Discussion

Smoking ban for people born after 2008 in the UK agreed

subjectsigma: Natural consequence of socialized medicine. If I’m paying for your healthcare then I (and by extension the state) get a say in basically every aspect of your life.Time to ban alcohol, marijuana, Tylenol, fatty foods, sugar, candles, campfires, fireworks, food coloring, bicycles, playgrounds, cars, cell phones, and anything else that might be harmful

joegibbs: Drinking has been decided to be totally fine though, no need to ban that - probably because it's unfashionable to smoke, and the kind of people who come up with these laws find it uncouth. It will also be ridiculous in a few years when the UK inevitably decides to legalise marijuana - totally fine to smoke a joint, but don't you dare put any of that tobacco in it!

pixl97: Nicotine is insanely addictive, so ya.Alcohol is very difficult to ban as you can take almost any kind of sugar feedstock and turn it into alcohol.

tialaramex: Right. Booze is straight up naturally occurring, albeit rare. That's why you get drunk monkeys and other wildlife. The animal is like "Actually this moldy fruit is pretty good" - they did absolutely nothing to manufacture booze but here it is.

awakeasleep: Im curious how the industry allowed this. Seems like a tremendous amount of lobbying money would oppose it. There must be real story there, somewhere.

luizfzs: The real story may be that even despite heavy lobbying, they are trying to do something that has the potential to benefit the population, with the added benefit of reducing some of the load on health care system caused by this.As we know, smoking can cause lots of problems, including for babies if the mother smokes during pregnancy.

alsetmusic: As a former smoker (who quit for seven years and regrets taking it up again), and as a present-day vape user, wtf. This is a clear restriction on liberty. It may be stupid that I do it. Just like many stupid decisions (junk food included), it ought to be my right to decide how to live.Cut off production so cigarettes are no longer made or imported. Don't block me from them while letting others have them. (Not in UK)It'd be kinda funny to see an early 1900s / USA-style mafia / gangster resurgence of bootleggers over cigs in the UK. Much lower stakes, but black markets are a thing.Edit: added "while letting others have them"

Sweepi: >This is a clear restriction on liberty.So is banning the sale of leaded gasoline.

pech0rin: This is insanely dumb. Everyone knows that smoking is bad for you. So if people want to do it anyway who cares. I understand the cafe and indoor space bans but not allowing anyone to do it seems stupid. I don’t smoke but UK has really gone off the deep end recently with social controls, what is the point?

tgv: > So [...] who cares.I do. I prefer people not to get lung cancer, among other afflications. And for no benefit that I can think of.I don't live in the UK, but I say: good to them, and boo to you, for your misanthropic attitude.

apetrov: i this context, "who cares" means "whose business". and the answer by the western society is that no ones but person in question.bucketing ppl by birth year is literally a discrimination.

tgv: > i this context, "who cares" means "whose business".I don't think so, but if the original poster is around...> bucketing ppl by birth year is literally a discrimination.Contrary to popular opinion, discrimination isn't illegal or even undesirable per se. In this case, it has a health benefit.

gcanyon: There are two separate issues here: 1. will this work (will the UK stop smoking) 2. is this something the UK government should be doingSetting aside 1 and looking at 2, it seems silly to me to point out that other things (alcohol) that cause problems and are not being restricted. You take the wins where you find them, and the government isn't a magical force that can impose its will on the people arbitrarily. This is obviously the government responding to the general sense of the people (perhaps putting its thumb on the scale). The UK doesn't support cigarettes, so the law gets passed. If someone has a public opinion poll there showing less than 50% support for this, I'd love to see it.

squigz: From the government's perspective, this may (or may not) be silly.But putting that aside, if a citizen supports banning cigarettes for people born after a certain date, but not alcohol, that certainly seems hypocritical to me.

brador: We know the dangers of second hand smoke. Someone drinking near you does not impact your health.

squigz: It doesn't? That should be good news for victims of drunk driving, and the families of abusive drunks.

afavour: There’s still a difference, surely? Drinking alcohol can lead to drunk driving and it can lead to abuse. Thankfully in the vast majority of instances it doesn’t.Second hand smoke, however, inflicts damage the moment it’s inhaled.

squigz: I'm not saying there's no difference. I just don't that difference is as pronounced as some people think, and I don't think it excuses the apparent double standard.Brief Googling also suggests that second-hand smoke affects at least similar levels of people as drunk driving, if not more - to say nothing of e.g. domestic violence.Not to mention, there are already various laws designed to mitigate the effects of second-hand smoke, such as not smoking indoors or in cars with children.Overall, I am just not convinced that it's necessary to focus so much more on cigarettes over other drugs.

Sweepi: Newsflash: Its possible to consume "marijuana" w/o smoking it (just like nicotine!).

joegibbs: They're not banning smoking in general (which would be impossible anyway, what are they going to do, make it illegal to set something on fire and breathe it in?), they're banning nicotine products. I also really doubt that they will legalise weed and then say "but of course you're not allowed to smoke it, edibles only".

walthamstow: The cigarette lobbyists are not what they used to be. A pack is £15+ of mostly tax, beige green colour, and has gruesome health warning images. They "let" all that happen.

wookmaster: If you just ignore alcohol fueled violence, birth defects, deaths from drivers hitting people and cars and the emotional health toll to others from dealing with an alcoholic, sure.

afavour: > there are already various laws designed to mitigate the effects of second-hand smokeAnd there are already various laws designed to prevent drunk driving and drunk domestic abuse.I think the broader picture here is a simple one: drinking alcohol is more societally acceptable than smoking. A government is going to be reflective of its voters, “necessary” or not, a law to ban drinking would be enormously unpopular in a way a law to ban smoking would not.

squigz: > I think the broader picture here is a simple one: drinking alcohol is more societally acceptable than smoking. A government is going to be reflective of its voters, “necessary” or not, a law to ban drinking would be enormously unpopular in a way a law to ban smoking would not.Sure, and this is why I put aside the issue of whether the government is doing the "right" thing in its position and focused on the people who it supposedly reflects - because it doesn't make sense to me that one is more acceptable than the other to an individual, and thinking so doesn't seem to reflect any sort of realistic view on alcohol and its impact on society, while holding cigarettes to a much higher standard.

bcjdjsndon: Alcohol costs the UK 4-5x more than smoking. Coincidentally, it's the upper classes drug of choice. Must be a coincidence though

afavour: I’d say cocaine is the upper class drug of choice. Regardless, alcohol is every classes drug of choice. The debate over whether the government is hypocritical or not kind of ignores the reality that British voters don’t want alcohol banned. So the government isn’t going to ban it. Which is broadly what you’d want a government to do!

neogodless: You can kind of tell when people think about only themselves or the community when they present arguments for things like smoking and vaccination."I don't want to be controlled" is a perfectly valid argument, and I prefer humans can make choices for themselves and have reasonable autonomy when it does not have a negative affect on others.Vaccination and smoking affects people around you. Drinking does too - in certain cases, but much less directly, in most cases. For example, drinking and operating vehicles is already illegal. Drinking and punching someone is already illegal!

xienze: > I prefer humans can make choices for themselves and have reasonable autonomy when it does not have a negative affect on others.How far do you want to take this? Your choice of diet may have a negative effect on others by way of having to pay for additional medical care.

neogodless: Is taking concepts to logical extremes a good way to govern?(No.)But are you saying we don't care if things have negative effect on people? If we go to extremes, well then obviously everyone should have 100% autonomy? Oops that doesn't work.So, this is the hard part - you have to find balance, compromise, a reasonable middle ground. That's always going to be the hard part. Not black or white, but the grey areas.

olalonde: At least alcohol produces side effects that people enjoy. Smoking pretty much only has negative side effects once you get hooked.

LeChuck: Sure, maybe, arguably. Does it matter though? A world without smoking is still better than a world with smoking, right?

squigz: Perhaps. The viability of that aside, I would rather attempt to create that world with things like education rather than the government mandating it. That tends not to work out as intended.

dnel: I've been accosted outside enough shops to buy underage smokers a pack of cigs to know how well this will work.

halfdan: I, a non-smoker, would like to not walk through clouds of smoke.

alchemism: That's what I say when I breathe car exhaust. Why cannot all combustion engines be removed from society for my health preference?

Sweepi: That's one of the reasons they are banned from selling new ones starting in 2035.

AlexandrB: I don't want to inhale microplastics from tire wear. When will this be addressed?

techteach00: Hopefully vaping will still be legal? They do distinguish the difference between inhaling burnt matter vs inhaling a heated aerosol, yes?Of course not. The only thing government and private enterprise seems good at these days is taking things away from people. Logic be damned.

LazyMans: Although much less harmful than smoke, nicotine is still not harmless to the cardiovascular system. If the goal is public health, it makes sense to move the needle a little further and try to keep people off nicotine entirely.Alcohol is another story, we're not ready to remove that yet.

lokar: I think it’s the combination of health impact and addiction

bill_joy_fanboy: UK has public/socialized healthcare.If you are a smoker, you are much more likely to be a burden on this system.Makes sense to ban these types of activities if the costs of them are socialized rather than individualized.

jstanley: If the cost of having socialised healthcare is so severe maybe we should stop socialising healthcare before we start banning risky activities.

lokar: This lack of social consensus is the problem here. A national referendum would be better, as it provides a way to force people to consider the changes and decide.

AlexandrB: There are all kinds of activities/behaviors whose costs are socialized: obesity, driving, sitting around all day/not exercising, living in suburbs, gambling, engaging in sports (broken bones cost society!). That's kind of the point of a society though - to pay for socialized costs. If the goal is to make every individual pay for the consequences of their own decisions what's the point of public healthcare or insurance in general?

Ylpertnodi: You've probably never been out on a Friday night in the Uk.

drcongo: This comment doesn't deserve the downvotes, it's a very valid point.

lokar: Is it really that bad? Is there something I can read to learn more?

Markoff: Do they plan to introduce social media ban as well for people born after 2010?

pixl97: As the US found out, alcohol is very very hard to ban because it is very very easy to make.

AlexandrB: Weed and tobacco are also very easy to make. They literally grow on trees[1].[1] Technically, herbaceous plants.

flowerthoughts: In a few years, they'll realize that the savings from public health care now requires an an even higher amount of money poured into the police, customs and justice systems to enforce it. Because suddenly, there are these weirdos trying to sell it in dark places. Who could anticipate that?But that's for another government to deal with, of course. Not our problem. Oh, and the future government will be happy to announce they are giving funding that will go to new jobs!I propose a ban on people that use bans as a brain-less cheap way of fixing complex issues.

rt56a: > an even higher amount of money poured into the policeGiven the massive cost smoking imposes on the health sector, I find it hard to believe that's remotely possible.

jpfromlondon: 2B if you tease the reality out of the oft misreported figure, and the annual rake from smoking is 8-10B so it is profitable to maintain it.

neonstatic: Cigarettes are not incorporated into the UK culture the way alcohol is. Drinking at a pub is sacred to them.

Canada: This is the kind of action that really requires a referendum.

rafram: I completely disagree. Obviously people individually want to smoke - nicotine makes them feel good! - and there's a good chance they would vote to preserve that "right," but smoking is bad for society and we would unambiguously be better off if it didn't exist.One of the principal jobs of government is to stand for the good of the collective against individual selfishness.

X0Refraction: I think there is a reasonable argument to be made that they're a different degree of societal problem. I think there's quite a few people who drink on special occasions, but not every week or even every month (I'm one of them).I think it's very rare though for a smoker to not smoke several a day. A friend of mine was that rare breed and would buy a 10 pack occasionally - usually on a Friday and it'd be gone by Monday - but that would maybe be once a month. I think every other smoker I've met though goes through that amount every day.So it seems to me the average smoker is much more likely to become a burden on a nationalised health service than the average drinker. There's more to this of course, smoking to excess generally doesn't increase the chances of you getting into a fight like drinking does for some people, but social pressure counters that partially too.

noduerme: I hate how British people say "agreed" as if it implies "was" and "to". And lots of other things it implies, such as who, when and why.

tjwebbnorfolk: How do you feel about the word "okay"? The word can mean anything. Must drive you nuts.

noduerme: >> the government isn't a magical force that can impose its will on the people arbitrarilyYou must live in a democracy. If you ever lived in a country where the government curtailed freedoms by fiat, you'd understand that it can and it will. I happened to be living in Vietnam when the government just randomly decided one day that smoking would be banned everywhere, effective immediately. You might think that's simply putting a thumb on the scale; but you also haven't tried to visit the New York Times website from there and later found yourself in a room with officials asking for all your passwords. And clearly you're not familiar with the preferred way of clearing traffic jams, which is driving a jeep through a crowd of motorbikes while a guy with a long bamboo cane whacks anyone who's in the way.Thumb on the scale my ass. Totalitarianism is control over the little things.

lokar: This seems really out of context

defrost: They appear to have taken a specific reference to "the (UK (implied by context)) government" as an arbitrary generic reference to any government on the planet.

Jamesbeam: That will for sure go well.Funding the "biggest threat ever faced" according to Phil Mykytiuk, who has spent a decade mapping tobacco crime gangs in the north of England with an customer base of 10 - 11 million potential customers will surely cut heavily into their profits…"Mykytiuk, though, believes the multiple layers of crime behind cheap, illegal tobacco are escaping scrutiny, allowing crime gangs – emboldened by the lack of deterrent – to expand their power base right under the noses of enforcement.Having witnessed Kurdish tobacco gang members invest heavily in property and high street businesses here in the UK, he’s now seeing evidence of them moving into cannabis farms.“But forget drugs,” he says. “Drugs is yesterday. The big thing is tobacco. These gangs are becoming the most capable criminals in this country. Right now it’s the biggest threat we’ve ever faced.”https://www.vice.com/en/article/criminal-gangs-are-making-bi...

threepts: next thing you know they'll also ban murder for people born after 2008UK becomes the safest country in the world, peace forever

BigTTYGothGF: Murder is one of the first things that most governments ban.

mytailorisrich: I think it is also part of a trend. More and more control over people's lives, more and more bans.Beyond whether something is "bad for you", the key aspect in a free society is whether the State should decide for you (we're entrusted with the right to vote, after all).Demolition Man has turned out to be the most accurate prediction of the future regarding those issues among all the 90s movies. Quite interesting.

afavour: I see smoking as a separate category owing to the existence of second hand smoke. Smoking in a room with other people adversely affects those people. I think government is the correct body to be intervening in that scenario.

mytailorisrich: That's not a separate category, that's the general principle in a free society: There is a limit to "doing what you want" when it impacts others/imposes on them.That's why smoking is already heavily regulated in order to limit and minimise the impact that your choice has on others.

LtWorf: In sweden it's forbidden to smoke at public transport stops. Nobody cares though so you often have to choose between cancer or getting soaked.

jpfromlondon: in the UK you cannot smoke on public transport or inside buildings, and this is strictly adhered to.

hyperpape: With all due respect, this is completely wrong.There is a difference that someone smoking nearby automatically harms people around you. With alcohol, the effect is more unpredictable, but it is equally real.Alcohol is a factor in an automobile crashes, and a factor in a significant proportion of violent crime, especially domestic violence (https://www.cato-unbound.org/2008/09/17/mark-kleiman/taxatio... edit: this source isn't as great, Kleiman has written elsewhere about the subject, but google is failing me). If we could wave a magic wand and cause drinking to cease to exist, many lives would be saved.Note: I do in fact drink, I am not a teetotaler. But what I said above is factual. I personally believe that prohibition would be worse, and it's reasonable for individuals to make their own choices. But that does not entail denying that it goes very badly for many.

Findecanor: Second-hand smoke does affect people around you. It is how people get addicted to nicotine. It is how new smokers are created.And there are some people who are more sensitive to temporary exposure to smoke (and pollution in general) than others. That is why smoking tends to be is banned around hospitals and day care centers ­— because those are places where those sensitive people will be.And if you drink alcohol next to me, it does not make my clothes and my hair stink so much afterwards that I will want to wash my hair and change my clothes before going to bed.

reactordev: Same amount of damage done to your liver from that beer…

afavour: There's no such thing as second hand liver damage from someone else drinking beer

defrost: There is, however, absolutely such a thing as being glassed and sustaining head injuries from someone else drinking beer.Shows up consistently in A&E Hospital records, reportedly enough to identify weekends and phases of the moon.

causalmodels: After alcohol, are we going to stop people from having multiple sexual partners in their lifetime? Because if public health is the goal, that would solve a lot of problems.It is fine to attempt to improve public health, but not at the cost of giving people a life worth living.

rafram: If alcohol is what gives you "a life worth living," that's extremely concerning.

olalonde: What about tourists and foreigners? Most smokers can't go more than a few hours without smoking... This will surely lead to a large black market.

forinti: Will this market be significant? This would surely affect a very small percentage of visitors.

olalonde: 22% of the global population are smokers according to Wikipedia. It's probably lower for younger generations but still significant.

FL33TW00D: In a country with a national health system, why should you be able to internalize the benefit of smoking whilst externalizing the cost?