I am definitely not pro-smoking but won't this just create a pretty substantial black market?
It depends if it's a ban on just cigarettes or nicotine in general. Ban a drug, and you'll create a black market for it. Ban a method of administering a drug, and you can move it to other safer or more socially acceptable methods of application.
I personally hate smoking. However, as far as I am concerned, it's down to the individual, so long as they are not affecting me, and covering the excess social costs (via taxes).
Unfortunately, most/many of the cigarette smokers I encounter are of the inconsiderate type. A single smoker can cover a large area in smoke, and most don't either notice or care. I have yet to see a viable method of stopping this, other than banning cigarettes.
Actually, any law is useless, because of criminals.
God damnit! I actually support this. Fuck.
It'll never happen, but there you go.
🤣
I'm sure Kids from a certain social background will still be able to do it.
I'm talking about the kids in Sunaks class, that I'm sure will still be smoking Stogies and sipping Whisky together at Davos or Bohemian Grove when they're older.
Because prohibition always goes well.
I think this idea has merit, though I would stop short of extending the War On Drugs to criminalise possession or use of tobacco.
You can tell they're panicking because they're actually doing something that benefits people. I hope they ban disposable vapes too
I can’t decide wether I like this, on one hand smoking is obviously bad, but on the other I wouldn’t want to be unable to if I wanted to. I think it would be better to make sure the public are educated on the subject so that people can make informed decisions for themselves rather than an outright ban on sale.
If it only affected the user, sure, but the reality of it is that the smoke contaminates everything around it.
I was in my 20's when I realised it's not normal to mop your walls every year, also made the connection that moving out reduced my migraines. I did not realise just how much I stank everywhere I went thanks to my mum's smoking, and coming back off holiday from smoke free relatives I felt my throat and eyes burn as I was settling back in at home.
My neighbours a few doors down sometimes smoke in the garden when the weather is nice, so I have to shut all my windows and retreat indoors if I want to keep breathing freely.
It's a lot better than it used to be, but it still restricts my comfort and quality of life if someone nearby decides they have the individual right to smoke.
I think people are idiots and need to be protected from themselves in some circumstances.
Realistically though this sort of thing isn’t going to stop that, it will just push it underground leading to it being unregulated.
You could argue that about any law. The majority of people aren't going to start smoking if its not easily available to them
That assumes that this idea would actually work. I doubt that it will actually be challenging to get hold of cigarettes after this goes into place, there will almost certainly be a lot of shops that will still sell them to people who are under the minimum age. For it to work properly I think there would have to be a lot of money spent on enforcing it. Alternatively though, one could argue that even that is better than not having any measures put in place.
