UK to raise smoking age from 18, by one year, every year.

[Toby iVapour]

to go back to the point that sent us away on this tangent, if it is the case that tobacco has or is becoming socially unacceptable and society/government think it needs to be subject to legal controls, then it should be seen in the same light as class a substances based on the potential for addiction and level of harm it causes.
this seems logically sound to me.

In present society, although smoking is increasingly socially unacceptable, you will quite a lot of people who have the odd fag at say parties or Xmas, but a lot less people who have the odd hit of heroin, or puff of a crack pipe...

Excluding any harm comparisons, I would say for this reason alone it would be hard or extremely unlikely that they would prohibit buying cigarettes with the same severity as Class A drugs.

 

[Toby iVapour]

isn't it easier instead of this whole increase in age for the next 60 odd years after all life expectancy is 76 depending on loads of things just to ban them in say 2 years or 5 years or just increase the cost by 25% per year

Increasing cost by 25% per year would increase black market more, and hit the poor the most of course, who are also the largest demographic of smokers...

If you ban them in say 2 years or 5 years, life-long smokers ain't gonna be happy about it at all (and the govt who implemented it would lose votes).

With election coming up, a lot of this is about vote-winning, and most people would agree with raising smoking age by a year every year, probably because they haven't really thought about it (how unworkable it would be, people's rights to choose what they want to do to their own body, and prohibition increase to black market etc).

 

[Toby iVapour]

With election coming up, a lot of this is about vote-winning...

https://thecritic.co.uk/the-poverty-of-anti-smoking-laws/

A government insider recently told me that Mr Sunak decided to embark on this crusade, which he had never previously mentioned, because “it polls really well, especially with Conservative voters”. This is arguably not the mark of a man of high principle, but it is true. According to the only poll I have seen, 64 per cent of Britons think no one born after 2008 should ever be able to buy tobacco, rising to 71 per cent among Tory voters. The figure is lowest among those who don’t vote, but those people don’t matter.

Taken from this article -
The poverty of anti-smoking laws
Smokers are not a drain on the economy
https://thecritic.co.uk/the-poverty-of-anti-smoking-laws/

 

[Toby iVapour]

These days most people start smoking at the age of about 18...

https://snowdon.substack.com/p/what-is-an-adult?

The anti-smoking crusade has got a lot of mileage out of ‘think of the children’ rhetoric over the years. Now their issue is not so much with children taking up smoking as adults taking up smoking. Their solution, proposed by Khan and now endorsed by the Prime Minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, is to ban an increasing number of adults from buying tobacco. All of which suggests that it was never really about children, doesn’t it?

 

[zouzounaki]

In present society, although smoking is increasingly socially unacceptable, you will quite a lot of people who have the odd fag at say parties or Xmas, but a lot less people who have the odd hit of heroin, or puff of a crack pipe...

Excluding any harm comparisons, I would say for this reason alone it would be hard or extremely unlikely that they would prohibit buying cigarettes with the same severity as Class A drugs.

you are probably right, although we don’t really know much about the prevalence of casual use of class a drugs as it is clandestine. but i am certain it’s a lot more prevalent than you think.

from a logical and rationale point of view the comparison seems obvious to me. if smoked tobacco is to be outlawed it should be in terms of potential harm to the user. and it is probably the most objectively harmful and least useful drug out there, with no safe use or therapeutic value. do you think society should be governed irrationally?

 

[John R Phillips]

These days most people start smoking at the age of about 18...

https://snowdon.substack.com/p/what-is-an-adult?

Your opening line rather shocked me, as I would have suspected it to be a much lower.
age. But, looking at the graph, more kids under 18 are smoking before they are 18, than those who start at 18 - if you get my drift. And that is what I suspected.

 

[Toby iVapour]

.. with no safe use or therapeutic value.

Actually (as I think you know) nicotine does have therapeutic value (hence why so many people with psychiatric illnesses smoke or vape).. it's just that inhaling smoke is harmful...

do you think society should be governed irrationally?

I think that the criminalisation of drugs & drug users is wrong, but I don't get a say in it...
.. but I also don't have the magic answer of how illegal drugs should be regulated...

 

[Toby iVapour]

Your opening line rather shocked me, as I would have suspected it to be a much lower age.
But, looking at the graph, more kids under 18 are smoking before they are 18, than those who start at 18 - if you get my drift. And that is what I suspected.

Yes, but the graph doesn't give all the answers anyway...
(e.g. what age group were polled?)

But if we take an approximation of the percentages (male) -
Under 18 = 15%
18 and above = 20%

 

[zouzounaki]

Actually (as I think you know) nicotine does have therapeutic value (hence why so many people with psychiatric illnesses smoke or vape).. it's just that inhaling smoke is harmful...

yes, we agree that nicotine can have therapeutic value. it’s probably why even some of us here ended up habitual smokers. but we are taking about smoked tobacco. i think the massive health risks outweigh the therapeutic benefit.

I think that the criminalisation of drugs & drug users is wrong, but I don't get a say in it...
.. but I also don't have the magic answer of how illegal drugs should be regulated...

this is true, neither do i and i suppose we are just debating it here in our bored moments.

or maybe we do, and we should all vote for the green party or some other lot that are in favour of decriminalising drugs.

 

[Simon G]

or maybe we do, and we should all vote for the green party or some other lot that are in favour of decriminalising drugs.

This is where it all gets a bit complicated for me, forgive me if I'm not understanding the concept of 'decriminalisation' but wouldn't that just lead to the wild west of drug sales and distribution? Kind of like how vaping was in the early days, mixing in kitchen sinks and dirty conditions and what would essentially be a legal black market? Wouldn't you have to go 'fully legal' so the quality, strength etc of the drugs could be controlled, tested etc. Otherwise it seems to me that most of the downsides would still be present... if not worse, drugs being cut with god knows what, etc. ... and that wouldn't be criminal?

I don't really understand how that would work.