The minimum age for buying cigarettes and tobacco products is to rise to 18 from October this year.
The new age limit will only apply to England and Wales and will bring England and Wales into line with the US, Canada, New Zealand and Australia who also have a minimum age of 18.
Increasing the minimum legal age for smoking is a good idea, as is the smoking ban. However, what is really needed is a full smoking ban. Bugger the arguments about the amount of taxes coming from the sale of tobacco products and how the NHS would fall apart without them – smokers are a drain on the NHS and to be perfectly honest, I don’t trust the pro-smoking pressure groups’ assertions to the contrary and more than I believe the unionist argument that England will be devastated by the loss of north sea oil and gas when Scotland declares independence.
As a full smoking ban is unlikely to take place, how about putting a vegetable dye in cigarettes so the smoke they produce comes out brown? That would have two positive effects – firstly, it would stop fags from being seen as “cool” by kids and secondly, it would easily identify people smoking foreign fags (most of which will have been smuggled into the country) because they won’t be producing dirty brown smoke.
Smokers are not a drain on the NHS so long as they pay UK Excise duty on their cigarettes. They pay far more tax than it costs to treat them!
Who are we to say what pleasures people are allowed to enjoy so long as it does not interfere with the health of others?
How much does it cost to treat people who don’t smoke but, through passive smoking, have illnesses? It might not be a moking related disease but weakened lungs, reduced immunity, etc. from breathing in unfiltered poison from other peoples cigarettes causes other illnesses.
And what about costs of cleaning places up from cigarette smoke, discarded butts, etc.?
It’s a no-win situation at the moment because they put the prices up to discourage people from smoking which increases smuggling. If they put the prices down they won’t lose so much duty to smuggling but more people will smoke more because it’s cheaper. Something has to be done to discourage smoking that isn’t anything to do with price. People will pay for their addiction regardless of price.
shut up!!!
No!
You’ll have to be 18 to buy a fag, but at 16 you’ll be legally allowed to be abused by one.
I completely agree with Snafu on the issue: smokers should be allowed to smoke, just as everyone else should be allowed to do what makes them feel good (e.g. dancing, drinking etc.). People who are around smokers have the choice to ask them to step outside, or to move away from them – noone is forcing them to passive smoke. To be honest, fumes from road traffic are going to affect you much more.
The idea about ‘dirty brown smoke’ is an interesting one, but smoke is disgusting and dirty enough without being brown. I’d personally (as a non-smoker) much rather smoke stayed the discreet colour it is currently.
Most of the smokers I know have (perhaps grudgingly) accepted the ban, and surely that’s enough?! A complete ban WOULD cause mass smuggling. You just have to look at the American Prohibition (1920 – 1933): it sparked an underground market which manufactured and sold unsafe products, and smuggling on a huge level. Do we really want that?
wow… at 16 you can join the army and die for your country, but you can’t smoke, drink or watch 18+ movies. What a fucked up system we have.
“Increasing the minimum legal age for smoking is a good idea”
What???? There is no minimum age for smoking in this country. If you can get hold of cigarettes you can smoke just as legally at 6 as you can at 60. It is only BUYING cigarettes that has an age limit.
And for your information, annual excise duty on tobacco products currently gives the government 3-4 times as much money as it spends on the entire NHS in a year, so it looks like it’s actually non-smoking related sick people that are a drain on the UK’s smokers, rather than the other way around.