this post was submitted on 22 Sep 2023
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Rishi Sunak is considering introducing some of the world’s toughest anti-smoking measures that would in effect ban the next generation from ever being able to buy cigarettes, the Guardian has learned.

Whitehall sources said the prime minister was looking at measures similar to those brought in by New Zealand last December. They involved steadily increasing the legal smoking age so tobacco would end up never being sold to anyone born on or after 1 January 2009.

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[–] anewbeginning@lemmy.world 118 points 1 year ago (55 children)

Creating a new illegal drug market.

[–] Laser@feddit.de 85 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (32 children)

In fairness, smoking tobacco is one of the few routes of administration where outlawing makes sense. The overall societal cost is very high, even for non-smokers, as in second-hand smokers and cigarette butts littering. It's one of the few substances that health experts often recommend to make as unattractive as possible, be it through taxation or law.

I don't really mind vaping or heating that much, I'd be fine with making cigarettes illegal while keeping the alternatives. Unfortunately, latest legislation has imposed higher burdens on the latter while doing jack about smoking.

[–] TranscendentalEmpire@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago (9 children)

I think a larger more unnoticed social harm is the damage it does to single payer/socialized medicine. When you only have one insurance pool every person receiving healthcare related to smoking is funding that could have gone to treating diseases that aren't as easily preventable.

The same goes for things like diabetes, which is absolutely destroying medicare. Right now one out of every three medicare dollars are being used to treat a completely preventable disease for the vast majority of those inflicted with it.

I think that if you want to smoke or drink tons of soda, that's fine. But we shouldn't be lessening the scope of healthcare coverage for other people just because of your bad habits. Either the industry making the money needs to subsidize the healthcare cost of their consumers, or the consumers themselves need to do it.

[–] irationslippers@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

I'm fairly sure cig smokers are a net gain on the Exchequer

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