UK Smoking Ban

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Honey69
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17 Apr 2024, 7:11 am

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-68825322

Quote:

What is the UK smoking ban, how will it work and when will it start?

...Under the new law, each year the legal age for cigarette sales - currently 18 - will increase by one year.

It means that people born in or after 2009 will never be able to legally buy cigarettes, leading to an effective ban.

The law will not affect those who are allowed to buy cigarettes now.

To crack down on underage sales, the government says it will introduce £100 on-the-spot fines for shops in England and Wales which sell tobacco and vapes to underage people.

Local authorities will retain the proceeds to reinvest into enforcement of the law.

This would be on top of £2,500 fines that courts can already impose.

The government says it will spend £30m on enforcement, which will include tackling the availability of cigarettes on the black market...

...Cigarettes release thousands of different chemicals when they burn, including carbon monoxide, lead, and ammonia.

Many components of tobacco are poisonous, and up to 70 cause cancer.

Smoking is also linked to other serious illnesses, including lung disease, heart disease and strokes.

The government says it is still the number one preventable cause of death, disability and ill health, causing around 80,000 deaths per year across the UK, and costing the NHS and the economy an estimated £17bn every year,

According to the government, creating a "smoke-free generation" could prevent more than 470,000 cases of heart disease, stroke, lung cancer and other diseases by the end of the century....

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Nades
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17 Apr 2024, 10:08 am

Apparently, smokers cost less for the NHS than non-smokers as they have a more rapid decline in health.

A way, its a ban thatl probably lead to a reduction in smokers but will also open up another black market.

ToughDiamond
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17 Apr 2024, 12:03 pm

Weren't they set to try it in New Zealand? Don't know the exact reasons why they dropped it.

Health-wise, its impact won't be seen for a very long time.

Hard to know what will happen. It's never been tried before.

DuckHairback
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17 Apr 2024, 12:28 pm

The thing about banning things is that a) its very quick and b) it's very cheap so if you're a government with a record of not achieving very much and an electorate that's written you off as ineffectual, a few bans (particularly of things that are unpopular anyway) starts to seem like a good idea. Particularly since you probably won't be around to deal with any problems it causes.

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BillyTree
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17 Apr 2024, 12:28 pm

ToughDiamond wrote:

Weren't they set to try it in New Zealand? Don't know the exact reasons why they dropped it.

I think it had something to do with lobbying, pressure and threats from tobacco companies.

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ToughDiamond
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17 Apr 2024, 3:07 pm

DuckHairback wrote:

Well he had to have his little ego-trip "legacy" didn't he? I don't know what part of "you're finished" zombie governments can't understand.

BillyTree wrote:

ToughDiamond wrote:

Weren't they set to try it in New Zealand? Don't know the exact reasons why they dropped it.

I think it had something to do with lobbying, pressure and threats from tobacco companies.

Even in New Zealand. There's no hope for the world. Whoever you vote for, big business is the real government.

funeralxempire
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17 Apr 2024, 3:11 pm

Looks like their goal is to let the people who grow pot take over the tobacco business.

I guess the next step is to legalize pot so the poor tobacco companies have something to sell. :lol:

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naturalplastic
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17 Apr 2024, 3:58 pm

ToughDiamond wrote:

DuckHairback wrote:

Well he had to have his little ego-trip "legacy" didn't he? I don't know what part of "you're finished" zombie governments can't understand.

BillyTree wrote:

ToughDiamond wrote:

Weren't they set to try it in New Zealand? Don't know the exact reasons why they dropped it.

I think it had something to do with lobbying, pressure and threats from tobacco companies.

Even in New Zealand. There's no hope for the world. Whoever you vote for, big business is the real government.

Yeah. Didnt NZ have that clever system in which they raised the minimum age one year every year? Eighteen was legal in year X, But you had to 19 in year X+1, and 20 in year X +2, and so on. So the oldsters already hooked could keep on smoking, but no new young recruits to smoking would be (in theory) made. "Grandfathering out" tobacco consumption so to speak.

blitzkrieg
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17 Apr 2024, 4:00 pm

The ban is probably a good thing, although I imagine people will still be seeking cigarettes out on the black market, even for those who are new to smoking.

Though the amount of those people would probably be small, versus how many people would newly smoke whilst smoking were still legal.

Vaping seems to be the new(ish) trend for young folk in any case and the go to for a nicotine hit.

ToughDiamond
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17 Apr 2024, 4:57 pm

naturalplastic wrote:

If I understand it right, that's what the UK gov is proposing to do.

blitzkrieg wrote:

I suppose the "black market" is already a thing for under-age smokers anyway. Certainly the age limit was no bar to my smoking when I was a kid. There'll just be a few more people every year who are tempted to break the rule. As you suggest, vaping has reduced the number of young tobacco seekers a lot anyway. It's also much easier to stealth-vape than to stealth-smoke, on account of the persistent smell of burning tobacco fumes. Unfortunately the gov has also put an additional tax on vaping - they say it's to "bring the cost into line with tobacco" (why?) and to "protect" young people from the health risks of vaping, but personally I think it's a lousy intervention that will deter people from switching from smoking to vaping, as well as disproportionately hitting addicts who are poor. If society can't or won't police a perceived drug problem, trying to price it out of existence won't achieve much.

The_Walrus
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17 Apr 2024, 5:18 pm

BillyTree wrote:

ToughDiamond wrote:

Weren't they set to try it in New Zealand? Don't know the exact reasons why they dropped it.

I think it had something to do with lobbying, pressure and threats from tobacco companies.

It was because it was a bad idea.

There were three components to their plan:

1) removing nicotine from cigarettes to make them less addictive

2) changing regulations around display and storage of cigarettes in shops (someone might correct me on the specifics of this)

3) banning everyone born after [date] from buying cigarettes

Between them, these three measures were going to cause the population to have an extra 600,000 years of good health. Hooray!

The issue was that 97% of those years were caused by denicotinisation, and the retail strategy was going to achieve more than the ban.

So of course, Rishi Sunak took one look at that and decided to copy the bad idea, rather than the good ideas.

DoniiMann
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17 Apr 2024, 5:33 pm

Here in Australia, I think just jacking up the price has helped. When I quit, about twenty years ago, a 50g pack of Drum was about $40. Now it's about $200. I still miss smoking, but I'd never take it up again, just because of price. Now smoking is so uncommon, I can't even find someone if I want to passive smoke.

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naturalplastic
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17 Apr 2024, 6:25 pm

DoniiMann wrote:

I never smoked tobacco. But I used to sell cigarettes to customers of a drug store, and now I count inventory of tobacco products in stores. So Ive seen how the price has gone up here in the US too over the years. In the seventies a pack was 60 cents and a carton of ten packs was 4.50. Now packs range from seven to 12 dollars. And cartons can be a hundred dollars.

Our convenience stores tend to be run by South Asian or Somali immigrants. During one inventory I overheard the corporate guy telling the brown skinned store preprioter that "your sales are low, but normally tobacco sales would save you. But nowadays demand for tobacco is so low that even your tobacco sales are not enough to save you."

Poor guy. Hard working. But now he is ruined because...he cant sell Americans cancer sticks anymore! Happy for Americans in general. Sad for him. Lol!

RedDeathFlower13
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