- cross-posted to:
- worldnews@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- worldnews@lemmy.world
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to create ‘smoke-free’ generation
Of course, not counting the smoke, ash, and other toxic oxidized chemicals that will be kicked up by gas and diesel vehicles with his scrapping the HS2 Manchester line. What a fucking idiot. “Oh no, we brexited ourselves so hard that we’re poor now and can’t afford to build infrastructure that would stand to enrich multiple cities for hundreds of years!”
Such classic smooth brained thatcherite conservatives. It’s mind numbing that people keep voting for them.
Calling him smooth brained is looking past the fact that it’s just plain corruption. He has interests in the oil industry, and they are against public rail. Hold him to account for what he is, a criminal.
I mean, Sunak is a complete and utter bellend and cancelling half of HS2 is a ridiculous and nonsensical move.
But I think that the good old idiom about broken clocks might just apply here. Smoking bans are a good thing.
Yep, arresting a 47yo for smoking will be very on point for a broken clock.
Keep in mind, this will be policed only on poor ethnic minorities. Rich white guys in their private club s will still smoke with impunity.
Keep in mind, this will be policed only on poor ethnic minorities. Rich white guys in their private club s will still smoke with impunity.
This is the real answer right here - this is just another poverty tax/punishment.
I don’t smoke, never have, but I know why people smoke, and it’s now (that it’s no longer seen as “cool”) almost exclusively to try and relieve a tiny bit of the mountain of stress that existing in the world today (especially as part of a marginalised group) brings, and there are a million better ways to reduce the need to smoke, and improve the health outcomes of smokers (eventually, hopefully, to the point where they are able to reduce smoking or stop altogether).
Sunak is looking for a quick “win” for headlines and distraction, not to actually help people live healthier better lives (E: just seen his transphobic comments, which only reinforce this point). Why target the source of the problem when you can slap a band aid on it and bask in your own glory for a couple of days before your next bit of corruption is exposed?
Counterpoint: A lot of people that smoke want to stop smoking. A lot of people would more easily stop smoking if it was banned or not so easily available.
Also from the title of the article it seems that this would never apply to people that already smoke legally. The idea is that you set a minimum age and then you increase it every year. Meaning that in 100 years smoking is banned for everyone. But nobody was never banned from smoking when they were legal before. They were just never allowed to. So it prevents young people from picking up the habit.
So it prevents young people from picking up the habit.
right, just like how it being illegal prevents young people from drinking and smoking weed… 🙄🙄🙄
Do you really disagree that it reduces the amount of young people consuming those substances?
Yes, For example, youth cannabis use halved in Canada after legalization. Also, when I was in HS, people were smoking even though it’s illegal under the age of 18. People would just buy cigarettes from reserves and sell them to each other. If made illegal, people will just find other means to get it.
Prohibition doesn’t work but better education does.
The proposal is to raise the legal smoking age every year. Meaning each yearly increase, this hypothetical 47yo will also age a year and so will be able to smoke forever
Not if he wanted to pick up smoking one year before legal age. So he will be chasing that legal age forever and can’t smoke even if he’s 68
- ////Edit: it seems like I need to give an example to explain this apparently very difficult problem: Person A is 17 , smoking is allowed from 18 Next year Person A is 18, he could under normal circumstances smoke with 18, but now smoking is legal with 19. Continue to age 68 but smoking is now allowed from 69. It’s even implied in the article
Yes, I love it when people buy things from black markets too.
This is the smoking ban thread
It’s hard to believe so many people vote for them
Ah yes, because making drugs illegal has worked so well in the past.
Setting age limits on substance use is a little different from criminalizing possession/use. In the case of smoking, it has helped reduce rates. This is something backed by people working in public health, who also support decriminalization for possession and bringing in safe consumption sites. It’s all about finding the right approach for an issue.
I’d rather focus on calling out the OTHER bad stuff his government is doing, instead of turning this one partisan based on which party introduced it
It’s not really an age limit when you’ll never reach it, it’s just gradual criminalization.
That’s not true. It’s a ban on the sale not possession or consumption. The end user is not being criminalized.
Theoretically there’s nothing stopping from importation (barring implementation of another law).
Raising age limits on smoking has not reduced rates, making tobacco use taboo in society and knowing how dangerous it is for you has. In the US like 9% use any form of tobacco (which it’s more likely around 7% or less because they include people who have smoked in their lives and quit as well). At this point no one is really smoking… going after tobacco still is just stupid.
It’s more like 18-19% in the US.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10168602/#:~:text=In 2021%2C an estimated 46,hookah)*%20(0.9%25).
Edit: not sure why the link got all fucky but it still works, somehow.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/1717/Tobacco-Smoking.aspx
%11…not 18-19% at all.
That’s smoking, not tobacco products use. Vaping, for instance, is its own category.
Tobacco use includes more options, so the numbers will be higher
Not really, cigar and pipe tobacco smokers are a rounding error against the population…nasal snuff users even less. Vaping is only added to pad the numbers. Let’s get real here, cigarette smokers are what is being effected, not other forms of tobacco use which are basically non existent.
By “pad the numbers” you mean “accurately reflect reality?”
I am aware that cigarette smokers are who is affected by this policy but that is not the discussion at hand.
Also raising age limits did reduce smoking rates, but also neither here nor there as this policy is not strictly about raising age to purchase but effectively forming a generational cutoff.
Sunak is really reaching here, to say the least, but the data is the data. It’s not worth trying to ignore reality.
reports from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found people who started smoking before age 21 are more likely to have a high nicotine dependence, and raising the age to buy tobacco to 21 impacts the sale of such products.
found average monthly cigarette sales in Hawaii dropped about 4.4% following the new law. California sales declined 11.7%, and mainland sales dropped 10.6%.
Read the article for fucks sake.
They’re not making the drug illegal, just cigarettes. People who want nicotine still have other options.
It’s like how no one goes out of their way to make/sell pure ethanol, because you can still buy beer or vodka.
That’s still prohibition… it’s flat out dumb. A kid isn’t smoking a $10 cigar…
Smoking is redundant today. Kids are getting enough cancer from the environment already.
It’s not redundant. Harms compound. It’s not like people max out their carcinogenic index or something. 🙄
Great goal but like with all other narcotics, wouldn’t this just create a huge black market and thus massively fund criminal organizations?
I’m not so sure
Cigarettes are not often seen with the same attraction as other drugs
The draw from younger potential customers is greatly outweighed by far less harmful stuff like weed or even shrooms
So we would eliminate smoking the same way we eliminated drug use…by making it illegal.
/S if necessary
I’m generally pro legalization of drugs, but will say this is likely to be much more effective than the war on drugs ever was.
You don’t outlaw possession, just the sales age. You’ll see significantly fewer new starters as time goes because after 20 years 40 year olds that can buy wont be bothered to support fresh 18 year olds looking to start a new habit or whatever. The ones that really want to start can buy from abroad without any form of punishment.
I think it’s different because I don’t think anyone turns to their first cigarette looking to try and attain some new feeling. It’s usually one of those things like… My friends were so I grabbed one from them and blah blah.
I would say I’m for the progressive increase in age, and I wrestle with my own hypocrisy seeing that I support legalizing other drugs. But maybe that’s rooted in the basis that I’ve never had a pothead or dude on shrooms negatively impact me. Cigarettes however–littered everywhere, get smoke in your face, etc
people could easily say they hate the smell of weed - is that a good reason to outlaw?
I keep thinking of the rat experiments where rats in cages took drugs until they died but happy rats in rat societies turned away from drugs.
I think people take drugs, including cigarettes, to cope. If they didn’t need to cope with terrible conditions, they wouldn’t use the drugs (except a few outliers). To me, taking away people’s cope is punching down.
We can’t get rid of tobacco like we can quaaludes or some synthetic drug. It’s going to be available to people. The question is do you want to create a huge black market for it (where people can easily lace cigarettes with fentanal, bonus? ), or do you want to address the reasons that people chain smoke?
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Is there any evidence to suggest a gradual ban actually prevents a black market?
It’s worth noting that even the happy rats would go get the occasional hit, they just weren’t dependent on the drugs. They did it for fun once in a while, not frequently as an escape from reality. This is how healthy people enjoy drugs.
That doesn’t change the end result though. Addiction is the result of profound despair, not the cause of it. Giving people hope and support keeps them from needing to escape.
I think people want to do things they are not allowed to. They will go through the effort to find a way. In a lot of states that legalized Marijuana, its use went down after legalization. Once it was normalized, some people lost interest. I think the opposite happens when you make it illegal, you’re basically making it cool again. This isn’t just drug use, it’s with a lot of things, if you forbid it, people will suddenly want that thing more than they did before. Religion comes to mind. Authoritarian countries that want to stamp out a religion or all religion often cause a religious resurgence. There’s nothing quite like being told you can’t do something to make you want to do it or visa versa. People are naturally oppositional.
Yeah, lots of bad faith comparisons to drug legalization. People outright against age-gated laws. So I guess that means it’s ok for 4 year olds to drive around?
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few hours ago
Smoking’s already dramatically fallen out of popularity with younger people, being replaced by vaping. So I don’t think it really matters what they do at this point - smoking’s a dinosaur waiting to die.
Although vaping is far more popular and at least better than smoking, it’s still actively bad for health. I’d be interested to see how a similar policy to ban vapes would go over in the west like they’re trying in Taiwan.
Fast food, alcohol, motorcycles, and Instagram are also bad for your health. I’m not sure how vaping compares. Vaping is definitely easier to demonize.
Motorcycles aren’t bad for your health. Crashing them is, but just driving them isn’t, even doing it a lot. Unlike the other things you mentioned where doing them a lot is unhealthy.
Vaping isn’t bad for your health, it’s what you put into the vape that might be. There are already commonly used medical technologies that are adjacent to vaping, and many researchers think we will be able to use vaping in the future to replace hypodermic needles in some situations.
They are statistically bad for your health.
By your own argument, you would agree with the statement: “Smoking cigarettes isn’t bad for your health. Lung cancer is.”
Nope, doesn’t need to end in lung cancer for it to be bad.
Take it this way:
You can drive motorcycle for hours every day for years and not take any health casualties from it.
You can’t smoke cigarettes every day for years and not take any health casualties from it.
No. You are another pedantic commenter. Stop.
Lmao. Just because I disagree with you? ^^
That is indeed true, but don’t forget that vaping addiction comes from the nicotine inside it that gets into your body physically. Riding a motorcycle or being on Instagram are still addictive but they don’t “force” it upon you
We get it, you vape.
I actually don’t vape. I just see a vice that seems relatively harmless and I don’t think we should demonize it. Even if vape people are annoying.
We should perhaps demonize some parts of it.
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-65614078
It seems we might be heading to another lead-based catastrophe. Fortunately more limited than the previous one, but still.
This article is why I’m against demonizing vapes.
Regularly, you see these news articles about illegal vapes getting people sick. Because they are illegal and unregulated.
Regularly, governments and media try to use those revelations to attack the legal vape industry, which works quite hard to make sure not to ever release vapes with high lead, nickel, or (the famous one) Vitamin E. The whole popcorn lung thing was practically an ad campaign where I live. They kept (accidentally I’m sure) leaving out that NOT A SINGLE ONE vape pen in my area that had Vitamin E in it came from our smoke shops or legal dispensaries.
Why? To demonize vapes.
I have a sister who vaped for a year before she got bored of it. I am grateful that we had a regulated industry that made sure the vapes she got her hand on weren’t going to really hurt her.
actively bad for health
Interesting turn of phrase. What is “actively bad for health”, really? Experts seem to be pretty convinced that as bad as Vaping might be, it’s not as bad as alcohol. And we in the US know what happens when you try to ban alcohol. I have Prohibition to thank for the incredible Whiskey industry of today.
Yeah the only thing raising the smoking age will do is make smoking cool again.
Everything about smoking is cool. Especially the part where it devastates your body before killing you in the most terrible way possible, drowning in your own fluids. Kinda hoping on the world ending so I can say fuck it and pick it up again.
Smoking kills. If you’re killed, you’ve lost a very important part of your life.
-Brooke Shields
Hey, but you get to gorge on morphine before drowing in your own fluids /s
From someone who has smoked and quit, I was really blind sided by how addictive nicotine was. People talk about adults and what they put in there body but nicotine really is a different monster
I never felt the same buzz after my first cigarette, it felt like I was fucking drunk after my first smoke lol.
After that I was basically just chasing the dragon, I was smoking about 15-30 cigarettes a day for about 1-2 years. Never again.
Huh. I gave it a try, and while drunk, i just went on and on, but overall it just smelled so bad that it never became a habit. I guess i’m lucky
Some people definitely don’t respond the same and it real does take 1-3 days to really start to notice for some people
What I don’t see is why smoking should be the main nicotine delivery device when it can easily be done without the cancerous smoke.
Isolated nicotine is apparently not cancerous. We just choose to enforce the continued coupling of nicotine and cancer, and refuse to permit alternatives that decouple if from cancer if their dosage isn’t pitiful.
“Either get the weak alternatives, or the cancerous ones.”
The moderate non-cancerous alternatives are illegal.
Or do it like Germany: make vaping extremely expensive so people go back to smoking. Stupid.
Absolutely obscene and short sighted what the German government have done. Everything is taxed per ml, even if it has no nicotine in it. As you say it’s cheaper to actually smoke.
So are you for or against Sunak’s proposal?
One problem: most smokers start as teens, all while it’s forbidden to sell kids the cancer sticks.
Addition: I would punish the selling of tobbaco products to kids even more, including the ability of suing the adults for damages in the future (If it won’t cause a cobra problem later on), and also give the ability to non-smoking workers to sue their employers if they give smokers more breaks.
My 13-year-old daughter already has friends who vape. That’s how insidious it is and how deeply embedded in the public consciousness nicotine-based products are.
Most kids aren’t vaping anything with nicotine in it. Most are vaping 0mg juices and trying to look cool blowing clouds. Nicotine isn’t a super addictive chemical, it’s about as addictive as caffeine. Smoking cigarettes and vaping are habit forming, it’s why almost all smoking cessation forms fail multiple times for people.
nicotine is incredibly addictive - and it’s very hard to break. and no, caffeine is less addictive. Much less addictive.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/07/100713144920.htm
https://www.rsph.org.uk/about-us/news/nicotine--no-more-harmful-to-health-than-caffeine-.html
Nicotine is not incredibly addictive, the habit of smoking is. It’s why NRT have basically a 95% failure rate.
Habits forming actions like biting your nails, are also incredibly hard to stop and their is no underlying drug there.
The who nicotine is bad for you and causes cancer is also bullshit. The bad science that was used against smoking and still used today was done for the public good. It’s why a lot of studies are starting to come out that, nicotine isn’t what’s the issue…the inhalation of smoke and the habit of doing so are.
Sorry but no. habits generally take weeks to months to form. that smoking becomes habitual certainly makes quitting harder. there is no doubt there. but, if smoking was far less addictive, it would be far less likely to ever develop as a habit. Remember, that nicotine from smoking (or vaping) starts affecting your brain essentially instantly, creating a dopamine hit, as well as the other affects. it is that which makes nicotine addictive. not some random associated habits that developed over weeks or months.
Also your sources aren’t very good. In the first, there’s no direct link to the studies in question, but based entirely on what was said int he article… I’m doubting very much they took into consideration the use of alternatives by flight attendants- patches and gums are extremely common among FA’s that smoke; specifically to manage the cravings while they’re forbidden from smoking. And from what I can tell with a quick search (I’m far from authoritative here,) snuff has been used as an alternative to smoking on shabbat… from pretty much the first time it was brought to Europe, so I would have to assume patches are also a viable method of controlling cravings there as well.
In any case, nobody really says that nicotine causes cancer. At least, no one even remotely honest.
tobacco use causes cancer. As RSPH notes:
Nicotine is harmful in cigarettes largely because it is combined with other damaging chemicals such as tar and arsenic,
however it goes on to be wrong about one thing:
Electronic cigarettes and Nicotine Replacement Therapy (gum, lozenges, and patches) contain nicotine but don’t contain the harmful substances found in cigarettes.
vapes frequently contain toxic chemicals. many are frequently contaminants from extraction; some are added as flavoring or turn into toxic chemicals because of being vaporized, which changes chemical structures. (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)
Nobody really knows for sure what the long term impacts of vaping is- even if the vape juice is just water; we don’t really know if it’s safe or not. One thing people do know is that Nicotine is addictive, and that you keep saying it’s ‘not that bad’ makes me think maybe you’re trying to justify something. I don’t care if you smoke or vape. nobody here does. But I do care that you’re spreading misinformation about things.
Talk to any one whose tried quitting both caffeine and nicotine. there’s really no comparison between the two; and saying there’s not is patent bullshit.
I just quit vaping like a week or two ago and it was fucking miserable for a week straight. Caffeine isn’t nearly as bad when I’ve quit that, but nicotine withdrawals are fucking horrible and they feel like they last forever.
Congrats on quitting. That took a lot of determination, I’m sure.
I quit caffeine and it took me 2 weeks of shakes and fevers to get over it. The withdrawals were horrible. I smoke cigars and pipe tobacco regularly and quit every winter with no issues.
Why do you think nicotine is not very addictive? I saw several studies that called it a highly addictive substance (for example this review about e-cigarettes). By the way, the review is overall very interesting and worth reading.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/07/100713144920.htm
Nicotine is about as addictive as caffeine. It sucks but the habit is what causes people to stay addicted. It’s why nicotine replacement treatments don’t work, and why vaping has a way higher success rate of getting people to stop than anything pharma companies have come up with.
The review study I linked says vaping doesn’t have higher success rate when it comes to stopping.
Most kids aren’t vaping anything with nicotine in it. Most are vaping 0mg juices and trying to look cool blowing clouds. Nicotine isn’t a super addictive chemical, it’s about as addictive as caffeine.
Yes the same FDA who pushes for NRT…the same NRT that have people failing to quit…and committing suicide while on them…also no where in your link does it show what mg kids are vaping.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28850065/
ASH surveys showed a rise in the prevalence of ever use of e-cigarettes from 7% (2016) to 11% (2017) but prevalence of regular use did not change remaining at 1%. In summary, surveys across the UK show a consistent pattern: most e-cigarette experimentation does not turn into regular use, and levels of regular use in young people who have never smoked remain very low.
1% is what your looking at for kids that get addicted to vaping…
Nicotine is highly addictive. Nice try Mr. Big Tobacco.
What evidence do you have that this is not detrimental to their health and development? Because as far as I know, no major studies have been done.
Are you asking if nicotine is bad for you or ???
That isn’t true, Elf bars and Lost Marys are so easy for kids to get hold of and it is 100% what they’re using.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28850065/
ASH surveys showed a rise in the prevalence of ever use of e-cigarettes from 7% (2016) to 11% (2017) but prevalence of regular use did not change remaining at 1%. In summary, surveys across the UK show a consistent pattern: most e-cigarette experimentation does not turn into regular use, and levels of regular use in young people who have never smoked remain very low.
That data is 6 years out of date and times have massively changed. Seriously, just go walk down the street after the kids have finished school for the day and your eyes will be opened.
This report is from 2 years ago so still out of date, but you can see the change that happened just in the 4 years between this and the one you linked:
Under half (43.0%) of 11 to 18 year olds who were current and former vapers reported always using vaping products that contained nicotine – 17.3% reported always using nicotine-free products. Three out of five (61.3%) 16 to 19 year olds who had vaped in the past 30 days used nicotine in their current product – 17.3% said their product did not contain nicotine.
Over half (58.2%) of 16 to 19 year olds who had vaped in the past 30 days did not feel addicted to vaping but 38.5% said they felt a little or very addicted.
Just under a fifth (18.4%) of current vapers aged 11 to 18 reported experiencing urges to vape almost all the time or all the time.
More 11 to 18 year olds who had tried vaping said they had:…
tried a vaping product and never tried smoking (28.9%)
Thanks, troll, for mixing valid points with blatant bullshit.
Also caffeine is neurotoxin.
https://www.rsph.org.uk/about-us/news/nicotine--no-more-harmful-to-health-than-caffeine-.html
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/07/100713144920.htm
I mean I can back up my claims. This isn’t rocket science. Most kids in the smoking years (50-00s) started smoking to look cool and older…hell there are even studies that show most people hate it at first.
https://www.rsph.org.uk/about-us/news/nicotine--no-more-harmful-to-health-than-caffeine-.html
I didn’t compare harm, I was saying that caffeine is very useful neurotoxin. Meanwhile nicotine is completely useless at best.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/phe-publishes-independent-expert-e-cigarettes-evidence-review
there is much public misunderstanding about nicotine (less than 10% of adults understand that most of the harms to health from smoking are not caused by nicotine)
https://www.rsph.org.uk/about-us/news/nicotine--no-more-harmful-to-health-than-caffeine-.html
Tobacco contains nicotine along with many other chemicals, but nicotine by itself is fairly harmless.
https://www.discovermagazine.com/health/nicotine-the-wonder-drug
Studies by Quik and others involving rats, mice and nonhuman primates have since found similar effects. In short, by driving dopamine, nicotine appeared to ease the tremors and tics caused by Parkinson’s, and even the movement disorder induced by the major Parkinson’s drug.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8078469/
Nicotine for Alzheimer’s disease
Want me to go on?
Nicotine isn’t the harmful drug the anti-tobacco groups have you believing.
there is much public misunderstanding about nicotine (less than 10% of adults understand that most of the harms to health from smoking are not caused by nicotine)
Soooo? We were talking specifically about nicotine and caffeine, not smoking and drinking coffee. Burning organic compunds is very nasty ofc. Again “it is useless at best”.
Tobacco contains nicotine along with many other chemicals, but nicotine by itself is fairly harmless.
See. Useless at best.
Yeah, but then ultimately it becomes illegal for everyone to own them. Meaning shops cant sell them.
Then comes the black-market.
Black market of dead souls.
And where does teens get the idea to smoke from? Is it from grandpa that coughs louder than a jet engine? Or is it the older cooler teens who got the idea from older teens, who got the…
You get the point.
I smoked as a teen because some of my friends did, they smoked because some of their friends did. And you don’t have to look very far to find the 18-20 year olds who provided them.
Luckily, I never smoked much and mostly kept it to social smoking which made it very easy for me to quit once I grew up and developed some brain-cells that enjoyed co-operating with eachother.
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They change their main supplier
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My first cigarette at the ripe old age of 13 was illegally imported. I very much doubt it worked where you live and in reality teens just went more underground with their smoking.
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Yeah but the 18 year old buys for the 15 year old-- brothers, sisters, upperclassmen, etc.
The more that gap becomes larger, the less likely they have social interaction and access. How many 40 year olds buy for 15 year olds today? In 20 something years, 40 year olds will be the youngest purchasers.
Afaik NZ has already implemented such a rule.
He should also star making crimes illegal so that they can live in a society without crime /s.
Finally something sensible from this guy. Last week it was all big auto lobby nonsense.
That’s gonna work splendidly since underage people would never dare to smoke!
Ehhhhhh, you make it permanently harder for a generation and eventually, barring a political change, you need to find an 80 year old to boot cigarettes for you from that one shop down the road that still caters to a rapidly shrinking audience.
Not to say that this is a good idea or one with which but long-term, it could work. (Or at least reduce smoking to a relatively minor few.)
Eventually stores will just stop selling them. Why stock cigarette when you only sell 10 packs a month.
I think it’s a great idea. People will create a black market for them, but it will be really small and die out.
It’s not like you really get anything from it like you do from alcohol or other drugs.
People will create a black market for them, but it will be really small and die out.
There’s already a black market for tobacco, and it will just grow in size not shrink. You can buy 50g for like £5 on DNMs.
It’s not like you really get anything from it like you do from alcohol or other drugs.
Similar ehhhhhh as earlier.
There are moments when a cigarette gives you an amazing or just right, feeling, for lack of a better word. In reality you’re just sating a self inflicted addiction, but it can feel great to do so.
I don’t think it’s a good trade, that’s why I no longer smoke, but I understand the simple pleasure. Even if in the long, medium, heck, often even short term that pleasure has stupid costs.
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It’s still gonna slowly reduce use. And that’s better than nothing.
But what will boebert do while jerking off dudes at movie theaters?
This won’t affect her as Sunak is the Prime Minister of the UK.
No, no, they have a point.
She was vaping, not smoking.
no difference
Fucking surveillance state you have there
How is this supposed to be enforced? In a decade’s time are shopkeepers going to have to challenge anyone buying a packet of fags who looks under 28? And then later it’ll be “sorry mate, can you prove you’re 44?” and so on.
Asking for ID when buying cigarettes is not exactly an outlandish proposal. It’s already done around the current legal smoking age.
Arguably, this proposal makes it easier, since there’s a fixed cutoff date of birth instead of calculating their age.
Is it legal to discriminate against people who are over 21 years old in the UK? I think you couldn’t even pass a law like that in Germany.
Calling it discrimination is quite a stretch. By that logic our gun laws are discrimination, too and why can’t I buy enriched uranium in stores? I’m being discriminated against!!! Muh pearls! Some laws exist to protect people from themselves and I would welcome a law like this in Germany. Cigarettes and vapes don’t do anything that you can’t do in other ways, without harming others. Except maybe get you more breaks at work :P
I mean, if you have the equipment and chemicals, i think you can buy uranium ores and manually process them for a tiny amount of u235
I disagree. It’s not the same, because everyone can buy a gun if they have the paperwork for it (and noone can buy the uranium). It’s not only an exclusive group of old people, people with spots on their skin or people with green eyes. Otherwise it would be discrimination, because it creates differential treatment based solely on age, skin type, eye color…
We also discriminate against young people to protect their vulnerable health via alcohol, tobacco regulations. But it’s justifiable and ‘good’ discrimination, because they’re not of age yet and need to be protected.
I’m not smoking or anything btw so I’m not emotionally involved in this argument, I’m just curious about the debate :D
Not everyone can buy a gun, to get the paperwork you need to meet a somewhat arbitrary age requirement and you have to be “mentally stable”. So we are discriminating against mentally handicapped people. It makes sense, I don’t even disagree with it, just saying that it’s the same logic as op’s.
Okay, maybe a better example: if you’re interested in becoming president you have to be at least 40. Sounds like age discrimination to me :P
I don’t smoke so I’m not super invested in this either. However, I travel a lot by train and besides the trains always being late what annoys me most are smokers. Smoking is already banned at all train stations and bus stops but the first thing some people do when exiting a train is lighting a cigarette. In the middle of a crowd. Imo the only way to stop them from doing that in crowds is by banning smoking completely & this law is a good way to do that, but it would have to be an EU-wide measure imo. Otherwise it’s too easy to just drive to a neighbouring country and buy a pack of cigarettes.
Not everyone can buy a gun, to get the paperwork you need to meet a somewhat arbitrary age requirement and you have to be “mentally stable”. So we are discriminating against mentally handicapped people.
Sure, that’s exactly what we do. And there’s a good reason for that. I’m also not against dropping it, just because it’s discriminatory.
Okay, maybe a better example: if you’re interested in becoming president you have to be at least 40. Sounds like age discrimination to me :P
Sure. In this case I don’t see a rightful reason for it to exist though, which is why it has to be abolished.
I hate second hand smoke as much as every other non-smoker, but I’m not a fan of banning smoking, just because I think it’s annoying. Let people ruin their health if they want it that bad. We live in a time where second hand smoke is almost completely avoidable. At least in Germany. With the vapes it’s even less of a problem now. If I breathe in smoke from some other guys’ cigarette once a month it won’t affect my health.
However there’s a much much bigger problem regarding breathing in toxic fumes, which we should address immediately: cars.
It is avoidable overall but it always requires an effort on my part which is the wrong way around imo.
Ultimately my stance on it is that it’s annoying but there’s only so much we can reasonably do about it. I don’t expect dB or the police to patrol train stations to make sure nobody is smoking. It’s largely avoidable and if people want to kill themselves then they’re free to do that. We have much bigger problems to focus on, like the one you mentioned: cars. (And maybe if more people used the train instead of cars there’d be more of an incentive make sure most of your customers aren’t being bothered by a minority)
I think you answered your own question.
