Rendered at 19:09:18 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Cloudflare Workers.
gcanyon 7 hours ago [-]
There are two separate issues here: 1. will this work (will the UK stop smoking) 2. is this something the UK government should be doing
Setting aside 1 and looking at 2, it seems silly to me to point out that other things (alcohol) that cause problems and are not being restricted. You take the wins where you find them, and the government isn't a magical force that can impose its will on the people arbitrarily. This is obviously the government responding to the general sense of the people (perhaps putting its thumb on the scale). The UK doesn't support cigarettes, so the law gets passed. If someone has a public opinion poll there showing less than 50% support for this, I'd love to see it.
tim333 7 minutes ago [-]
Alcohol is quite different to cigarettes. It's fun and part of the culture - most people drink and the country is full of pubs and restaurants serving it. You couldn't ban it without most of the country, including me, objecting.
Cigarettes on the other hand are not so popular. If you ask most smokers if they regret starting about 90% say yes. They mostly want to quit but are addicted. Quite different from booze.
mothballed 15 seconds ago [-]
If you look at the US about 50% have ever smoked some form of tobacco at least once. Only 11-15% currently do.
For booze it's much 'worse.' Nearly 80% have ever drunk alcohol but 50% of them still do.
Also note a very large portion of people that have ever smoked have had a nice cigar or pipe, smoked once in a blue moon is extremely unlikely to cause cancer or addiction.
zbentley 6 hours ago [-]
> other things (alcohol) that cause problems and are not being restricted
Alcohol is heavily restricted, though. You can't sell it to minors, younger minors can't drink it in public, you can't sell/buy/make it above a certain proof, you can only resell it from authorized distributors, it is taxes, and so on.
Sure, banning cigarettes for a specific generation is a much more stringent restriction, but plenty of other restrictions exist.
owlcompliance 3 hours ago [-]
Big difference between banning something outright and regulating a substance.
JumpCrisscross 2 hours ago [-]
> Big difference between banning something outright and regulating a substance
One could frame this as a substance regulation for anyone under 18, with the age moving one year every year henceforth.
noduerme 5 hours ago [-]
what if they told you your kids would never be allowed to have a drink?
angra_mainyu 53 minutes ago [-]
I'd probably start learning how to homebrew beer.
voidUpdate 4 hours ago [-]
Sounds good to me...
temp0826 4 hours ago [-]
In huge agreement with you. But can it be done in a different way that doesn't create the black market problems of the prohibition era? (Do we have a better chance now with gen z's aversion to drugs/alcohol?)
herbst 2 hours ago [-]
Awesome! Where can I sign?
nslsm 2 hours ago [-]
It’s awesome to decide what your children, once they are adults, can’t do? Seems borderline psychopathic. Kinda sums up democracy in current times though.
sebastiennight 12 minutes ago [-]
> It’s awesome to decide what your children, once they are adults, can’t do?
You do realize that this is what basically every single law in existence does, right?
That my kids, and likely yours, once they're adults, can't drive under the influence, rob a bank, impersonate a cop, lie under oath, exercise medecine without a licence, walk downtown naked, jaywalk, evade taxes, criticize the King?
mingus88 5 hours ago [-]
I’m having a hard time coming up with a better way. Simply banning all manufacturing and import is not going to work when it’s heavily addictive. In the case of alcohol, quitting cold can kill you.
Banning it today and expecting people to cope, or attempt to fund recovery efforts for a whole nation would completely misunderstand the addicts mind. If you don’t want to quit, you never will.
Instead we have a total ban that is timeboxed to allow the addicts the rest of their lives to quit one way or another.
OkayPhysicist 1 hours ago [-]
If they wanted to ban cigarettes, they should have banned cigarettes. The whole "let's pass a law that only affects people who can't vote" strategy applied here is tyranical.
mothballed 1 hours ago [-]
The US did the same thing with cockfighting. It was already illegal in all the states, but they passed a federal law binding on all states and territories to stop Puerto Ricans (who had no such law against it), who have no meaningful federal representation.
neonstatic 4 hours ago [-]
Cigarettes are not incorporated into the UK culture the way alcohol is. Drinking at a pub is sacred to them.
pjc50 2 hours ago [-]
People used to be able to smoke in pubs. But I agree it wasn't quite so culturally foundational.
I'm not going to lose sleep over the idea of a smoking ban, since it was already driven to the margins, but the implementation of it by age is really weird. Clearly a move to avoid annoying pensioners, like everything else.
seba_dos1 24 seconds ago [-]
[delayed]
unethical_ban 4 hours ago [-]
My suspicion is that alcohol is mind-altering in ways smoking is not, and has a large effect on social interactions in business and romance and coping with the drudgery of daily life.
Take away smoking from the next generation and they move to caffeine or vapes. Take away alcohol and there are revolutions and religious extremist revivals.
sir0010010 3 hours ago [-]
Taking away smoking still solves the secondhand smoke issue.
ErroneousBosh 1 hours ago [-]
Not the second-hand vape issue though.
Those of us who don't smoke or vape can smell that shit a couple of hundred metres away.
noduerme 5 hours ago [-]
>> the government isn't a magical force that can impose its will on the people arbitrarily
You must live in a democracy. If you ever lived in a country where the government curtailed freedoms by fiat, you'd understand that it can and it will. I happened to be living in Vietnam when the government just randomly decided one day that smoking would be banned everywhere, effective immediately. You might think that's simply putting a thumb on the scale; but you also haven't tried to visit the New York Times website from there and later found yourself in a room with officials asking for all your passwords. And clearly you're not familiar with the preferred way of clearing traffic jams, which is driving a jeep through a crowd of motorbikes while a guy with a long bamboo cane whacks anyone who's in the way.
Thumb on the scale my ass. Totalitarianism is control over the little things.
nerdsniper 2 hours ago [-]
Is it possible to buy nicotine in Vietnam today? Is it de jure illegal but de facto widely available? Did everyone switch from cigarettes to vapes?
lokar 4 hours ago [-]
This seems really out of context
defrost 4 hours ago [-]
They appear to have taken a specific reference to "the (UK (implied by context)) government" as an arbitrary generic reference to any government on the planet.
mytailorisrich 7 hours ago [-]
I think it is also part of a trend. More and more control over people's lives, more and more bans.
Beyond whether something is "bad for you", the key aspect in a free society is whether the State should decide for you (we're entrusted with the right to vote, after all).
Demolition Man has turned out to be the most accurate prediction of the future regarding those issues among all the 90s movies. Quite interesting.
afavour 6 hours ago [-]
I see smoking as a separate category owing to the existence of second hand smoke. Smoking in a room with other people adversely affects those people. I think government is the correct body to be intervening in that scenario.
rcxdude 3 hours ago [-]
Smoking is already banned in public spaces and workplaces. It's pretty rare to be in a room with someone smoking unless they're friends or family.
lokar 4 hours ago [-]
I think health costs are the bigger issue
themaninthedark 4 hours ago [-]
Yes, this is one of the reasons there is resistance to socialized health care. People view it as opening the door to the government controlling what they due due to health care costs.
Sure, I dislike smoking, I really don't drink that much either.
But then it leads to questions such as; What about birth defects? What about extreme sports(risk of permanent injury)?
There was a scandal in Canada recently about veterans asking for medical care and being push to assisted suicide:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/veterans-maid-rcmp-investig...
>MacAulay walked the committee through what his department knew, thus far, saying the first case that came to light occurred last summer where the caseworker repeatedly pushed the notion of MAID to an unnamed veteran who had called seeking help with post-traumatic stress.
lokar 4 hours ago [-]
IMO they should just charge a premium for smoking that about covers the expense overall
cucumber3732842 3 hours ago [-]
Solving it with money doesn't really solve it unless there's "real" competition.
Look at automotive insurance points systems. People have to buy it so the sellers lean on the legislatures and before you know it a ticket costs the same points and screws you out of just as much money as an actual accident.
lokar 3 hours ago [-]
That seems appropriate. A small fraction of people cause most of the losses, they should pay more.
cucumber3732842 2 hours ago [-]
>That seems appropriate. A small fraction of people cause most of the losses, they should pay more.
Surely that was a satirical comment and was meant to be an illustrative example of exactly the sort of mindset that runs political cover for a system as it pivots from providing enough value to become entrenched to using that entrenched position to behave in an extractive manner.
In my state if grandma gets pulled over for an out of date inspection sticker it's the same number of points as actually causing an accident. Someone is being fleeced.
I have zero faith that letting the government choose at the behest of industry who ought to pay more for healthcare that it wouldn't devolve into the same exact sort of exercise in finding a reason to charge everyone more.
lokar 2 hours ago [-]
I’ve never seen having an expired tag be a points violation, that seems very wrong. IME it’s only ever moving violations that impact safety. For that, higher rates are absolutely appropriate.
cucumber3732842 1 hours ago [-]
Safety inspection. It's a moving violation in this state (of course it wasn't initially, frogs are best boiled slow). That's the magic of it. Frame it as a "safety" issue and everyone who can't think critically about how that sausage might be made will knee jerk approve.
lokar 17 minutes ago [-]
If I was an auto insurer, I would want to know that my policy holders were properly maintaining their vehicles. I would also have a strong interest in ensuring that non-policy holders did the same.
And as a driver, I certainly want everyone around me to be required to properly maintain their cars.
mothballed 8 minutes ago [-]
This is a hilarious interpretation of how driving laws are enforced. I happen to know a lot of people in the racing / street car community, though I am not involved myself. As a matter of course, I've come to learn how they get ticket convictions less often than me and your average guy who barely speeds but gets caught once a decade by sheriff joe.
(1) They have GPS tracking of all camera locations with alerts at each one
(2) They use laser jammers
(3) They have the best radar detectors
(4) They all know the best lawyers for getting your tickets dropped and failing that
(5) They know how to approach the prosecutor for diversions
The much better, safer, driver gets the ticket and higher rates instead because they haven't revolved their driving experience over defeating the ticketing enforcement. And the 'justice' system is good with this because the end goal is revenue, not identifying problem drivers.
mytailorisrich 3 hours ago [-]
In the UK taxes on tobacco earn more than the (socialised) healthcare financial cost of smoking. So this argument is a fallacy.
d1sxeyes 42 minutes ago [-]
I don’t think the argument as a whole is a fallacy, it’s true that the exact cost to the NHS is more than covered by tax, but most estimates of wider cost to the economy (e.g. lost productivity, disability benefits, etc) is higher.
https://fullfact.org/health/farage-smoking-revenue-nhs/
mytailorisrich 37 minutes ago [-]
It's equally a fallacious argument to try to fit "cost to the economy", whatever that means, to the healthcare cost (usually this is done to inflate costs to fit the narrative). By that logic, ban everything and allow only what allows individuals to maximise their productive labour... what a nightmare.
mytailorisrich 6 hours ago [-]
That's not a separate category, that's the general principle in a free society: There is a limit to "doing what you want" when it impacts others/imposes on them.
That's why smoking is already heavily regulated in order to limit and minimise the impact that your choice has on others.
balderdash 4 hours ago [-]
I think you could make the same argument about alcohol and drugs (road fatalities + some absurd number of convicted criminals were high/drunk when perpetrating the crime) - I’m not taking a side either way but I don’t think smoking is unique in terms of harm to society there besides the user.
mytailorisrich 3 hours ago [-]
The same argument is made and accepted about alcohol: You can drink as much as you want but you cannot put others in danger by drink driving.
You can smoke as much as you want but smoking in public places, especially indoor, is banned not to impose your health choices on others.
This is how liberty works in a free society as mentioned in my previous comment.
Banning smoking altogether, on the other hand, is deciding for you and exactly what the "nanny state" refers to.
NoMoreNicksLeft 4 hours ago [-]
On reddit, not so long ago, they were inventing interesting theories about how seat belt laws were justified because without seat belts people would be ejected from cars and kill by standards when their flying carcasses cannonballed through them.
The claim that "it impacts others" is, at very minimum, exaggerated, but just as often completely fabricated out of pseudoscience and absurd movie plots.
Smoking is heavily regulated because there was a resurgence of teetotaling in the late 20th century.
pigeons 13 minutes ago [-]
Remember when seat belt laws came out in the United States, they (at least in the states I was in) vehemently promised up and down that it would always be a secondary offense and never would be allowed to become a reason to pull you over?
BenjiWiebe 2 hours ago [-]
It impacts first responders. Not only is it bad to respond to an accident with a fatality, it's worse if you can see the would've likely been fine had they worn a seat belt.
LtWorf 6 hours ago [-]
In sweden it's forbidden to smoke at public transport stops. Nobody cares though so you often have to choose between cancer or getting soaked.
jpfromlondon 4 hours ago [-]
in the UK you cannot smoke on public transport or inside buildings, and this is strictly adhered to.
tialaramex 4 hours ago [-]
In fact one of the most important fire disasters in England, the Kings Cross fire started because nicotine addicts used to light up on their way out of the tube (which had already prohibited smoking, it's kinda crazy to imagine people in the 1970s used to smoke on the fucking underground railway, deep under the ground where you are unavoidably breathing the same air as everybody else)
Somebody probably drops a spent match, it's still smouldering and it drops inside the escalator where it finds plenty of fuel and begins a fire. From there you mostly just need bad luck - yes the staff could be better trained, but even when they do summon professionals the firefighters don't arrive in time to tackle it while it's still small, the then-unknown trench effect allows the hot gases to pool and initiate flash over suddenly, a bunch of people die.
squigz 7 hours ago [-]
From the government's perspective, this may (or may not) be silly.
But putting that aside, if a citizen supports banning cigarettes for people born after a certain date, but not alcohol, that certainly seems hypocritical to me.
X0Refraction 4 hours ago [-]
I think there is a reasonable argument to be made that they're a different degree of societal problem. I think there's quite a few people who drink on special occasions, but not every week or even every month (I'm one of them).
I think it's very rare though for a smoker to not smoke several a day. A friend of mine was that rare breed and would buy a 10 pack occasionally - usually on a Friday and it'd be gone by Monday - but that would maybe be once a month. I think every other smoker I've met though goes through that amount every day.
So it seems to me the average smoker is much more likely to become a burden on a nationalised health service than the average drinker. There's more to this of course, smoking to excess generally doesn't increase the chances of you getting into a fight like drinking does for some people, but social pressure counters that partially too.
joquarky 3 hours ago [-]
Smoking may be a burden on the healthcare system, but the effects of alcohol are a burden to everyone due to the resulting erratic and often directly destructive behavior.
X0Refraction 2 hours ago [-]
Being a burden on the healthcare system in a country that has nationalised healthcare is being a burden on everyone through increased taxes and reduced spending in areas the money could be more useful.
Those erratic behaviours you talk about are generally illegal in most countries as well with drink driving, public intoxication, assault laws etc.
Drinking does have some positives as well, pubs are one of the few third spaces we have remaining. I know there are alternatives, but there are people who won't socialise in a cafe or a book club, but will go to the pub to see the regulars. Considering lots of Western countries have loneliness epidemics I think there'd be a downside to removing that option.
Drinking does seem to lubricate social situations, weed can help with pain etc. The only upside from smoking for the individual as far as I can tell is that it fixes the problem it created from you being addicted to it i.e. you get calmer when you get your fix.
larrik 4 hours ago [-]
A minority of people who drink are addicted to alcohol.
Basically everyone who smokes/etc is addicted to nicotine.
They aren't the same at all.
LeChuck 6 hours ago [-]
Sure, maybe, arguably. Does it matter though? A world without smoking is still better than a world with smoking, right?
noduerme 5 hours ago [-]
A world without hypocrisy would be better still.
AlexandrB 4 hours ago [-]
And a world where the government tells you what to eat, what to drink, and how much to exercise under penalty of jail is the best of all worlds!
squigz 5 hours ago [-]
Perhaps. The viability of that aside, I would rather attempt to create that world with things like education rather than the government mandating it. That tends not to work out as intended.
oceanplexian 4 hours ago [-]
[dead]
drcongo 5 hours ago [-]
Don't forget gambling. Though given that the gambling lobby were the only donor's to Starmer's leadership campaign that out-donated the pro-Israel lobbyists, I wouldn't bet on them doing something about it. Pun intended.
Edit: just realised I posted under the wrong comment. Doh.
brador 7 hours ago [-]
We know the dangers of second hand smoke. Someone drinking near you does not impact your health.
hyperpape 6 hours ago [-]
With all due respect, this is completely wrong.
There is a difference that someone smoking nearby automatically harms people around you. With alcohol, the effect is more unpredictable, but it is equally real.
Alcohol is a factor in an automobile crashes, and a factor in a significant proportion of violent crime, especially domestic violence (https://www.cato-unbound.org/2008/09/17/mark-kleiman/taxatio... edit: this source isn't as great, Kleiman has written elsewhere about the subject, but google is failing me). If we could wave a magic wand and cause drinking to cease to exist, many lives would be saved.
Note: I do in fact drink, I am not a teetotaler. But what I said above is factual. I personally believe that prohibition would be worse, and it's reasonable for individuals to make their own choices. But that does not entail denying that it goes very badly for many.
Findecanor 4 hours ago [-]
Second-hand smoke does affect people around you. It is how people get addicted to nicotine. It is how new smokers are created.
And there are some people who are more sensitive to temporary exposure to smoke (and pollution in general) than others.
That is why smoking tends to be is banned around hospitals and day care centers — because those are places where you will find those people.
My father was one of them, after he had got his larynx removed for throat cancer after having smoked for decades. He could not suffer being subjected to even small amounts of second-hand smoke again because then the breathing hole in his throat would get irritated, fill up with mucus and have to be cleaned with a suction device.
And if you drink alcohol next to me, it does not make my clothes and my hair stink so much afterwards that I will want to wash my hair and change my clothes before going to bed.
hyperpape 58 minutes ago [-]
Why are you replying as if I denied second hand smoke harms people? I very clearly said it did.
Gud 3 hours ago [-]
No, but the person drinking next to you can suddenly decide you gave them a bad look and decide to pick a fight.
wookmaster 6 hours ago [-]
If you just ignore alcohol fueled violence, birth defects, deaths from drivers hitting people and cars and the emotional health toll to others from dealing with an alcoholic, sure.
Sweepi 6 hours ago [-]
iirc alcohol is the drug with the highest amount of 3rd party harm due to the high number of people beating their spouse, children and sometimes random strangers under the influence. (+ 3rd party property, car crashes, ...)
Keep in mind this was evaluated with current laws, which bans most kinds of indoor-smoking.
Still a good idea to ban cigarettes and force people to consume their nicotine in healthier ways.
joquarky 3 hours ago [-]
I know at least one hacker news reader who didn't grow up with an alcoholic parent.
Congratulations!
temp0826 4 hours ago [-]
Grow up with an alcoholic parent then get back to us
hagbard_c 6 hours ago [-]
That is, until that person gets behind the wheel or on a (motor)bike and impacts you - and with that, your health - directly.
Having said that I don't like the nanny society which acts like it knows better. People sometimes want to do stupid things and I think they should be able to do so. They should also not burden society with the consequences of their stupid actions so smokers either pay in more for health insurance or get relegated to the bottom tier - e.g. "palliative care for smoking-induced illnesses, no life-extending treatments for smoking-related diseases". No smoking where it impacts others negatively - this includes minors living in their house - but if they want to smoke where it doesn't impact others just let them do it.
ErroneousBosh 1 hours ago [-]
> That is, until that person gets behind the wheel or on a (motor)bike and impacts you - and with that, your health - directly.
Which is something weirdly North American - it's insane how okay USians are with drinking and driving considering how Puritanical they are about drinking generally.
Ylpertnodi 6 hours ago [-]
You've probably never been out on a Friday night in the Uk.
drcongo 5 hours ago [-]
This comment doesn't deserve the downvotes, it's a very valid point.
lokar 4 hours ago [-]
Is it really that bad? Is there something I can read to learn more?
JumpCrisscross 2 hours ago [-]
> Is it really that bad?
I say this as someone who quite enjoys his drink–you haven't seen a hardcore drinking culture until you've dodged multiple projectile vomiters in SoHo at like 5PM on a random Tuesday.
ben_w 1 hours ago [-]
I somehow managed to avoid experiencing this despite living in the UK up to the age of 34.
squigz 6 hours ago [-]
It doesn't? That should be good news for victims of drunk driving, and the families of abusive drunks.
afavour 6 hours ago [-]
There’s still a difference, surely? Drinking alcohol can lead to drunk driving and it can lead to abuse. Thankfully in the vast majority of instances it doesn’t.
Second hand smoke, however, inflicts damage the moment it’s inhaled.
reactordev 4 hours ago [-]
Same amount of damage done to your liver from that beer…
afavour 4 hours ago [-]
There's no such thing as second hand liver damage from someone else drinking beer
reactordev 3 hours ago [-]
There is when that person is traveling at a high rate of speed...
Look, I get that you're anti-smoking along with the rest of us but both things are bad. Drinking is bad, smoking is bad, a lot of things are bad. The question is, which of these bad things did you try out and are now stuck with? That's the real issue. Products shouldn't not be allowed to be physically addicting like that. Arguing about it on HN to a bunch of addicts is like arguing with an alcoholic on their drinking problem. It's an echo chamber or a brick wall. Someone's going to walk away with a black eye.
Is second hand smoke dangerous? Not the same way inhaling soldering fumes could be or if you ever welded, the fumes could cause damage to your lungs. It's more subtle and requires prolonged exposure.
defrost 4 hours ago [-]
There is, however, absolutely such a thing as being glassed and sustaining head injuries from someone else drinking beer.
Shows up consistently in A&E Hospital records, reportedly enough to identify weekends and phases of the moon.
squigz 6 hours ago [-]
I'm not saying there's no difference. I just don't that difference is as pronounced as some people think, and I don't think it excuses the apparent double standard.
Brief Googling also suggests that second-hand smoke affects at least similar levels of people as drunk driving, if not more - to say nothing of e.g. domestic violence.
Not to mention, there are already various laws designed to mitigate the effects of second-hand smoke, such as not smoking indoors or in cars with children.
Overall, I am just not convinced that it's necessary to focus so much more on cigarettes over other drugs.
afavour 6 hours ago [-]
> there are already various laws designed to mitigate the effects of second-hand smoke
And there are already various laws designed to prevent drunk driving and drunk domestic abuse.
I think the broader picture here is a simple one: drinking alcohol is more societally acceptable than smoking. A government is going to be reflective of its voters, “necessary” or not, a law to ban drinking would be enormously unpopular in a way a law to ban smoking would not.
squigz 6 hours ago [-]
> I think the broader picture here is a simple one: drinking alcohol is more societally acceptable than smoking. A government is going to be reflective of its voters, “necessary” or not, a law to ban drinking would be enormously unpopular in a way a law to ban smoking would not.
Sure, and this is why I put aside the issue of whether the government is doing the "right" thing in its position and focused on the people who it supposedly reflects - because it doesn't make sense to me that one is more acceptable than the other to an individual, and thinking so doesn't seem to reflect any sort of realistic view on alcohol and its impact on society, while holding cigarettes to a much higher standard.
noduerme 5 hours ago [-]
Oh, the hysteria people get over smelling a whiff of secondhand smoke. While you walk down a street full of diesel trucks, inhaling microplastics, microwaving your food in plastic, drinking water from plastic bottles, eating processed foods with nitrates, corn sugar soaked in round-up, standing out in the sun, getting body scans and dental X-rays.
You know the only people who got lung cancer from secondhand smoke were people who worked in airplanes and bars and casinos for 20 years and were in condensed, extremely smoky environments day in and day out, right? I smoke. I understand that everything is a cumulative risk factor. The absolute crazy freak-out hysterical reaction people have to cigarette smoke versus all the things I just named is purely a product of decades of expensively paid-for indoctrination. No one in their right mind would argue that smoking doesn't cause cancer, but if you literally think you are being harmed by smelling smoke, you must surely have a problem living in this world without a filter on your face at all times, because there is a lot more poisonous shit you encounter every single day, everywhere you go - and that's if you're lucky enough not to work in a plastics factory or somewhere that makes microwave popcorn.
[edit] While I'm at it, I just want to give a shout-out to all the people I know who heat up teflon pans before cooking in them. Who would never let someone smoke in their kitchen!
afavour 5 hours ago [-]
> purely a product of decades of expensively paid-for indoctrination
No, it's because being around a smoker is deeply unpleasant.
I'm old enough to remember going out before the indoor smoking ban took effect. The next morning I'd step into the shower and the smell of smoke would fill the bathroom as I washed it out of my hair. I would have a sore throat. It was all absolutely disgusting and we're so much better off where we are today. I'm sorry that your vice of choice is such a gross one.
squigz 3 hours ago [-]
Being against things like TFA does not mean one is against things like banning indoor smoking. Just like being for alcohol doesn't mean one wants to legalize drunk driving.
> No, it's because being around a smoker is deeply unpleasant.
Being around drinkers isn't exactly a picnic :)
guzfip 6 hours ago [-]
> Someone drinking near you does not impact your health.
Hah, alcoholics have done more damage to my life than a smoker could ever dream of.
panny 2 hours ago [-]
>But putting that aside, if a citizen supports banning cigarettes for people born after a certain date, but not alcohol, that certainly seems hypocritical to me.
Why does everyone on HN seem to have a hate boner for alcohol? The main problem there is car culture, not the alcohol.
In any case, the hypocritical part is where the UK, like many US states, has legalized marijuana for medical use and is well on its way to legalizing it for recreational use. Pipe tobacco at least smelled good. Cigarettes, not so much. But marijuana smells like a mix of stale cigarettes and body odor. AND the second hand smoke isn't just harmful, it can make you high along with the dirty smelling marijuana smoker. At least with nicotine, it sharpens your concentration. THC on the other hand makes you a lazy Cheeto eating couch potato with no future.
squigz 2 hours ago [-]
> Why does everyone on HN seem to have a hate boner for alcohol? The main problem there is car culture, not the alcohol.
I don't really see how car culture has anything to do with stuff like domestic violence, child abuse, or various other side-effects of alcohol culture.
FatherOfCurses 5 hours ago [-]
Incremental change isn't a thing? Focusing on one health area, which will certainly be a massive undertaking, instead of trying to wipe out all unhealthy things at the same time?
azangru 4 hours ago [-]
> 1. will this work (will the UK stop smoking)
What mechanisms do you foresee for it to fail? If stores stop selling cigarettes, the UK will have no other choice but to stop smoking them. I wonder what will come to replace them though. People have a peculiar tendency of forming addictive habits.
Regarding question 2, personally, I am uncomfortable with the idea of a nanny state.
kjksf 4 hours ago [-]
Prohibition did fail and US had to revert ban on alcohol.
The rules are made by politicians.
All it takes to change the rules is to rotate politicians.
Or enough public dissent that the same politicians are forced to revert the rules.
sir0010010 3 hours ago [-]
A smoking ban could easily be enforced by allowing anyone bothered by secondhand smoke to report it.
sailfast 4 hours ago [-]
Is weed legal in the UK? Do people still smoke it?
This might play right into the hands of bootleggers and gangs but also into the Swedish / American nicotine pouch industry which is basically marketing straight at kids.
Also - vapes. Most folks don’t smoke cigarettes anymore. How does this control vaping?
Gud 3 hours ago [-]
There is a big difference between weed and tobacco.
I am a fairly regular weed smoker. I used to grow my own.
I used to smoke tobacco.
I can go weeks, months and even years without smoking weed. Kicking my nicotine habit took many, many, many tries and I didn't even enjoy it!
They are not the same.
rcxdude 3 hours ago [-]
That's a different in the harm, not a difference in the effectiveness of prohibition. In fact, the more addictive the substance, the less effective I would expected prohibition to be (and the more ancillary harms to result, especially from criminalisation).
cucumber3732842 3 hours ago [-]
That's exactly what this is. The money has moved on to pouches and vapes.
It's like how everyone pat themselves on the back for banning child labor after the industrial revolution had rendered it obsolete outside a few niches that weren't economically important enough to put up a real fight.
Politicians "win" by pandering to voters and interests. So this is an obvious move since they can pander to all those people who grew up being told a cigarette takes a minute off your life while only pissing off some niche industry and a few smokers who are unwilling to vape.
shmel 4 hours ago [-]
Right, because it totally worked with drugs. People just don't use them anymore. Weed is impossible to come by nowadays.
alsetmusic 6 hours ago [-]
As a former smoker (who quit for seven years and regrets taking it up again), and as a present-day vape user, wtf. This is a clear restriction on liberty. It may be stupid that I do it. Just like many stupid decisions (junk food included), it ought to be my right to decide how to live.
Cut off production so cigarettes are no longer made or imported. Don't block me from them while letting others have them. (Not in UK)
It'd be kinda funny to see an early 1900s / USA-style mafia / gangster resurgence of bootleggers over cigs in the UK. Much lower stakes, but black markets are a thing.
Edit: added "while letting others have them"
FL33TW00D 4 hours ago [-]
In a country with a national health system, why should you be able to internalize the benefit of smoking whilst externalizing the cost?
slibhb 4 hours ago [-]
You could use this logic to ban unhealthy foods, or restrict people from eating too much.
Or to resist ever passing a national health system.
marcusverus 2 hours ago [-]
There is something insidious about the state forcing a citizen to pay for its services, only turn around and insist that the use of said services entitles the state to further control of the citizen.
Gud 3 hours ago [-]
Considering the general state of the UK population, this may not be such a bad idea.
nutjob2 2 hours ago [-]
This is just whataboutism, but the UK also regulates sugar in fairly draconian ways too, for example.
There are good reasons to target smoking given how addictive and deadly it is. Nicotine is fairly unique in this regard.
slibhb 1 hours ago [-]
It's reductio ad absurdum. Obesity is really bad for you and strains public health services. Should the government enforce a cap on caloric intake?
alsetmusic 4 hours ago [-]
> In a country with a national health system
I live in the USA where we are treated like crap by our system of government. I'd agree with you if we had national healthcare.
3 hours ago [-]
4 hours ago [-]
skipants 4 hours ago [-]
pigouvian taxes are both a stronger disincentive and help cover externalized costs.
if this moves nicotine to the black market then the people/government will still pay the cost without receiving any taxes on it at all
masfuerte 4 hours ago [-]
The sin taxes more than cover the healthcare costs of the associated sins. It's the untaxed sins, greed and sloth, that are fucking the NHS.
mothballed 3 hours ago [-]
OK, so if you smoke you don't get national / socialized health care but don't have to pay the taxes that fund it either. Deal. It's enough to convince me to take up smoking.
3 hours ago [-]
JumpCrisscross 2 hours ago [-]
> wtf. This is a clear restriction on liberty
The title is hyperbolic. It isn't a ban on smoking. It's a "ban on buying cigarettes." Commerce is being restricted, not consumption. If, presumably, you bring your own in from France, or someone bums one to you, it would appear you're free to smoke it.
That broadly seems to strike a fair balance. Banning purchases and sales, not possession or consumption.
scoofy 2 hours ago [-]
A lifetime ban on purchase is a ban. Don't be ridiculous.
plqbfbv 5 hours ago [-]
> This is a clear restriction on liberty. ... Just like many stupid decisions (junk food included), it ought to be my right to decide how to live.
I guess that liberty was plenty abused on every non-smoker in a non-smoking area, that ended up coughing in clouds of smoke anyway. Smoking affects everyone around you whether you want it or not, and while you may smoke for 50 years and end up being perfectly healthy, some may get cancer from it, even for a very small dose.
rcxdude 2 hours ago [-]
There's already some pretty comprehensive bans on smoking in places where it could affect other people. I don't really encounter cigarette smoke in my day-to-day life.
Sweepi 6 hours ago [-]
>This is a clear restriction on liberty.
So is banning the sale of leaded gasoline.
voidUpdate 4 hours ago [-]
> "it ought to be my right to decide how to live"
"Why is the government stopping me from murdering people and stealing from them? it's my right to decide how I live!"
MiiMe19 1 hours ago [-]
You vill get your state mandated 1 hour of exercise and 5 servings of vegetables. You VILL eat only the state mandated bug based protein that our studies have shown to be 10% less likely of causing heart attacks than red meat. YOU VILL NOT spend more than 1 hour outside to prevent skin cancer.
TheCoelacanth 4 hours ago [-]
I think that a government should be able to ban murdering people but that it would very sketchy for them to ban it for some people and not others.
One of the most important foundations of democracy is that the law applies to everyone equally. If smoking is banned, it should be banned for everyone, not banned for some people and allowed for a privileged class who got here first.
nutjob2 2 hours ago [-]
This is nonsense. There is a logic to the law, it's not arbitrary.
I could argue (unsuccessfully) that it's discriminatory and unfair that I have to wait an extra 3 years to claim my pension compared to older people.
neonstatic 4 hours ago [-]
This is a great argument. Let's use it to ban sugar and meat.
ShellackGobln7 3 hours ago [-]
A restriction on liberty? For a britbong? What a surprise.
projektfu 3 hours ago [-]
It's a restriction on liberty but not an unjustified one. I agree that it gives cigarettes a "mystique" that they do not deserve to have one generation able to smoke if they like while another generation has to go outside the law to do so.
When I was a smoker, I used to decry places that were less liberal about where I was allowed to smoke, and places with high taxes. As a former smoker, I know that the high taxes have enabled a lot of people to stop, and the restrictions got to a point where smoking was less "cool" and more "pariah" behavior. These influences helped me stop.
If you didn't read "The Easy Way to Stop Smoking", go do so, and smoke/vape no more.
If everyone appreciated how little value they receive from tobacco/nicotine and how easy it really is to quit, there would be no market.
MiiMe19 2 hours ago [-]
If I want to smoke in my own home I should be able to. Next up the government will ban reading hacker news for people born after 2012 because it incentivizes you sitting in your chair too much.
projektfu 55 minutes ago [-]
Might be a good idea tbh
fuzzfactor 2 hours ago [-]
Kinda like being in a country where nobody born past a certain date can ever be a citizen.
Unless their ancestors were already citizens beforehand.
Which I guess could be considered a more generous concession.
scoofy 2 hours ago [-]
My main problem with this is the "do as I say not as I do" intergenerational conflict.
It just seems completely absurd to me that a government thinks it's acceptable to treat a generation unable to vote differently from the generations who can. It's really an absurd unfreedom and a kind of tyranny.
Why not just pass a law that says people born after 2008 have to pay higher taxes, and work longer hours for less pay? People should be equal under the law.
Daviey 2 hours ago [-]
> Why not just pass a law that says people born after 2008 have to pay higher taxes, and work longer hours for less pay? People should be equal under the law.
We already do this, the UK State Pension age is currently rising from 66 to 67 for those born on or after April 6, 1960.
This change affects, for example, those born between April 1960 and March 1961, who will have a pension age of 66 plus a set number of months.
When I was young, it was 65 for men and 60 for women (from the 1940s until 2010)
scoofy 1 hours ago [-]
I mean, that's a practical and relatively small adjustment where the far-and-away majority of the voting populous are the people who are affected by the change. Yes, if you wanted to nitpick there, you could, there is a very small injustice there, but this is completely different.
My point here is that this is under 18s currently have no representation, and they're passing laws that will forever treat them as a kind of underclass, "for their own good." It's genuinely ridiculous that it's allowed to happen. In doing this, the UK -- for all it's progress a creating a mostly symbolic nobility -- will now allow a new kind of class system to emerge, where the young can be overtly dominated and discriminated against by the old. It's ridiculous. People should be equal under the law.
OkayPhysicist 1 hours ago [-]
See, that at least affects a big enough swath of voters that they could, if mattered to them, vote everyone involved out. This smoking ban is specifically designed to not affect a single voter.
Daviey 42 minutes ago [-]
I can't agree with this. When they become voters, if enough people of that age bracket wanted to reversed it then they could elect a party that has it in their manifesto.
For example, some parties have a cannabis pledge and not enough people have wanted it as yet.
My son is 16, and will be impacted by this ban. He is constantly exposed to the temptation to smoke and vape. As a responsible parent, I want to do everything I possibly can to protect him and not become addicted.
We know that nearly all smoking starts before 26.
- ~90% of daily smokers first tried cigarettes by age 18
- ~95% had their first cigarette by age 20-21 (American Lung Association)
- 98% first smoked by age 26 (National Cancer Institute)
So the probability of starting smoking after 21 is roughly 2-5%. If someone hasn't started smoking by 21, they almost certainly never will. The brain's decision-making capacity isn't fully mature until ~25. People are getting hooked before they're neurologically equipped to properly evaluate the risk. People do not start smoking when they are grown-ass-adults.
We owe our young people this protection, and I am a liberal.
But to take your point to full conclusion, Brexit was decided by the people that it impacts the least. And, "Since the Brexit referendum, 4+m voters have died (mainly Leavers), while almost 5m have reached voting age (overwhelmingly Remain), There is now a 1.6m majority for Remain - without anyone needing to change their minds". - https://www.thenewworld.co.uk/anti-brexit-britain-has-reache... - June 2023
scoofy 18 minutes ago [-]
Then ban smoking under 26 for everyone under 26. That would be a sensible law.
What is proposed is something very different in kind.
IshKebab 24 minutes ago [-]
> they could elect a part that has it in their manifesto
You can't seriously be naive enough to think that's how party politics works?
sidewndr46 1 hours ago [-]
> Why not just pass a law that says people born after 2008 have to pay higher taxes, and work longer hours for less pay?
That in general is what inflation is
scoofy 55 minutes ago [-]
No. That's very much not what inflation is.
nkapias 2 hours ago [-]
First I've heard of generational ban was in a hundred years old novel from Jack London (maybe an autobiography ? can't remember the name).
It certainly was about alcohol, maybe he mentioned tobacco as well, anyway the idea and debate certainly aren't new.
I find bewildering that such concepts are tried only centuries later, and wonder how it comes to be possible.
Is it that we can finally enforce them, or that the lobbying have been gradually weakened, or enough data to drive decision, etc. ?
Sweepi 7 hours ago [-]
They ban buying cigarettes, not nicotine in general, correct?
In that case, I would compare it to making catalytic converters mandatory in new cars in the 1970s.
You still can pickup nicotine consumption, but with xx % less carcinogens :)
olalonde 5 hours ago [-]
What about tourists and foreigners? Most smokers can't go more than a few hours without smoking... This will surely lead to a large black market.
Symbiote 3 hours ago [-]
They can bring it with them.
The law (as proposed) restricts sales and giving to someone else, not the smoking itself.
Will this market be significant? This would surely affect a very small percentage of visitors.
olalonde 4 hours ago [-]
22% of the global population are smokers according to Wikipedia. It's probably lower for younger generations but still significant.
jblezo 4 hours ago [-]
Easy: anyone who cannot submit to the law of a country should not go there.
olalonde 3 hours ago [-]
It will probably be a bit of both: a large black market and a decline in foreign visitors, international conferences, and similar events.
3 hours ago [-]
mock-possum 3 hours ago [-]
Why not just get your nicotine fix via one of the handful of other delivery methods which are not banned? Or just find a local black market doggie hookup, same as you would for any other illegal substance?
If you’re a pothead who can’t make it through your day without a smoke, then god knows you’ll find a connect - and if you’re addicted to cigarettes, I’m pretty sure you won’t have much trouble getting your fix.
crvdgc 3 hours ago [-]
I didn't find anything particular, but in general it should apply to anyone under the jurisdiction. I think it's illegal to drink underage in the US, even if the person is a tourist and they are allowed to drink by their own country's law.
QuiEgo 4 hours ago [-]
History has shown prohibition can be… problematic.
Just tax it very very heavily and apply education / social pressure?
nutjob2 2 hours ago [-]
See the problems with the Australian system, which is basically what you describe.
bcjdjsndon 8 hours ago [-]
Alcohol costs the UK 4-5x more than smoking. Coincidentally, it's the upper classes drug of choice. Must be a coincidence though
afavour 6 hours ago [-]
I’d say cocaine is the upper class drug of choice. Regardless, alcohol is every classes drug of choice. The debate over whether the government is hypocritical or not kind of ignores the reality that British voters don’t want alcohol banned. So the government isn’t going to ban it. Which is broadly what you’d want a government to do!
pixl97 7 hours ago [-]
As the US found out, alcohol is very very hard to ban because it is very very easy to make.
AlexandrB 4 hours ago [-]
Weed and tobacco are also very easy to make. They literally grow on trees[1].
[1] Technically, herbaceous plants.
pixl97 4 hours ago [-]
Really in the case of tobacco, (almost) no one is going to grow it. It's a massive pain in the ass when most people are addicted to the nicotine. Synthetic nicotine in vapes are what would be black marketed these days.
sir0010010 3 hours ago [-]
Weed and tobacco smoking are also easy to detect by people who don't want secondhand smoke. And if it were illegal, they could report it.
olalonde 5 hours ago [-]
At least alcohol produces side effects that people enjoy. Smoking pretty much only has negative side effects once you get hooked.
dml2135 2 hours ago [-]
Have you ever smoked? I feel like I only hear this sentiment from people that have never tried nicotine.
Nicotine absolutely produces effects that people enjoy. Smokers don't just do it because they want to smell bad and look cool.
BenjiWiebe 2 hours ago [-]
Is there proof that the positive effects are still there after you're hooked? Or are the "positive effects" at that point just a cessation of the negative effects of withdrawal?
OkayPhysicist 58 minutes ago [-]
Yes, absolutely. It's a stimulant, similar to caffeine. Just like how nearly everyone adjusts their caffeine consumption based on the situation (got to buckle down, drink an extra cup of coffee), people do the same with nicotine. It also still works as an appetite suppressant.
Now, the euphoric effects that you get at first, those very rapidly go away with tolerance. With habitual use, you probably only experience a tiny shadow of that with the first hit of the day, or a respectable replay if for whatever reason you go a couple days without (which is heightened by the cessation of withdrawal). The nausea and disorientation also go away, which is nice since otherwise it would be a problem.
nutjob2 2 hours ago [-]
Alcohol is the deadliest and has the biggest social costs of any drug. Nicotine is second, heroin is a distant third.
Drugs that are largely harmless, like MDMA, are illegal with heavy penalties.
Drug policy is largely nonsense and rampantly hypocritical.
OkayPhysicist 47 minutes ago [-]
MDMA is a lot more acutely dangerous than nicotine, and somewhat moreso than alcohol. If you drink too much, you'll vomit, and for the most part be fine. Obviously that not always true (I'm sure everyone knows at least one person who had to have their stomach pumped in college), but for the vast majority of users, their body's natural defense against being poisoned works fine.
An MDMA overdose, however, needs active, external cooling to ride out. We don't really have a natural safety valve for overconsumption.
That's not to say it should remain banned (I'm quite pro-legalization myself), but it's not entirely arbitrary to have MDMA banned versus other, less acutely dangerous drugs. Better examples of unjustifiably banned drugs are psychedelics such as LSD.
LtWorf 7 hours ago [-]
Sitting in a room with someone drinking doesn't give you cancer.
cheeseomlit 7 hours ago [-]
Just ban smoking indoors then
LtWorf 7 hours ago [-]
It gives you cancer outdoors too!
jellyfishbeaver 4 hours ago [-]
Can anyone attest if young people are actually taking up cigarettes again? I was talking with a friend that teaches teenagers and she was explaining how many students that once were getting in trouble for vaping/pouches have now turned on to cigarettes. Completely boggles my mind - I thought the newer generation had a much stronger aversion to physical cigarettes.
OkayPhysicist 1 hours ago [-]
At least in my younger brother's social circles, cigarettes are considered the inferior, but sometimes more available, good. They're hooked on nicotine via vapes, but it's sometimes easier to get a hold of cigarettes. That doesn't mean they smoke nearly as many cigarettes as we'd be used to seeing from a smoker pre-vapes, since once they can refill/buy another disposable vape they'll preferentially use those.
Fornax96 1 hours ago [-]
I do volunteer work at a youth organization in the Netherlands. Recently smoking has become a lot more popular. Nearly all kids between 18 and 25 smoke here. There is also a very clear group effect. People start smoking because others are doing it.
hackerInnen 4 hours ago [-]
Just from my subjective view and observation, I'd say yes. It feels like a lot more people (younger than 30 roughly) smoke more than people around my peer group (mid 30s).
I could be totally wrong tho, but at least that's what it feels like. It feels like "all of them" smoke. Either vape or real cigarettes and quite a few of them using cigarettes
slibhb 3 hours ago [-]
It's sad that the UK, which invented liberal philosophy, is increasingly accepting of paternalism. It's important that people have an inviolable personal sphere inside which they can live their lives as they see fit. That includes making decisions of which society disaproves.
Moreover, essentially all behavior plausibly has "diffuse negative externalities". We should be very careful about adopting that ("harms others in diffuse ways") as a reasonable standard for banning some behavior.
3 hours ago [-]
ramesh31 3 hours ago [-]
The real answer would be to ban all commercial cultivation and sales, but keep personal consumption legal. It's the multi-billion dollar tobacco industry that systematically hooks people through advertising, not the plant. Something tells me not many folks will be growing tobacco plants in their basement to get a fix.
awakeasleep 7 hours ago [-]
Im curious how the industry allowed this. Seems like a tremendous amount of lobbying money would oppose it. There must be real story there, somewhere.
afavour 6 hours ago [-]
Are you in America? I only ask because this mindset, that lobbyists are capable of squashing any law they dislike, is not internationally universal.
Not to say lobbyists don’t have an effect in the UK, they do. But the US has a particularly egregious setup.
walthamstow 6 hours ago [-]
The cigarette lobbyists are not what they used to be. A pack is £15+ of mostly tax, beige green colour, and has gruesome health warning images. They "let" all that happen.
I assume all the ones who were young enough to have worked tobacco at its peak are now working for Meta, OpenAI or Flutter.
cucumber3732842 2 hours ago [-]
They probable have better margins on vapes so they don't care.
xyzal 5 hours ago [-]
Only in America, where markets magically solve all issues.
luizfzs 6 hours ago [-]
The real story may be that even despite heavy lobbying, they are trying to do something that has the potential to benefit the population, with the added benefit of reducing some of the load on health care system caused by this.
As we know, smoking can cause lots of problems, including for babies if the mother smokes during pregnancy.
amriksohata 6 hours ago [-]
this
oompydoompy74 4 hours ago [-]
People have been smoking tobacco for 12,000 years. How about nanny states fuck off and let people do what they want with their body. I would be happy for regulation of additives that tobacco companies adulterate their products with, but I should be able to smoke any plant I want.
kpmcc 4 hours ago [-]
This is good and all, but they should probably also restrict the advertising of nicotine products in this country. Coming here from the states, I was astounded that you can advertise Zyn like nicotine pouches in tube stations and around in public.
draw_down 4 hours ago [-]
[dead]
jollyllama 4 hours ago [-]
I don't necessarily have a problem with it, but this is just stealth micro-pensions. Expect tobacco purchases by Gen-X'ers and Millenials to skyrocket over the next few decades.
ottah 4 hours ago [-]
People should have the right to make bad decisions, because with a population of millions of individuals you can not accurately decide what is a bad decision and what is just a less bad decision.
joegibbs 7 hours ago [-]
Drinking has been decided to be totally fine though, no need to ban that - probably because it's unfashionable to smoke, and the kind of people who come up with these laws find it uncouth. It will also be ridiculous in a few years when the UK inevitably decides to legalise marijuana - totally fine to smoke a joint, but don't you dare put any of that tobacco in it!
adjejmxbdjdn 7 hours ago [-]
Drinking doesn’t affect others as direct as smoking does.
Most of the indoor smoking bans in the U.S. have been based entirely on the fact that second hand smoke affects the employees who are forced to be there.
Further, drinking has a far deeper cultural resonance, so smoking is clearly the lower hanging fruit.
And it’s not like the UK has not been taking action against drinking. For example, they’ve imposed minimum alcohol taxes which have been directly linked to lower consumption.
gcanyon 7 hours ago [-]
Drinking affects others much more than smoking does, it's just that it doesn't affect random strangers. In a study of the harms of various substances, alcohol came out on top by a mile for the damage it does to the family and others close to the drinker.
I should qualify the above: it doesn't affect random strangers as often as second-hand smoke does. But drunk driving and drunk violence are a thing, and both can affect anyone.
techteach00 4 hours ago [-]
"Ranked by drug experts on damage to user, impact on crime, and socioeconomic effects"
I think these laws are bizarre morality rituals. Evidence doesn't conclude it has anything to do with public health when you see how vicious alcohol is.
joegibbs 6 hours ago [-]
Nobody was ever attacked on the street by a tobacco-addled stranger at 3 in the morning though. Besides, they're not banning indoor smoking, they're banning it entirely - including vaping and other nicotine products.
stevekemp 3 hours ago [-]
Prohibition (of alcohol) wouldn't work, but over time the government has raised alcohol duty rates:
That cuts down on drinking, except for the alcoholics of course. Scotland also imposed a minimum price per unit on alcohol, in an attempt to further cut consumption:
Whether that works is an open question, but in the UK things like "the sugar tax" have a visible affect on consumer consumption rates of "bad things".
pixl97 7 hours ago [-]
Nicotine is insanely addictive, so ya.
Alcohol is very difficult to ban as you can take almost any kind of sugar feedstock and turn it into alcohol.
tialaramex 6 hours ago [-]
Right. Booze is straight up naturally occurring, albeit rare. That's why you get drunk monkeys and other wildlife. The animal is like "Actually this moldy fruit is pretty good" - they did absolutely nothing to manufacture booze but here it is.
Sweepi 6 hours ago [-]
Newsflash: Its possible to consume "marijuana" w/o smoking it (just like nicotine!).
joegibbs 6 hours ago [-]
They're not banning smoking in general (which would be impossible anyway, what are they going to do, make it illegal to set something on fire and breathe it in?), they're banning nicotine products. I also really doubt that they will legalise weed and then say "but of course you're not allowed to smoke it, edibles only".
Sweepi 6 hours ago [-]
"they're banning nicotine products"
If I am not mistaken, they are banning to sale of tobacco, not nicotine:
"[..]provision prohibiting the sale of tobacco to people born on or after 1 January 2009[..]"
"I also really doubt that they will legalise weed and then say "but of course you're not allowed to smoke it, edibles only"."
I mean, there is still vaporization, so it wouldn't be edibles only?
pjc50 2 hours ago [-]
Tbh I'm worried that this is directionally bad and we're more likely to see a pointless crackdown on weed.
FatherOfCurses 5 hours ago [-]
Drinking has been declining on its own.
puelocesar 3 hours ago [-]
This is dumb. Brazil was able to extremely reduce tobacco consumption “just” with education and banning advertising.
It blows my mind how no other country in the world wants to follow their example on this. Are they too proud to copy a third world country? Even when it’s doing some things better?
EgorKolds 3 hours ago [-]
If anything, I think it will only increase the number of young people smoking.
6 hours ago [-]
flowerthoughts 5 hours ago [-]
In a few years, they'll realize that the savings from public health care now requires an an even higher amount of money poured into the police, customs and justice systems to enforce it. Because suddenly, there are these weirdos trying to sell it in dark places. Who could anticipate that?
But that's for another government to deal with, of course. Not our problem. Oh, and the future government will be happy to announce they are giving funding that will go to new jobs!
I propose a ban on people that use bans as a brain-less cheap way of fixing complex issues.
rt56a 5 hours ago [-]
> an even higher amount of money poured into the police
Given the massive cost smoking imposes on the health sector, I find it hard to believe that's remotely possible.
jpfromlondon 4 hours ago [-]
2B if you tease the reality out of the oft misreported figure, and the annual rake from smoking is 8-10B so it is profitable to maintain it.
xyzal 5 hours ago [-]
This enforcement costs argument is wrong. The point is not to enforce such a ban, it's to signal where the collective consensus is.
dnel 5 hours ago [-]
I've been accosted outside enough shops to buy underage smokers a pack of cigs to know how well this will work.
lokar 4 hours ago [-]
This lack of social consensus is the problem here. A national referendum would be better, as it provides a way to force people to consider the changes and decide.
insane_dreamer 1 hours ago [-]
Smoking is clearly harmful, but I'm not sure about laws that criminalize adults from deciding what they want to do with their own bodies. Health care costs are a factor, but I don't know about the UK but in the US these days, junk food and sodas probably incur more health care costs through obesity, than smoking.
What I do favor of is making cigarettes highly inaccessible -- i.e., restrict the sale to a very limited number of licensed locations, impose high taxes so they're very expensive. If it's still fairly widespread, raise the taxes even more. I think we should do the same with Coke /Pepsi/etc.
techteach00 5 hours ago [-]
Hopefully vaping will still be legal? They do distinguish the difference between inhaling burnt matter vs inhaling a heated aerosol, yes?
Of course not. The only thing government and private enterprise seems good at these days is taking things away from people. Logic be damned.
LazyMans 4 hours ago [-]
Although much less harmful than smoke, nicotine is still not harmless to the cardiovascular system. If the goal is public health, it makes sense to move the needle a little further and try to keep people off nicotine entirely.
Alcohol is another story, we're not ready to remove that yet.
causalmodels 4 hours ago [-]
After alcohol, are we going to stop people from having multiple sexual partners in their lifetime? Because if public health is the goal, that would solve a lot of problems.
It is fine to attempt to improve public health, but not at the cost of giving people a life worth living.
rafram 4 hours ago [-]
If alcohol is what gives you "a life worth living," that's extremely concerning.
techteach00 2 hours ago [-]
Nicotine is less harmful than sugar. Not even close. Ban sugar. Ban everything. Safety nausea.
lokar 4 hours ago [-]
I think it’s the combination of health impact and addiction
bill_joy_fanboy 4 hours ago [-]
UK has public/socialized healthcare.
If you are a smoker, you are much more likely to be a burden on this system.
Makes sense to ban these types of activities if the costs of them are socialized rather than individualized.
MiiMe19 2 hours ago [-]
We should ban scrolling social media for people born after a certain date and legally mandate an hour of exercise per day and eating 5 servings of vegetables. If you don't listen, one month in jail. The state has decided that since it pays for your healthcare, it will now tell you how to live your life.
techteach00 2 hours ago [-]
You're making my point by making sweeping deeply personal policy for people without first citing how much less dangerous vaping nicotine is vs using tobacco.
My question is why aren't you or the people making these policies interested? It's consequential stuff done ignorantly and recklessly.
Determine scientifically how dangerous vaping nicotine or THC is before banning it. That's call rational. Not reckless
jstanley 4 hours ago [-]
If the cost of having socialised healthcare is so severe maybe we should stop socialising healthcare before we start banning risky activities.
adolph 4 hours ago [-]
I wonder what the cost/benefit analysis is for different addressable health outcomes. For example, under this justification could a government mandate a restricted calorie diet or enforce daily resistance training?
AlexandrB 4 hours ago [-]
There are all kinds of activities/behaviors whose costs are socialized: obesity, driving, sitting around all day/not exercising, living in suburbs, gambling, engaging in sports (broken bones cost society!). That's kind of the point of a society though - to pay for socialized costs. If the goal is to make every individual pay for the consequences of their own decisions what's the point of public healthcare or insurance in general?
harrisoned 4 hours ago [-]
"Ah, smoking is not good for you, and it's been deemed that anything not good for you is bad; hence, illegal" — Demolition Man, 1993
clickety_clack 3 hours ago [-]
I think that banning smoking in public places makes sense because you are impacting other people. I think banning things for kids makes sense because it’s a big wide world and it’s our duty to protect them. I’m not a fan of banning the things that a grown adult can do when it only affects them personally, however much I despise smoking. Since when have people decided that giving up personal liberty is fine. If you want to look 15 years older with gross teeth, horrible smell and die at 60, it’s kind of up to you.
kkarakk 1 hours ago [-]
Just like that - Smoking just got infinitely more cool among UK youth
comrade1234 7 hours ago [-]
Are they going to continue selling cigarettes and vapes for people born before that date. I've always found the career as a prohibition smuggler a somewhat romantic notion so at some point I may be able to take it up.
tgv 7 hours ago [-]
Ah yes, smuggling lung cancer. How romantic.
MiiMe19 2 hours ago [-]
> Stop doing things that hurt you !! You need to live your life like a min-max optimization for max lifespan. !! You haven't done your government mandated hour of exercise today, enjoy 30 days in prison !!
tgv 1 hours ago [-]
This wasn't even about that. It was about selling cigarettes to others, pretending to be a romantic rebel.
And freedom isn't absolute. There's no need to exaggerate 1984 style just because smoking is banned. You don't even have to stop smoking. You just can't start.
MiiMe19 1 hours ago [-]
You WILL get your state mandated 1 hour of exercise everyday and you will eat your state mandated five servings of vegetables. You will not go outside for more than an hour a day to prevent skin cancer. If you were born after 2010, you will eat the state mandated bug-based red meat replacement. You don't even need to stop eating meat, you just can't start.
Markoff 4 hours ago [-]
Do they plan to introduce social media ban as well for people born after 2010?
hackerInnen 4 hours ago [-]
A ban for people born before 2010 would be reasonable
Canada 4 hours ago [-]
This is the kind of action that really requires a referendum.
rafram 4 hours ago [-]
I completely disagree. Obviously people individually want to smoke - nicotine makes them feel good! - and there's a good chance they would vote to preserve that "right," but smoking is bad for society and we would unambiguously be better off if it didn't exist.
One of the principal jobs of government is to stand for the good of the collective against individual selfishness.
pech0rin 7 hours ago [-]
This is insanely dumb. Everyone knows that smoking is bad for you. So if people want to do it anyway who cares. I understand the cafe and indoor space bans but not allowing anyone to do it seems stupid. I don’t smoke but UK has really gone off the deep end recently with social controls, what is the point?
halfdan 7 hours ago [-]
I, a non-smoker, would like to not walk through clouds of smoke.
alchemism 7 hours ago [-]
That's what I say when I breathe car exhaust. Why cannot all combustion engines be removed from society for my health preference?
Sweepi 7 hours ago [-]
That's one of the reasons they are banned from selling new ones starting in 2035.
AlexandrB 4 hours ago [-]
I don't want to inhale microplastics from tire wear. When will this be addressed?
Sweepi 4 hours ago [-]
Sounds a like next century problem to me.
Findecanor 4 hours ago [-]
Some cities have streets where internal combustion engines are banned.
Some have bans on just diesel engines. Others ban combustion engines during some hours.
Some inner-city congestion taxes have been introduced for health reasons.
rpdillon 4 hours ago [-]
When they came for the smokers, I did not care, because I was not a smoker.
There's a general trend of trying to "optimize" society to remove all ills, and once you apply that logic, there's no clear stopping point. Once you ban sale of tobacco products, you can use that same logic to ban anything, from Cheetos to skydiving to motorcycles.
tonyedgecombe 7 hours ago [-]
It's insanely dumb in the same way prohibition was insanely dumb in the US during the twenties.
tgv 6 hours ago [-]
> So [...] who cares.
I do. I prefer people not to get lung cancer, among other afflications. And for no benefit that I can think of.
I don't live in the UK, but I say: good to them, and boo to you, for your misanthropic attitude.
apetrov 6 hours ago [-]
i this context, "who cares" means "whose business". and the answer by the western society is that no ones but person in question.
bucketing ppl by birth year is literally a discrimination.
tgv 6 hours ago [-]
> i this context, "who cares" means "whose business".
I don't think so, but if the original poster is around...
Anyway, it's the government's business to keep their population out of trouble.
> bucketing ppl by birth year is literally a discrimination.
Contrary to popular opinion, discrimination isn't illegal or even undesirable per se. In this case, it has a health benefit.
LtWorf 7 hours ago [-]
Heroin is bad as well and it's forbidden on account of that.
d--b 5 hours ago [-]
<sarcasm>
Oh yeah, banning people who can't vote yet, genius.
I think next we should ban them from eating butter, and you know, riding mountain bikes. Just protecting them you know.
What about us? Oh us, we're addicted, so... Well, you just can't take that away from us, can you? I mean there would be riots. But the kids, they wouldn't know what they're missing, right?
</sarcasm>
This is such a weird law. I doubt this would be constitutional in France. You can't just pass a law that affects some people but not others. It's against the principle of equality.
neogodless 6 hours ago [-]
You can kind of tell when people think about only themselves or the community when they present arguments for things like smoking and vaccination.
"I don't want to be controlled" is a perfectly valid argument, and I prefer humans can make choices for themselves and have reasonable autonomy when it does not have a negative affect on others.
Vaccination and smoking affects people around you. Drinking does too - in certain cases, but much less directly, in most cases. For example, drinking and operating vehicles is already illegal. Drinking and punching someone is already illegal!
xienze 6 hours ago [-]
> I prefer humans can make choices for themselves and have reasonable autonomy when it does not have a negative affect on others.
How far do you want to take this? Your choice of diet may have a negative effect on others by way of having to pay for additional medical care.
neogodless 6 hours ago [-]
Is taking concepts to logical extremes a good way to govern?
(No.)
But are you saying we don't care if things have negative effect on people? If we go to extremes, well then obviously everyone should have 100% autonomy? Oops that doesn't work.
So, this is the hard part - you have to find balance, compromise, a reasonable middle ground. That's always going to be the hard part. Not black or white, but the grey areas.
jollyllama 4 hours ago [-]
You're not going far enough. We need to mandate exercise.
amriksohata 6 hours ago [-]
Kinda pointless the government looking muscular on this when the real issue has moved on anyway to vaping, access to weed etc. The industry lobbying wont come after the govt anyway so no blocks right, as they are getting profit from elsewhere
threepts 7 hours ago [-]
next thing you know they'll also ban murder for people born after 2008
UK becomes the safest country in the world, peace forever
BigTTYGothGF 4 hours ago [-]
Murder is one of the first things that most governments ban.
josefritzishere 6 hours ago [-]
Someone is not learning from history.
mystraline 5 hours ago [-]
"My body, some distant governments choice"
Jamesbeam 4 hours ago [-]
That will for sure go well.
Funding the "biggest threat the UK ever faced" according to Phil Mykytiuk, who has spent a decade mapping tobacco crime gangs in the north of England with a customer base of 10-11 million potential customers and rising every year, will surely cut heavily into their profits…
It gets tiresome to buy a new house every week because the dry wall is full with cash, again.
"Yo, psst, want to buy some Lucky Strikes? You know what will go really well with that? This white widow super cheese, and if you feel tired I also got some soap for you, first line on the house." "You’re afraid your parents might smell it? I can get you a discount on this perfume, smells like Aventus but way cheaper."
-
"Mykytiuk, though, believes the multiple layers of crime behind cheap, illegal tobacco are escaping scrutiny, allowing crime gangs – emboldened by the lack of deterrent – to expand their power base right under the noses of enforcement.
Having witnessed Kurdish tobacco gang members invest heavily in property and high street businesses here in the UK, he’s now seeing evidence of them moving into cannabis farms.
“But forget drugs,” he says. “Drugs are yesterday. The big thing is tobacco. These gangs are becoming the most capable criminals in this country. Right now it’s the biggest threat we’ve ever faced.”
> He is new in post as a trading standards manager at Bolton Council in Greater Manchester but worked for 10 years on a tobacco enforcement team at nearby Rochdale Council.
Props to this Vice reporter (in 2022) for snagging an interview with a municipal staffer in a suburb of Manchester, I guess. I’m sure he’s a very busy man. But he doesn’t exactly seem notable (try Googling his name) and I’m not really sure what this is supposed to prove in the absence of any corroborating reporting.
Jamesbeam 3 hours ago [-]
I am interested in your thought process.
If I got you right, you’re doubting his credibility as a source after he was vetted by a journalist, because he is talking about organised crime openly and not having a website or a Substack with half a million followers?
Natural consequence of socialized medicine. If I’m paying for your healthcare then I (and by extension the state) get a say in basically every aspect of your life.
Time to ban alcohol, marijuana, Tylenol, fatty foods, sugar, candles, campfires, fireworks, food coloring, bicycles, playgrounds, cars, cell phones, and anything else that might be harmful
foobiekr 4 hours ago [-]
Tylenol is much less dangerous than, say, Advil. It’s only issue is one of overdose which is common to all drugs.
subjectsigma 2 hours ago [-]
I think you might be missing the point I was trying to make
mytailorisrich 6 hours ago [-]
In the UK tobacco is heavily taxed and those taxes bring in more money than the cost on the healthcare service.
Findecanor 3 hours ago [-]
You can not put a price on human suffering.
falcor84 6 hours ago [-]
Interesting - do you have a link about the financial accounting around this?
GuinansEyebrows 4 hours ago [-]
> Natural consequence of socialized medicine.
improved health outcomes?
xyzal 5 hours ago [-]
Enjoy setting up a GoFundMe if you ever get cancer.
1828399393 4 hours ago [-]
Let us look at the cancer survival rates in the US vs countries with socialized medicine. I know for a fact when the business elite of my Euro country gets cancer they fly to NY. They don't pay taxes either tho so I guess it works for them.
AlexandrB 4 hours ago [-]
The other natural consequence of socialized medicine is rationing. In Canada the waiting time for treatment is often months or years[1]. That GoFundMe might give you a higher survival rate.
Setting aside 1 and looking at 2, it seems silly to me to point out that other things (alcohol) that cause problems and are not being restricted. You take the wins where you find them, and the government isn't a magical force that can impose its will on the people arbitrarily. This is obviously the government responding to the general sense of the people (perhaps putting its thumb on the scale). The UK doesn't support cigarettes, so the law gets passed. If someone has a public opinion poll there showing less than 50% support for this, I'd love to see it.
Cigarettes on the other hand are not so popular. If you ask most smokers if they regret starting about 90% say yes. They mostly want to quit but are addicted. Quite different from booze.
For booze it's much 'worse.' Nearly 80% have ever drunk alcohol but 50% of them still do.
Also note a very large portion of people that have ever smoked have had a nice cigar or pipe, smoked once in a blue moon is extremely unlikely to cause cancer or addiction.
Alcohol is heavily restricted, though. You can't sell it to minors, younger minors can't drink it in public, you can't sell/buy/make it above a certain proof, you can only resell it from authorized distributors, it is taxes, and so on.
Sure, banning cigarettes for a specific generation is a much more stringent restriction, but plenty of other restrictions exist.
One could frame this as a substance regulation for anyone under 18, with the age moving one year every year henceforth.
You do realize that this is what basically every single law in existence does, right?
That my kids, and likely yours, once they're adults, can't drive under the influence, rob a bank, impersonate a cop, lie under oath, exercise medecine without a licence, walk downtown naked, jaywalk, evade taxes, criticize the King?
Banning it today and expecting people to cope, or attempt to fund recovery efforts for a whole nation would completely misunderstand the addicts mind. If you don’t want to quit, you never will.
Instead we have a total ban that is timeboxed to allow the addicts the rest of their lives to quit one way or another.
I'm not going to lose sleep over the idea of a smoking ban, since it was already driven to the margins, but the implementation of it by age is really weird. Clearly a move to avoid annoying pensioners, like everything else.
Take away smoking from the next generation and they move to caffeine or vapes. Take away alcohol and there are revolutions and religious extremist revivals.
Those of us who don't smoke or vape can smell that shit a couple of hundred metres away.
You must live in a democracy. If you ever lived in a country where the government curtailed freedoms by fiat, you'd understand that it can and it will. I happened to be living in Vietnam when the government just randomly decided one day that smoking would be banned everywhere, effective immediately. You might think that's simply putting a thumb on the scale; but you also haven't tried to visit the New York Times website from there and later found yourself in a room with officials asking for all your passwords. And clearly you're not familiar with the preferred way of clearing traffic jams, which is driving a jeep through a crowd of motorbikes while a guy with a long bamboo cane whacks anyone who's in the way.
Thumb on the scale my ass. Totalitarianism is control over the little things.
Beyond whether something is "bad for you", the key aspect in a free society is whether the State should decide for you (we're entrusted with the right to vote, after all).
Demolition Man has turned out to be the most accurate prediction of the future regarding those issues among all the 90s movies. Quite interesting.
Sure, I dislike smoking, I really don't drink that much either.
But then it leads to questions such as; What about birth defects? What about extreme sports(risk of permanent injury)?
There was a scandal in Canada recently about veterans asking for medical care and being push to assisted suicide: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/veterans-maid-rcmp-investig... >MacAulay walked the committee through what his department knew, thus far, saying the first case that came to light occurred last summer where the caseworker repeatedly pushed the notion of MAID to an unnamed veteran who had called seeking help with post-traumatic stress.
Look at automotive insurance points systems. People have to buy it so the sellers lean on the legislatures and before you know it a ticket costs the same points and screws you out of just as much money as an actual accident.
Surely that was a satirical comment and was meant to be an illustrative example of exactly the sort of mindset that runs political cover for a system as it pivots from providing enough value to become entrenched to using that entrenched position to behave in an extractive manner.
In my state if grandma gets pulled over for an out of date inspection sticker it's the same number of points as actually causing an accident. Someone is being fleeced.
I have zero faith that letting the government choose at the behest of industry who ought to pay more for healthcare that it wouldn't devolve into the same exact sort of exercise in finding a reason to charge everyone more.
And as a driver, I certainly want everyone around me to be required to properly maintain their cars.
(1) They have GPS tracking of all camera locations with alerts at each one
(2) They use laser jammers
(3) They have the best radar detectors
(4) They all know the best lawyers for getting your tickets dropped and failing that
(5) They know how to approach the prosecutor for diversions
The much better, safer, driver gets the ticket and higher rates instead because they haven't revolved their driving experience over defeating the ticketing enforcement. And the 'justice' system is good with this because the end goal is revenue, not identifying problem drivers.
That's why smoking is already heavily regulated in order to limit and minimise the impact that your choice has on others.
You can smoke as much as you want but smoking in public places, especially indoor, is banned not to impose your health choices on others.
This is how liberty works in a free society as mentioned in my previous comment.
Banning smoking altogether, on the other hand, is deciding for you and exactly what the "nanny state" refers to.
The claim that "it impacts others" is, at very minimum, exaggerated, but just as often completely fabricated out of pseudoscience and absurd movie plots.
Smoking is heavily regulated because there was a resurgence of teetotaling in the late 20th century.
Somebody probably drops a spent match, it's still smouldering and it drops inside the escalator where it finds plenty of fuel and begins a fire. From there you mostly just need bad luck - yes the staff could be better trained, but even when they do summon professionals the firefighters don't arrive in time to tackle it while it's still small, the then-unknown trench effect allows the hot gases to pool and initiate flash over suddenly, a bunch of people die.
But putting that aside, if a citizen supports banning cigarettes for people born after a certain date, but not alcohol, that certainly seems hypocritical to me.
I think it's very rare though for a smoker to not smoke several a day. A friend of mine was that rare breed and would buy a 10 pack occasionally - usually on a Friday and it'd be gone by Monday - but that would maybe be once a month. I think every other smoker I've met though goes through that amount every day.
So it seems to me the average smoker is much more likely to become a burden on a nationalised health service than the average drinker. There's more to this of course, smoking to excess generally doesn't increase the chances of you getting into a fight like drinking does for some people, but social pressure counters that partially too.
Those erratic behaviours you talk about are generally illegal in most countries as well with drink driving, public intoxication, assault laws etc.
Drinking does have some positives as well, pubs are one of the few third spaces we have remaining. I know there are alternatives, but there are people who won't socialise in a cafe or a book club, but will go to the pub to see the regulars. Considering lots of Western countries have loneliness epidemics I think there'd be a downside to removing that option.
Drinking does seem to lubricate social situations, weed can help with pain etc. The only upside from smoking for the individual as far as I can tell is that it fixes the problem it created from you being addicted to it i.e. you get calmer when you get your fix.
Basically everyone who smokes/etc is addicted to nicotine.
They aren't the same at all.
Edit: just realised I posted under the wrong comment. Doh.
There is a difference that someone smoking nearby automatically harms people around you. With alcohol, the effect is more unpredictable, but it is equally real.
Alcohol is a factor in an automobile crashes, and a factor in a significant proportion of violent crime, especially domestic violence (https://www.cato-unbound.org/2008/09/17/mark-kleiman/taxatio... edit: this source isn't as great, Kleiman has written elsewhere about the subject, but google is failing me). If we could wave a magic wand and cause drinking to cease to exist, many lives would be saved.
Note: I do in fact drink, I am not a teetotaler. But what I said above is factual. I personally believe that prohibition would be worse, and it's reasonable for individuals to make their own choices. But that does not entail denying that it goes very badly for many.
And there are some people who are more sensitive to temporary exposure to smoke (and pollution in general) than others. That is why smoking tends to be is banned around hospitals and day care centers — because those are places where you will find those people. My father was one of them, after he had got his larynx removed for throat cancer after having smoked for decades. He could not suffer being subjected to even small amounts of second-hand smoke again because then the breathing hole in his throat would get irritated, fill up with mucus and have to be cleaned with a suction device.
And if you drink alcohol next to me, it does not make my clothes and my hair stink so much afterwards that I will want to wash my hair and change my clothes before going to bed.
Still a good idea to ban cigarettes and force people to consume their nicotine in healthier ways.
Congratulations!
Having said that I don't like the nanny society which acts like it knows better. People sometimes want to do stupid things and I think they should be able to do so. They should also not burden society with the consequences of their stupid actions so smokers either pay in more for health insurance or get relegated to the bottom tier - e.g. "palliative care for smoking-induced illnesses, no life-extending treatments for smoking-related diseases". No smoking where it impacts others negatively - this includes minors living in their house - but if they want to smoke where it doesn't impact others just let them do it.
Which is something weirdly North American - it's insane how okay USians are with drinking and driving considering how Puritanical they are about drinking generally.
I say this as someone who quite enjoys his drink–you haven't seen a hardcore drinking culture until you've dodged multiple projectile vomiters in SoHo at like 5PM on a random Tuesday.
Second hand smoke, however, inflicts damage the moment it’s inhaled.
Look, I get that you're anti-smoking along with the rest of us but both things are bad. Drinking is bad, smoking is bad, a lot of things are bad. The question is, which of these bad things did you try out and are now stuck with? That's the real issue. Products shouldn't not be allowed to be physically addicting like that. Arguing about it on HN to a bunch of addicts is like arguing with an alcoholic on their drinking problem. It's an echo chamber or a brick wall. Someone's going to walk away with a black eye.
Is second hand smoke dangerous? Not the same way inhaling soldering fumes could be or if you ever welded, the fumes could cause damage to your lungs. It's more subtle and requires prolonged exposure.
Shows up consistently in A&E Hospital records, reportedly enough to identify weekends and phases of the moon.
Brief Googling also suggests that second-hand smoke affects at least similar levels of people as drunk driving, if not more - to say nothing of e.g. domestic violence.
Not to mention, there are already various laws designed to mitigate the effects of second-hand smoke, such as not smoking indoors or in cars with children.
Overall, I am just not convinced that it's necessary to focus so much more on cigarettes over other drugs.
And there are already various laws designed to prevent drunk driving and drunk domestic abuse.
I think the broader picture here is a simple one: drinking alcohol is more societally acceptable than smoking. A government is going to be reflective of its voters, “necessary” or not, a law to ban drinking would be enormously unpopular in a way a law to ban smoking would not.
Sure, and this is why I put aside the issue of whether the government is doing the "right" thing in its position and focused on the people who it supposedly reflects - because it doesn't make sense to me that one is more acceptable than the other to an individual, and thinking so doesn't seem to reflect any sort of realistic view on alcohol and its impact on society, while holding cigarettes to a much higher standard.
You know the only people who got lung cancer from secondhand smoke were people who worked in airplanes and bars and casinos for 20 years and were in condensed, extremely smoky environments day in and day out, right? I smoke. I understand that everything is a cumulative risk factor. The absolute crazy freak-out hysterical reaction people have to cigarette smoke versus all the things I just named is purely a product of decades of expensively paid-for indoctrination. No one in their right mind would argue that smoking doesn't cause cancer, but if you literally think you are being harmed by smelling smoke, you must surely have a problem living in this world without a filter on your face at all times, because there is a lot more poisonous shit you encounter every single day, everywhere you go - and that's if you're lucky enough not to work in a plastics factory or somewhere that makes microwave popcorn.
[edit] While I'm at it, I just want to give a shout-out to all the people I know who heat up teflon pans before cooking in them. Who would never let someone smoke in their kitchen!
No, it's because being around a smoker is deeply unpleasant.
I'm old enough to remember going out before the indoor smoking ban took effect. The next morning I'd step into the shower and the smell of smoke would fill the bathroom as I washed it out of my hair. I would have a sore throat. It was all absolutely disgusting and we're so much better off where we are today. I'm sorry that your vice of choice is such a gross one.
> No, it's because being around a smoker is deeply unpleasant.
Being around drinkers isn't exactly a picnic :)
Hah, alcoholics have done more damage to my life than a smoker could ever dream of.
Why does everyone on HN seem to have a hate boner for alcohol? The main problem there is car culture, not the alcohol.
In any case, the hypocritical part is where the UK, like many US states, has legalized marijuana for medical use and is well on its way to legalizing it for recreational use. Pipe tobacco at least smelled good. Cigarettes, not so much. But marijuana smells like a mix of stale cigarettes and body odor. AND the second hand smoke isn't just harmful, it can make you high along with the dirty smelling marijuana smoker. At least with nicotine, it sharpens your concentration. THC on the other hand makes you a lazy Cheeto eating couch potato with no future.
I don't really see how car culture has anything to do with stuff like domestic violence, child abuse, or various other side-effects of alcohol culture.
What mechanisms do you foresee for it to fail? If stores stop selling cigarettes, the UK will have no other choice but to stop smoking them. I wonder what will come to replace them though. People have a peculiar tendency of forming addictive habits.
Regarding question 2, personally, I am uncomfortable with the idea of a nanny state.
The rules are made by politicians.
All it takes to change the rules is to rotate politicians.
Or enough public dissent that the same politicians are forced to revert the rules.
This might play right into the hands of bootleggers and gangs but also into the Swedish / American nicotine pouch industry which is basically marketing straight at kids.
Also - vapes. Most folks don’t smoke cigarettes anymore. How does this control vaping?
I am a fairly regular weed smoker. I used to grow my own. I used to smoke tobacco. I can go weeks, months and even years without smoking weed. Kicking my nicotine habit took many, many, many tries and I didn't even enjoy it! They are not the same.
It's like how everyone pat themselves on the back for banning child labor after the industrial revolution had rendered it obsolete outside a few niches that weren't economically important enough to put up a real fight.
Politicians "win" by pandering to voters and interests. So this is an obvious move since they can pander to all those people who grew up being told a cigarette takes a minute off your life while only pissing off some niche industry and a few smokers who are unwilling to vape.
Cut off production so cigarettes are no longer made or imported. Don't block me from them while letting others have them. (Not in UK)
It'd be kinda funny to see an early 1900s / USA-style mafia / gangster resurgence of bootleggers over cigs in the UK. Much lower stakes, but black markets are a thing.
Edit: added "while letting others have them"
https://www.newfoodmagazine.com/government-bans-high-sugar-a...
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/soft-drink-levy-extended-...
There are good reasons to target smoking given how addictive and deadly it is. Nicotine is fairly unique in this regard.
I live in the USA where we are treated like crap by our system of government. I'd agree with you if we had national healthcare.
if this moves nicotine to the black market then the people/government will still pay the cost without receiving any taxes on it at all
The title is hyperbolic. It isn't a ban on smoking. It's a "ban on buying cigarettes." Commerce is being restricted, not consumption. If, presumably, you bring your own in from France, or someone bums one to you, it would appear you're free to smoke it.
That broadly seems to strike a fair balance. Banning purchases and sales, not possession or consumption.
I guess that liberty was plenty abused on every non-smoker in a non-smoking area, that ended up coughing in clouds of smoke anyway. Smoking affects everyone around you whether you want it or not, and while you may smoke for 50 years and end up being perfectly healthy, some may get cancer from it, even for a very small dose.
So is banning the sale of leaded gasoline.
"Why is the government stopping me from murdering people and stealing from them? it's my right to decide how I live!"
One of the most important foundations of democracy is that the law applies to everyone equally. If smoking is banned, it should be banned for everyone, not banned for some people and allowed for a privileged class who got here first.
I could argue (unsuccessfully) that it's discriminatory and unfair that I have to wait an extra 3 years to claim my pension compared to older people.
When I was a smoker, I used to decry places that were less liberal about where I was allowed to smoke, and places with high taxes. As a former smoker, I know that the high taxes have enabled a lot of people to stop, and the restrictions got to a point where smoking was less "cool" and more "pariah" behavior. These influences helped me stop.
If you didn't read "The Easy Way to Stop Smoking", go do so, and smoke/vape no more.
If everyone appreciated how little value they receive from tobacco/nicotine and how easy it really is to quit, there would be no market.
Unless their ancestors were already citizens beforehand.
Which I guess could be considered a more generous concession.
It just seems completely absurd to me that a government thinks it's acceptable to treat a generation unable to vote differently from the generations who can. It's really an absurd unfreedom and a kind of tyranny.
Why not just pass a law that says people born after 2008 have to pay higher taxes, and work longer hours for less pay? People should be equal under the law.
We already do this, the UK State Pension age is currently rising from 66 to 67 for those born on or after April 6, 1960.
This change affects, for example, those born between April 1960 and March 1961, who will have a pension age of 66 plus a set number of months.
When I was young, it was 65 for men and 60 for women (from the 1940s until 2010)
My point here is that this is under 18s currently have no representation, and they're passing laws that will forever treat them as a kind of underclass, "for their own good." It's genuinely ridiculous that it's allowed to happen. In doing this, the UK -- for all it's progress a creating a mostly symbolic nobility -- will now allow a new kind of class system to emerge, where the young can be overtly dominated and discriminated against by the old. It's ridiculous. People should be equal under the law.
For example, some parties have a cannabis pledge and not enough people have wanted it as yet.
My son is 16, and will be impacted by this ban. He is constantly exposed to the temptation to smoke and vape. As a responsible parent, I want to do everything I possibly can to protect him and not become addicted.
We know that nearly all smoking starts before 26.
So the probability of starting smoking after 21 is roughly 2-5%. If someone hasn't started smoking by 21, they almost certainly never will. The brain's decision-making capacity isn't fully mature until ~25. People are getting hooked before they're neurologically equipped to properly evaluate the risk. People do not start smoking when they are grown-ass-adults.We owe our young people this protection, and I am a liberal.
But to take your point to full conclusion, Brexit was decided by the people that it impacts the least. And, "Since the Brexit referendum, 4+m voters have died (mainly Leavers), while almost 5m have reached voting age (overwhelmingly Remain), There is now a 1.6m majority for Remain - without anyone needing to change their minds". - https://www.thenewworld.co.uk/anti-brexit-britain-has-reache... - June 2023
What is proposed is something very different in kind.
You can't seriously be naive enough to think that's how party politics works?
That in general is what inflation is
I find bewildering that such concepts are tried only centuries later, and wonder how it comes to be possible. Is it that we can finally enforce them, or that the lobbying have been gradually weakened, or enough data to drive decision, etc. ?
You still can pickup nicotine consumption, but with xx % less carcinogens :)
The law (as proposed) restricts sales and giving to someone else, not the smoking itself.
https://bills.parliament.uk/publications/60034/documents/628...
If you’re a pothead who can’t make it through your day without a smoke, then god knows you’ll find a connect - and if you’re addicted to cigarettes, I’m pretty sure you won’t have much trouble getting your fix.
Just tax it very very heavily and apply education / social pressure?
[1] Technically, herbaceous plants.
Nicotine absolutely produces effects that people enjoy. Smokers don't just do it because they want to smell bad and look cool.
Now, the euphoric effects that you get at first, those very rapidly go away with tolerance. With habitual use, you probably only experience a tiny shadow of that with the first hit of the day, or a respectable replay if for whatever reason you go a couple days without (which is heightened by the cessation of withdrawal). The nausea and disorientation also go away, which is nice since otherwise it would be a problem.
Drugs that are largely harmless, like MDMA, are illegal with heavy penalties.
Drug policy is largely nonsense and rampantly hypocritical.
An MDMA overdose, however, needs active, external cooling to ride out. We don't really have a natural safety valve for overconsumption.
That's not to say it should remain banned (I'm quite pro-legalization myself), but it's not entirely arbitrary to have MDMA banned versus other, less acutely dangerous drugs. Better examples of unjustifiably banned drugs are psychedelics such as LSD.
I could be totally wrong tho, but at least that's what it feels like. It feels like "all of them" smoke. Either vape or real cigarettes and quite a few of them using cigarettes
Moreover, essentially all behavior plausibly has "diffuse negative externalities". We should be very careful about adopting that ("harms others in diffuse ways") as a reasonable standard for banning some behavior.
Not to say lobbyists don’t have an effect in the UK, they do. But the US has a particularly egregious setup.
I assume all the ones who were young enough to have worked tobacco at its peak are now working for Meta, OpenAI or Flutter.
As we know, smoking can cause lots of problems, including for babies if the mother smokes during pregnancy.
Most of the indoor smoking bans in the U.S. have been based entirely on the fact that second hand smoke affects the employees who are forced to be there.
Further, drinking has a far deeper cultural resonance, so smoking is clearly the lower hanging fruit.
And it’s not like the UK has not been taking action against drinking. For example, they’ve imposed minimum alcohol taxes which have been directly linked to lower consumption.
I should qualify the above: it doesn't affect random strangers as often as second-hand smoke does. But drunk driving and drunk violence are a thing, and both can affect anyone.
1. Alcohol 2. Heroin 3. Crack Cocaine 4. Cocaine 5. Tobacco
I think these laws are bizarre morality rituals. Evidence doesn't conclude it has anything to do with public health when you see how vicious alcohol is.
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/alcohol-duty-rates
That cuts down on drinking, except for the alcoholics of course. Scotland also imposed a minimum price per unit on alcohol, in an attempt to further cut consumption:
https://www.gov.scot/policies/alcohol-and-drugs/minimum-unit...
Whether that works is an open question, but in the UK things like "the sugar tax" have a visible affect on consumer consumption rates of "bad things".
Alcohol is very difficult to ban as you can take almost any kind of sugar feedstock and turn it into alcohol.
"[..]provision prohibiting the sale of tobacco to people born on or after 1 January 2009[..]"
"I also really doubt that they will legalise weed and then say "but of course you're not allowed to smoke it, edibles only"."
I mean, there is still vaporization, so it wouldn't be edibles only?
It blows my mind how no other country in the world wants to follow their example on this. Are they too proud to copy a third world country? Even when it’s doing some things better?
But that's for another government to deal with, of course. Not our problem. Oh, and the future government will be happy to announce they are giving funding that will go to new jobs!
I propose a ban on people that use bans as a brain-less cheap way of fixing complex issues.
Given the massive cost smoking imposes on the health sector, I find it hard to believe that's remotely possible.
What I do favor of is making cigarettes highly inaccessible -- i.e., restrict the sale to a very limited number of licensed locations, impose high taxes so they're very expensive. If it's still fairly widespread, raise the taxes even more. I think we should do the same with Coke /Pepsi/etc.
Of course not. The only thing government and private enterprise seems good at these days is taking things away from people. Logic be damned.
Alcohol is another story, we're not ready to remove that yet.
It is fine to attempt to improve public health, but not at the cost of giving people a life worth living.
If you are a smoker, you are much more likely to be a burden on this system.
Makes sense to ban these types of activities if the costs of them are socialized rather than individualized.
My question is why aren't you or the people making these policies interested? It's consequential stuff done ignorantly and recklessly.
Determine scientifically how dangerous vaping nicotine or THC is before banning it. That's call rational. Not reckless
And freedom isn't absolute. There's no need to exaggerate 1984 style just because smoking is banned. You don't even have to stop smoking. You just can't start.
One of the principal jobs of government is to stand for the good of the collective against individual selfishness.
Some have bans on just diesel engines. Others ban combustion engines during some hours. Some inner-city congestion taxes have been introduced for health reasons.
There's a general trend of trying to "optimize" society to remove all ills, and once you apply that logic, there's no clear stopping point. Once you ban sale of tobacco products, you can use that same logic to ban anything, from Cheetos to skydiving to motorcycles.
I do. I prefer people not to get lung cancer, among other afflications. And for no benefit that I can think of.
I don't live in the UK, but I say: good to them, and boo to you, for your misanthropic attitude.
bucketing ppl by birth year is literally a discrimination.
I don't think so, but if the original poster is around...
Anyway, it's the government's business to keep their population out of trouble.
> bucketing ppl by birth year is literally a discrimination.
Contrary to popular opinion, discrimination isn't illegal or even undesirable per se. In this case, it has a health benefit.
I think next we should ban them from eating butter, and you know, riding mountain bikes. Just protecting them you know.
What about us? Oh us, we're addicted, so... Well, you just can't take that away from us, can you? I mean there would be riots. But the kids, they wouldn't know what they're missing, right?
</sarcasm>
This is such a weird law. I doubt this would be constitutional in France. You can't just pass a law that affects some people but not others. It's against the principle of equality.
"I don't want to be controlled" is a perfectly valid argument, and I prefer humans can make choices for themselves and have reasonable autonomy when it does not have a negative affect on others.
Vaccination and smoking affects people around you. Drinking does too - in certain cases, but much less directly, in most cases. For example, drinking and operating vehicles is already illegal. Drinking and punching someone is already illegal!
How far do you want to take this? Your choice of diet may have a negative effect on others by way of having to pay for additional medical care.
(No.)
But are you saying we don't care if things have negative effect on people? If we go to extremes, well then obviously everyone should have 100% autonomy? Oops that doesn't work.
So, this is the hard part - you have to find balance, compromise, a reasonable middle ground. That's always going to be the hard part. Not black or white, but the grey areas.
UK becomes the safest country in the world, peace forever
Funding the "biggest threat the UK ever faced" according to Phil Mykytiuk, who has spent a decade mapping tobacco crime gangs in the north of England with a customer base of 10-11 million potential customers and rising every year, will surely cut heavily into their profits…
It gets tiresome to buy a new house every week because the dry wall is full with cash, again.
"Yo, psst, want to buy some Lucky Strikes? You know what will go really well with that? This white widow super cheese, and if you feel tired I also got some soap for you, first line on the house." "You’re afraid your parents might smell it? I can get you a discount on this perfume, smells like Aventus but way cheaper."
-
"Mykytiuk, though, believes the multiple layers of crime behind cheap, illegal tobacco are escaping scrutiny, allowing crime gangs – emboldened by the lack of deterrent – to expand their power base right under the noses of enforcement.
Having witnessed Kurdish tobacco gang members invest heavily in property and high street businesses here in the UK, he’s now seeing evidence of them moving into cannabis farms.
“But forget drugs,” he says. “Drugs are yesterday. The big thing is tobacco. These gangs are becoming the most capable criminals in this country. Right now it’s the biggest threat we’ve ever faced.”
https://www.vice.com/en/article/criminal-gangs-are-making-bi...
Props to this Vice reporter (in 2022) for snagging an interview with a municipal staffer in a suburb of Manchester, I guess. I’m sure he’s a very busy man. But he doesn’t exactly seem notable (try Googling his name) and I’m not really sure what this is supposed to prove in the absence of any corroborating reporting.
If I got you right, you’re doubting his credibility as a source after he was vetted by a journalist, because he is talking about organised crime openly and not having a website or a Substack with half a million followers?
Maybe the BBC from November last year is a more credible source for you? https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0mx99ple17o
Time to ban alcohol, marijuana, Tylenol, fatty foods, sugar, candles, campfires, fireworks, food coloring, bicycles, playgrounds, cars, cell phones, and anything else that might be harmful
improved health outcomes?
[1] https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/article/more-than-23000-canadi...
EDIT: Headlinese: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Headline#Headlinese