THE GUARDIAN: Exclusive: Sources say law could gradually increase smoking age to ultimately prevent sales to people born after certain year
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. » | Pippa Crerar and Rowena Mason | Friday, September 22, 2023
Meddlesome politicians just won’t give up, will they? The war on tobacco and smoking is unrelenting. Talk about a nanny state! This is it! This is a perfect example of one.
In today’s world, it is fine to smoke drugs, snort cocaine — or whatever the hell else people get up to —, but don’t, for God’s sake, light up a cigarette!
I am an ex-smoker, and anyway, at my age, such a law wouldn’t affect me. But I object in the strongest terms to the government, any government of whatever stripe, telling people whether they can smoke a cigarette, or not. Although I no longer smoke — I stopped smoking a year last April — I have fond memories of the years I did smoke, because smoking gave me years of smoking pleasure.
I have never tried vaping, and nor will I ever. Vaping just looks silly to me, and in any case, it holds no appeal to me. A person smoking a cigarette can look attractive and sexy; not so someone vaping. Moreover, we still don’t know the long-term health consequences of vaping. We know the health risks of smoking tobacco, but it is my firm belief that anything done in moderation, if it gives one pleasure, is acceptable. Because all things, when done to excess, are dangerous to one’s health.
Politicians go on about smoking, but I will assure you of one thing: they won’t ban the smoking of fine cigars. Why? Because they love smoking a fine cigar themselves. They are such hypocrites!
Even though I no longer smoke, I reserve the right to re-start should I ever wish to do so. And one thing I can assure you: I would never ever vote for any political party that would take a person’s right away to smoke a cigarette. I have an aversion to nanny states
If politicians really want to have a war on something, they can have a war on drugs. Now that would be a good and sensible thing. But they won’t have a war like that, because they know they wouldn’t be able to win it. – © Mark Alexander
