world 16 points 1 year ago

prohibition still doesn't work

[-] azurefirefly@lemmy.basedcount.com 16 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Thank god. Hope this gets passed. Next do vaping and get rid of it

[-] SouthEndSunset@lemm.ee 23 points 1 year ago

draws on vape whats wrong with vaping? draws on vape

load more comments (5 replies)
[-] guyrocket@kbin.social 15 points 1 year ago

The (stopped?) trend in the US had been to tax cigs to make them unaffordable. Just before the last major hike, my brand was about $5/pack. Now it is $10-12. So glad I quit.

Is that a viable strategy, to continue tax/price hikes?

[-] Madison_rogue@kbin.social 14 points 1 year ago

Did it stop you smoking? If so, then yes it worked.

Every 10% increase in cigarette tax results a 4% reduction in consumption among adults, and a 7% decrease amongst youth. Source

[-] guyrocket@kbin.social 11 points 1 year ago

It was a minor motivator for me. Bigger ones were things like not dying and my son.

Interesting stats, thanks.

load more comments (3 replies)
load more comments (4 replies)
[-] anthoniix@lemmy.world 13 points 1 year ago
[-] ronondex 13 points 1 year ago

IMHO they should ban all types of smoking. If people want to eat weed brownies and nicotine chewing gums, I don't care. But smoking just smells bad and is really unpleasant to be around in the street.

Just ban smoking drugs and combustion engine. I just want clean air.

[-] Kythtrid@sh.itjust.works 19 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Neither of those things are even like, the top 3 things that are stopping you from having clean air.

load more comments (3 replies)
[-] Texas_Hangover@lemm.ee 14 points 1 year ago

Yeah! Prohibition always works out flawlessly.

[-] Blake@feddit.uk 13 points 1 year ago

Living in a tolerant society means that we need to be willing to deal with these little inconveniences in our lives. One of my neighbours has kids who love to play on a go-kart and wake me up at 6am on a Saturday morning, sometimes I can smell people barbecuing even though I’m vegan, and so on.

As long as it’s not a direct risk to health (e.g. smoking indoors) and not extremely obnoxious (playing extremely loud music and refusing to turn it down) people should be able to do what they want to.

load more comments (10 replies)
load more comments (2 replies)
[-] Gerula@lemmy.world 11 points 1 year ago

Legalise weed but ban tobacco!

Just saying.

load more comments
view more: next ›
this post was submitted on 22 Sep 2023
507 points (98.5% liked)

World News

32453 readers
460 users here now

News from around the world!

Rules:

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS