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Sunak proposes raising smoking age every year to create 'smoke-free' generation (news.sky.com)

submitted 1 year ago by alphacyberranger@lemmy.world to c/world@lemmy.world

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[-] Guntrigger@feddit.ch 182 points 1 year ago

Everyone here is arguing the benefits of prohibition. I'm just interested to know how much money Rishi (and/or his family members/friends/donors) have invested in vaping and nicotine alternatives.

[-] Silentiea@lemm.ee 101 points 1 year ago

It always confuses me to learn that when people want to ban smoking it somehow means ban "cigarettes" and not "nicotine"

[-] gmtom@lemmy.world 39 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Because smoking is WILDLY more harmful than vaping.

Yes vaping has SOME health risks, but it's like saying drinking tea and drinking four loko are just as bad because they both have caffeine

[-] morrowind@lemmy.ml 43 points 1 year ago

Bro what tea are you drinking that has nicotine

[-] SomeRandomWords@lemmy.blahaj.zone 29 points 1 year ago

I can only imagine they meant caffeine, another common drug that's heavily abused but a little more socially accepted

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

Well what's wrong with nicotine? In itself it's not worse than booze. It's all the other crap they add that makes it so terrible

[-] JoeBigelow@lemmy.ca 45 points 1 year ago

Hi from the depths of a nicotine addiction and struggling to quit. Its a worthless chemical that gets more expensive everyday and my brain SCREAMS at me for a fix if I try to go more than even a few hours. At least heroin gets you high.

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[-] BigDill99@lemmy.ca 23 points 1 year ago

A lot of the alternatives are already owned by Big Tobacco

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[-] Illecors@lemmy.cafe 108 points 1 year ago

I see angry wankers want to moan for the sake of moaning.

Eliminating smoking is a goos thing! I'll take my wins whenever possible, doesn't happen all that often.

[-] evatronic@lemm.ee 32 points 1 year ago

But but there are other things that are also bad and if one proposal doesn't solve everything it is complete trash!!!

[-] otter@lemmy.ca 21 points 1 year ago

Yea not everything is a partisan issue, and this seems like a good thing? Antismoking efforts have largely been successful in a lot of places.

It's not one of those things where someone is choosing to harm themselves only. Smoking affects the people around you

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[-] masterspace@lemmy.ca 83 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

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.

[-] quantum_mechanic@sh.itjust.works 33 points 1 year ago

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.

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[-] bob_lemon@feddit.de 27 points 1 year ago

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.

[-] Quatity_Control@lemm.ee 18 points 1 year ago

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.

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[-] superkret@lemmy.ml 69 points 1 year ago

Ah yes, because making drugs illegal has worked so well in the past.

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

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

[-] Bumblefumble@lemm.ee 35 points 1 year ago

It's not really an age limit when you'll never reach it, it's just gradual criminalization.

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[-] betwixthewires@lemmy.basedcount.com 18 points 1 year ago

But this isn't am age limit, its using an age limit as a hack to basically grandfather in a smoking ban. It is about finding the right approach, and this ain't it.

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[-] gencha@lemm.ee 64 points 1 year ago

Smoking is redundant today. Kids are getting enough cancer from the environment already.

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[-] fosforus@sopuli.xyz 63 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Great goal but like with all other narcotics, wouldn't this just create a huge black market and thus massively fund criminal organizations?

[-] PhlubbaDubba@lemm.ee 18 points 1 year ago

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

[-] theKalash@feddit.ch 20 points 1 year ago

Cigarettes are not often seen with the same attraction as other drugs

And the best way to change that is by making them illegal.

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[-] DigitalFrank@lemmy.world 52 points 1 year ago

So we would eliminate smoking the same way we eliminated drug use...by making it illegal.

/S if necessary

[-] wolfpack86@lemmy.world 37 points 1 year ago

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

[-] WheeGeetheCat@sh.itjust.works 17 points 1 year ago

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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[-] zik@lemmy.world 46 points 1 year 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.

[-] COASTER1921@lemmy.ml 18 points 1 year ago

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.

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[-] thedeadwalking4242@lemmy.world 32 points 1 year ago

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

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[-] sagrotan@lemmy.world 29 points 1 year ago

Or do it like Germany: make vaping extremely expensive so people go back to smoking. Stupid.

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[-] ZILtoid1991@kbin.social 24 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

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.

[-] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 18 points 1 year ago

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.

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[-] A2PKXG@feddit.de 17 points 1 year ago

Afaik NZ has already implemented such a rule.

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[-] 5BC2E7@lemmy.world 16 points 1 year ago

He should also star making crimes illegal so that they can live in a society without crime /s.

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this post was submitted on 05 Oct 2023

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