As UK economy continues to crumble, Rishi is focusing on the real issues.
This is an amazing, for the sole reason that everyone who is 17 and change now will turn 18, be able to smoke, the law will bump to 19, they won't be allowed to smoke any more, but then they'll turn 19 and they'll be able to smoke again until the law raises to 20...
I believe they passed a similar law like this in New Zealand. You could be 50 and still too young to smoke lol.
Smokefree action plan: Cigarette sales to be banned for younger generations
You can just make it a "born before this date" and it just solves this entirely. That date just doesn't change. Everyone who sells darts memorizes it. Then it actually changes every day by a day. Fuck it, let's give it an hour too, just to fuck with those kids born an hour later
lame. create a legal path to execute the tobacco company execs instead.
If this is the only effort, it's weak. Better to also (or instead) tax each box by another 20 pounds. Kids don't have that money. They'll find other things to do.
Taxation is a tool but it also creates inequality where rich people are able to smoke and poor people can't. That situation risks making tobacco a signifier of wealth - an aspirational good like an expensive handbag.
If rich kids are able to get lung cancer and poor kids are priced out of it, I don't feel bad for the poor kids.
It's already prohibitively taxed to be around £12-15 for a 20 pack. There are 4 corner stores within a 5 minute walk of my house that do them under the counter for a fiver, and you can bet they don't care about IDs either
No no no, minimum age should increase by 360 days every year, that way people can still have hope that some day they'll be able to smoke. Staying true to how capitalism works.
I've never heard of underage people drinking so I'm sure this will work too.
it is harder for underage people to drink but normally in the UK when underage people drink it's teenagers and they're supervised to some degree
Yep, the idea is to prevent new kids from getting addicted to this awful shit without hurting people who are already addicted.
Wishing a very chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder on every dumbass calling this authoritarian
I just don't understand how a group of people who are all for drug legalization are suddenly supporting a policy like this (from a Tory no less)? Why are we suddenly in favor of drug prohibition? Am I missing something?
What's the public health effect of legalized cigarettes vs, say, pot? Are cigarettes being banned to provide pretext for cracking down on radicals or minority communities?
What's the public health effect of legalized cigarettes vs, say, pot?
Communists are generally in favor of legalizing fucking heroin lol. ETA: Full drug legalization means full drug legalization. WE also want to treat drug addiction like a public health issue of course.
Are cigarettes being banned to provide pretext for cracking down on radicals or minority communities?
Hey what was Eric Garner doing when he was killed again?
Not a smoker or wannabe one but if someone is just one year behind in their age, they'll never be able to legally smoke with this setup.
Cool things that leftists always support: making drugs illegal.
Cool things that have historically worked and not made things worse: Prohibition.
Like seriously what the fuck is this shit since when did we believe in making drugs illegal.
Correct, that’s the point. I’m fancy, there would be a day cutoff. Likely 1/1 of some year.
Counterpoint, a majority of the man’s bathrooms in high schools are taken up by vapers and no one can piss anymore
Thanks for reminding me to order my son's Christmas present.
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Raising legal agenot be able to buy cigarettesFrench people in shamble
Not defending cigarette companies, but it really actually does suck that meth is illegal in all 50 states. The United States has the world's largest prison population, it's the most authoritarian country on the planet, and that is heavily facilitated by throwing people into prison for using drugs.
'Authoritarianism' is a bullshit vague idealist concept that can't be linearized into 'more than', 'less than', 'most' or 'least', and make any sense.
The USA throw people in prison for decades and enslave them for being a victim of the drug trade. They have one of the largest proportions of imprisoned population in the world.
They also allow socialists to own guns and propagandize, to a larger degree than most countries.
Liberalism is complex, contradictory and idealist, so terms like 'authoritarianism' are basically meaningless to apply to the real world.
most authoritarian country on the planet
Are you by chance familiar with countries that kill LGBTQ people, beat women who don't cover their hair, and kill drug addicts?
Are you familiar with the sheer scale of destruction and death the United States has wrought on the rest of the world in its imperialist adventures? Nothing anywhere else in the modern day even comes close.
Theyre talking about the US, of course they are. Well, the US just beats women without hair coverings coming into it, but the point stands.
What are you even talking about? I know of no such instance, at least at the systemic level.
Well, I'm sorry you're ignorant about stochastic terrorism against lgbt people in the US, the epidemic of domestic violence facing women in the US, and the war on drugs.
I am gay and have friends who are trans. Yes, I am well aware of stochastic terrorism against LGBTQ people, as well as how right wing politicians are exploiting nutcases to get votes at the expensive of our safety. Domestic violence I find perplexing. It happens, but it's illegal and there are many institutions trying to tackle it. The US is far from the worst here, especially considering many countries still don't recognize domestic violence as a real thing.
The war on drugs is bad, but the US has a set of policies that are left over from the 1990's when things were really bad and no one really knew what to do. Even Black leaders went along with them, since their neighborhoods were the ones that were actually affected by the crime wave. Fortunately, we are seeing the slow unwinding of these polities. Now, compare the US's war on drugs to Singapore (death penalty for drug trafficking) or Dirty Deuterty's free-for-all on anyone who was even alleged to be a drug addict. Decisions by SCOTUS have limited the death penalty to murder only, and even then it is being slowly abolished.
Okay, cool, youre defending the violence of the current regime. Gotcha.
Also the US is literally why singapore is like that, crack open a history book.
Okay, cool, youre defending the violence of the current regime. Gotcha.
Nope. I'm saying that the original claim - that the US is the most authoritarian government in the world - is incredibly ridiculous.
Also the US is literally why singapore is like that, crack open a history book.
I don't have an in depth history of every law of every country. That said, I did some searching and I found no real connections besides the underlying law being passed at the same time Nixon started the War on Drugs. But even if the US's War on Drugs inspired Singapore's laws, to blame that on the US denies agency to the government and people of Singapore.
Nope. I’m saying that the original claim - that the US is the most authoritarian government in the world - is incredibly ridiculous.
Highest prison population by capita and total, segregated, with 1000s of police killings a year.
Props up most of the worlds dictatorships
I don’t have an in depth history of every law of every country. That said, I did some searching and I found no real connections besides the underlying law being passed at the same time Nixon started the War on Drugs. But even if the US’s War on Drugs inspired Singapore’s laws, to blame that on the US denies agency to the government and people of Singapore.
I said crack open a history book, not aimlessly speculate
You ironically found yourself pointing out something valid. Banning companies from putting addictive substances into everyday products has always been a good idea (Meth in Cheerios, no thx). Banning an individual from choosing, by their own free will, to make a bad decision that doesn't do any great harm to anyone else... is oppression my guy.
There's a big difference between banning addictive industries and oppression. There's a big difference between 'a government not letting people do something' and 'oppression'. There might be a case that this way of eliminating tobacco usage, by just making an addictive substance illegal, can be cruel if there isn't adequate social support alongside it, but banning smoking by itself isn't cruel, malicious or arbitrary.
I think there are some reasonable arguments for not criminalizing tobacco, and that this is a silly ineffective way to approach a chemically-and-socially addictive issue, but it is harmful to health for the user and others, society and therefore economics. And this can't be rationalized away by 'it's someone's own free will' when it's chemically-addictive, socially-ingrained and still being marketed to vulnerable teens. And, keep in mind, the medical costs of this are socialised, so it's not like the person smoking pays for all the consequences. It's a systematic, non-trivial problem that significantly affects people who do not choose to partake.
With all that said, fuck the 'war on drugs' style of criminalization. It just creates an illegal market and fills prisons, and in some countries with a similar system to the US, creates a legalized form of mass slave labour.
Save the people from themselves. They are too ignorant to have control of their bodies.
I hate smoking stock photos. Clearly she has never smoked in her life.
I agree that smoking is bad for you, having quit myself - but the idea of outlawing a plant / prohibiting humans who just happened to be born in one specific part of the world from burning it and inhaling the produced smoke just goes against my views on ethics.
Instead, why don't we fix the real problems? How about getting rid of capitalism, and thus the profit incentive to sell addictive substances for a huge markup? How about we fix this broken society that keeps pushing more and more people towards drugs such as nicotine, the tiny escape, and the little bit of stress relief they provide?
Drugs, from cigarettes to meth, are not the problem..
They're just a symptom.
The war on drugs is nothing more than an effort to sweep the real problems under the rug, and nothing less than coordinated violence targeted at people who are already suffering.
Fuck this.
Going to the doctor in mind melting pain and he says I have a broken leg and it requires an operation and I say great in the meantime can you give me something for this pain and he says no that's just a symptom. Except here the pain is a ton of innocent kids being consigned to an early grave for the stock of tobacco companies.
How on earth is proscribing cigarettes for kids who are thankfully not yet addicted to them coordinated violence aimed at the suffering? Completely rubbish, cigarette-brained take.
The problem with your analogy though is that the doctor does have plans to actually help the problem too. It takes more time and effort to set up all the things needed to properly heal a bone, so in the mean time they try to help alleviate the symptoms in the mean time. The system' in place has no plans to actually address the real issues, so it's more like the doctor sent you out the door with painkillers and calls that good enough. Creating laws that attempt to curb cigarette habits might be worth pursuing if paired with actual legislation to handle the causes that drive people to their use.
Also, to me, it is worth looking at some of the other reasons people are draw to smoking. Tobacco companies pour tons of money into methods of encouraging smoking and vaping, with it being well know that some of this is targeted at young people. To be honest, and some may find this a bit of a stretch, I sometimes feel that these laws are a sort of collective societal victim blaming more then a benefit.
As another point, and I don't know if you know this, but banning something does not necessarily curb it's use (see alcohol prohibition in the US in the early 20th century). If anything prohibition just deregulates it, making it more dangerous for those who still continue to participate.
