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.
Honestly he’s more corrupt than Boris Johnson which is saying something.
Of course. Why else would a billionaire want the job of leading a country?
At least nobody can outcorrupt Putin. Fuck him, fuck UR.
This is the smoking ban thread
It’s mind numbing that people keep voting for them.
Well recent polling would suggest that they no longer will be voting for them.
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He’s still an MP, so those in his riding would have voted for him, and the Tory party members voted for him, and the rest of the country voted for members of his party that include Lettuce Head and BoJo, so they did vote for a numbskull from his party to be in power.
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).
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.
Why isn’t this it?
For the same reason prohibition of alcohol didn’t work, for the same reason the drug war didn’t work, for the same reason prescription requirements for medically useful narcotics doesn’t work. It doesn’t matter what the law is, people will make their own choices, and if the things are available, legally or not, people that want to use them will use them.
Look at the US. For all it’s faults, it has handled smoking very very well. The younger generation basically doesn’t smoke cigarettes. They’re not banned from it for life, they just were informed about it and so they find it disgusting and don’t really do it. You can’t even really get a date anymore with someone if you smoke cigarettes and you’re under like 40.
This really varies by state, based on the smoking policies. In Republican led states, smoking policies have led to shorter life spans.
Making things easily available increases their rates of use
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.
Except it doesn’t. Vapes are super easy for kids to get, yet somehow they don’t stick with it.
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%.
Whilst I agree with you in that I don’t think this is an optimal approach, at the same time I’m curious as to whether this would create a significant black market for cigarettes.
Anybody already addicted will continue to have access. Anyone not addicted has to overcome the barrier of acquiring it illicitly, which works in tandem with education about the harm it does.
Considering how bulky cigarettes are compared to most other drugs, I wonder whether most dealers would carry around loads of cigarettes - particularly if they’d be at risk of being prosecuted for having them (which I don’t think is the case here, though).
However, it would probably increase the rate at which weed is cut with tobacco as it increases the addictiveness and ensures customer dependency for the dealers.
I got my first cigarette from a uda (local gang) dealer. So yes there would be a black market for cigs
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. 🙄
Pretty much anything in the state of California
This product is known to the state of California
Why not making the warnings be available elsewhere?
That law is an excellent example of knowledge vs wisdom. Knowledge is knowing that some substances may be carcinogenic. Wisdom is knowing that the dosage of a carcinogen is so low it hardly poses any risk.
To be fair though that’s hard to put on a warning label and harder to explain.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
Nicotine is on the same level of addictiveness as heroin and cocaine lol.
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.
links single paper supporting point amongst the hundreds that refute it
paper is written by a guy on the payroll of a tobacco company
Lmfao.
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.
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Yeah, honestly I think it would make more sense to increase the age at which it’s legal to sell to 25 (under the justification that supposedly that’s when your brain has finished developing), and then allow it from there on to prevent it becoming a way to support illegal activity.
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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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.
I think New Zealand implemented a similar measure some years back, it should probably be good to see how well it works there. Hopefully this doesn’t create a black market for tobacco.
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.
also give the ability to non-smoking workers to sue their employers if they give smokers more breaks.
Yeah, one of the best bits of WFH is that I can take as many breaks as my nicotine obsessed colleagues.
He should also star making crimes illegal so that they can live in a society without crime /s.
I feel we’ve done a good enough job at making smoking undesirable, effectively banning it is excessive. It would be better to focus on doing what was done to cigarettes to vapes. Kids arent smoking nearly as much but theyre vaping like mad. I see kids as young as 13-14 doing it. Vapes are allowed to look appealing, combine that with their nice smell and flavour, ofc young people are going to gravitate toward them instead.
Make it so vape packaging is bland and has similar warnings as cigarretes, and actually teach kids about addiction instead of just a hard “dont touch these”. Everyone with a braincell knows that if you ban something from young people, theyre gonna do it more
the problem is there’s actually zero evidence vapes alone (without nicotine etc) do any harm. The vapes which the industry is moving towards is just largely the same as steamed and cooling water vapour. It’s totally harmless.
Sadly though, vaping is associated almost entirely with nicotine. I know plenty who vape, but no one who vapes 0% juice. I havent personally done much research about them but inhaling any fumes is a net negative. Although vapes are far less harmful tham cigarettes, nicotine addiction is still there, and these kids are getting it. Im one of the few of my generation that used vapes for their original purpose, quitting smoking and they work great, but its depressing af seeing kids caning vapes just knowing its already an addiction for them
There’s plenty of evidence that vapes are harmful not as harmful as cigarettes but still.
There’s zero evidence! (just ignore the mounds of evidence saying that it’s still fucking awful for you)
I mean I very recently got diagnosed with polycythaemia that was caused by excessive vaping. Which has seen marked improvement since I stopped.
The problem is its still too new to do long term (10+ year) studies on vaping and health institutions still don’t collect data on vape usage.
Finally something sensible from this guy. Last week it was all big auto lobby nonsense.
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.
Fucking surveillance state you have there
She was vaping, not smoking.
She went from suck to blow
no difference
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.
Yeah, the risk is that if the black market becomes large enough, it will mean youths will have easier access to cheaper cigarettes than the current situation (with the added issue of cigarettes being entirely unregulated, meaning they’re going to put God knows what in them).
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 a nice theory but it does sort of forget that other countries exist - the black marketeers will just smuggle tobacco in. They’re also going to be guaranteed a market of younger immigrants who’ve gotten addicted in another country.
Sure, at first, absolutely, though even then you are raising the cost of smokes, not just financially but convenience, potential customer base (not everyone has the connections or would feel comfortable buying on the resale market) etc.
Long run, sure, smokers will probably always exist. But at the point where it’s awkward to smoke in public you’ve probably cut down on a good percentage of smoking at all.
It’s still gonna slowly reduce use. And that’s better than nothing.
I don’t know if that’s feasible given that adults are adults after all. But maybe just restrict the sale of cigarettes and make it so burdensome to sell them in shops so most don’t even bother. And do the same for vapes. Vapes are ridiculously easy to buy so stick them in the same locked cabinet that other nicotine products go in and ban all advertising and signage.
just restrict the sale of cigarettes and make it so burdensome to sell them in shops so most don’t even bother
I think that might help. Increasing friction for an activity makes it less likely to happen (like when your TV remote is in another room).
And do the same for vapes. Vapes are ridiculously easy to buy so stick them in the same locked cabinet that other nicotine products go in
That needs a bit more differentiation, no? After all, there are vapes without nicotine. I would also differentiate between single-use vapes (just ban these, wtf) and refillables. They’re also (most probably) much less unhealthy compared to smoking tobacco.
In my country (Germany), vapes are only available in shops, and most sadly only offer single-use vapes. Cigarettes were (are?) also sold in vending machines, on streets or in bars. So from my point of view, vapes are already harder to buy than cigarettes. What situation did you have in mind?
All in all, I think it would make sense to make access to these things harder / price higher based on how harmful they are, and how addictive they are.
ban all advertising
All for it!
