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The Tories have lost the plot - Propose Cigarette ban

Webzcas

Webzcas

Winter is Coming!
Staff member
Shield Meister CM Veteran (10yr+)
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Mar 31, 2005
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So in a dying bid to try and restore their ailing fortunes at the opinion polls, the Conservative Party at their conference have announced that they are going to follow New Zealand in banning cigarettes and tobacco by stealth. With Sunak proposing that the legal limit to buy tobacco which is currently 18 is raised by one year, every year. Thus meaning if passed, those aged 14 years or younger now will NEVER be legally able to purchase tobacco.

The UK is becoming a NANNY state on steroids. I am an ex smoker of nearly 10 years, I lost my own mum to cancer when she was 64, cancer that was a direct result of her smoking all her life. But banning tobacco by stealth is not the way to go about it.

I can see it now, when I am 80 kicking around an old peoples care home, a trail of 50 somethings queuing up outside, wanting to buy cigarettes off me LOL

Seriously, this is just a damn stupid idea and is ridiculous. Make it ultra expensive moreso than what it is now, make it illegal to even smoke outside in public if you are that way inclined, but to make it so a grown adult at the age of say 45 can't buy a pack, but a 46 year old can. Well that is just barking mad.

So we thought the UKGC was bad, turns out the govt wants to control our entire lives and what we do with them. From this to the online safety bill that has just passed.

What next, will they send the police round if you fart in public!?

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Webzcas said:
So in a dying bid to try and restore their ailing fortunes at the opinion polls, the Conservative Party at their conference hav.......

What next, will they send the police round if you fart in public!?

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Click to expand...
Bloody Hell! I hope not! :eek:
 
Crazy, nonsense, pathetic

I'm an average smoker, 12-15 a day and apart from the odd £10'er on Dead or alive, it is the only vice / pastime / relaxant I have.

Don't go out, don't have expensive foreign hols and now even these minor habits, traits are going to inhibited.

Thankfully I'm 51 so hopefully can legally buy then with confidence until I kick the bucket.

Ridiculous.
 
I gave up in May and feel absolutely no healthier for it. Was only smoking 10 a day anyway.

If anything I’ve been more ill since I quit (a bad cold and COVID). Definitely more easily annoyed ?
 
Tobacco eh, tsk.

Having smoked for the longest time, I can say with certainty that never having taken it up would've been no loss. So in the sense of shielding youngsters from taking it up, that's ideal.

Just that it's not an ideal world, however much one tries to forge it. And with younger people, not only do they not heed sensitive advice (none of us truly did), but will 'follow' whatever their peers dig.

And so it becomes a rebellious thing to do and suddenly a cool, sought-after pastime again. No kid walks into a shop and thinks "You know what, I really want to try smoking!". They have one of their friends blindside them with a cigarette, and the rest is history.

It's also bemusing, that they'll make a rare exception to curtail people's freedom of choice in this case, whilst sugar, alcohol et al get ignored altogether. Lest we mention the taxes generated from cigarettes in large part funding the Government and NHS. Can they really do without the revenue?

So far, so WEF. But as people muse over their choices being eroded, sat in their pods eating their bug on toast, what of the vapers?

Unfortunately, vaping will forever be guilty by association, with the decision- makers still viewing them as equally evil. I recall the regulations around a decade back, whereby all ejuices were regulated to high heaven, with designs and flavours intended to be less alluring to kids (even though it's for adults).

Fast- forward to 2023 and it's seemingly worse than ever. Colourful fruity vapes exude from every corner, and kids have made it their own, with disposable vapes littered everywhere.

Ultimately, yes, principally it's a sound idea to prohibit children's access to any smoking-related vices. Yet I'd be wary of any politician nannying us into oblivion and teaching you more about yourself, than yourself. And try as they might, you just can't re-engineer human predictability ?
 
I don’t think it’s a bad thing tbh. I started smoking at primary school and only stopped after a heart attack in 2013.
I’m not sure whether if this ban had been in place in the 70’s I wouldn’t have started smoking but smoking and the amount of cash that went up in smoke over an almost 40 year period has always made me regret having the first drag and getting hooked.
Will be interesting to see where the propose to get the revenue they will lose if and when less and less people smoke as it’s so heavily taxed that revenue is bound to be missed.
 
Mr_Slot5 said:
I gave up in May and feel absolutely no healthier for it. Was only smoking 10 a day anyway.

If anything I’ve been more ill since I quit (a bad cold and COVID). Definitely more easily annoyed ?
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I'd had a handful of "quit" attempts over the years.

Many short and sweet but the most successful being about 3-4 month's.

I too felt really ill during all attempts, especially the 3-4 month one and it was 100% down to withdrawal symptoms as each attempt was unaided cold turkey.

Not had a recent try in past 2-3 years due to various reason, losing one of my two jobs, car problem after car problem, basically a semi stressful life lol.

This being said not so sure I'd want to try for heath or to "fall in line with the rest" reasons right now as it does calm me and as I smoke outside, its a good fresh air and reflect 5 minutes to be "alone with my thoughts" :p

Only reason I would maybe try in the future would be financial.
 
I'm at 10 smokes a day now. Have been for quite a few years. Highest was 3 pks a day (20yrs ago?) so 10 a day is ok by me. Have always enjoyed it. Have quit 3 times over my lifetime (68) longest was a couple years. But big stress time and was back at it. I still really enjoy it. Don't drink any more. A bit of champagne on New Yrs. When they tell me I am going to die, that last day, I want a Bacardi & coke in one hand and cig in the other!
 
Living in Gibraltar where you can’t afford not to smoke (I don’t smoke, I find I can’t hold a pint glass at the same time) I’d welcome this here. Especially as a parent of a young kid.

Sadly Gib makes so much tax from Cigs it will never happen.

Vending machines and vapes are the new challenge here, unregulated and accessible. The unknown ingredients!
 
The law will never pass. They may talk about the costs to NHS but never mention how much they actually make since basically majority of every pack sold goes to government in tax.

Personally I smoke . Have since 14 so about 36 years. And one way or another I will smoke till I drop.

Even if they made it law they will not gwt a smoke free society. Young people will still smoke even if its illegal. In fact making it illegal would probably lying make some start just to be rebellish.
 
slot_zombie said:
Smoking is pretty much dead anyway, vapes saw to that.

I quit the smoke habit about 10 years ago and now blow huge pineapple-flavoured rings in the comfort of my own home while looking like a complete knob.
Click to expand...
Yes, I tried everything to give up, even Champix on two occasions which is now no longer available apparently - that was awful.

It was only until I tried vaping in 2014, before the explosion in the industry in the UK, which allowed me to give up.

Giving up my 20 a day habit has given me a new lease of life, from not having a smokers cough every morning, to not smelling like an ashtray. My cardio is much better as is my overall fitness as a result.

Sure, inhaling water vapour every day can't be without health risks, but it is a damn site more healthier than cigarettes. I still vape now and would be furious and dismayed if they decided to ban vaping here in the UK like they have done in some countries.

Yes I get it that kids will try it, like they will try everything. But banning it outright is wrong. Which brings me back to the original point of this thread and Sunak's plan on having an open vote on banning tobacco by stealth.

This is a step too far IMO. Same with the govt's stance on marijuana. If they have legalised in many states in the US, then why can we not do so here? But alas, it seems the UK govt and those in power want to babysit everything we can or cannot do. :(
 
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It was a pretty sad day when they got rid of the brand advertizing, to be replaced with.....nondescript white packaging.

They already had the graphic disease imagery prior to that, for those three people who weren't aware, the fools!

Of course everyone had their favourite brands based on prestige - or lack thereof.

Lambert & Butler were great in that they had cool silver packaging and were a tad cheaper. We'll ignore that their cigs burnt faster due to the cheaper paper.

B&H were the coolest, with the gold. And let's face it, the best- tasting. When poncing one of them you felt happy, but also the seething of the the giver ?

True to form I originally opted for Camels, filterless, as though it was the '60s. Classic branding. Even when leaving your hands orange!

And of course for a real looker you'd get Dunhill, even if people laughed you out of town and called them 'Dunghill'. Expensive and ridiculed, yet great packaging and design.

In the end however, Marlboro became a mainstay, with that iconic red & white. And when it came to advertising, you're not going to get manlier men than this

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I was an Embassy No.1 man myself, strong but a bit easier on the throat I felt than Bensons, If things were a bit tight, then I was Lambert & Butler all the way.

Quite recently Embassy did a sneaky trick when the gov hiked taxes / prices and got rid of No.1, rebranding as Embassy Signature Gold.

No complaints here tho as although there initially was a "this ain't the same" vibe from me, they did drop from nearly £13 a packet for the No.1's to £9.50 so a great saving.

Slowly creeping back up though now, get them for £10.80 but am slowly but surely making one pack last the best part of 2 days.

*Touch wood* no more stressful events and I'll continue to bring it down slowly. Don't think I'll ever stop completely but if I can get down to about 8-10 a day, I'll be more than happy.
 
I guess every smoker has a favorite brand.
I gave it up because of how much it stained my teeth, and also i was scared of getting diabetes.
There were talks about banning these but not sure if that was ever implemented.
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I think this is a good proposal, it doesn't force anyone who already smokes to stop, but it protects future generations against the inarguable and terrible harms that smoking brings.

It's hard to mount any kind of a rational defence for smoking, 'I enjoy it' or 'It relaxes me' or 'It helps me concentrate' are the usual ones we hear, and yeah, I guess that an adult making those choices on a personal basis is fine in a free society - after all, there are all kinds of things we're allowed to do that are bad for us.

I wonder, however, if there's a degree of cognitive dissonance involved when it comes to the justifications for smoking - because I've heard them all before, and quite frankly none of them stand up to scrutiny.

I'm a lifelong non-smoker but I come from background where just about everyone smoked, including my dad who was a heavy smoker his entire life, from a young age, right up until the day, in April this year, when his smoking-induced COPD caused him to have a heart incident on the stairs in his house and fall down them.* He was hospitalized following the fall, two weeks later he was dead - having been ventilated and put into a medically induced coma that those treating him in the hospital were never able to bring him out of.

* (I covered my dad's death and subsequent funeral in a couple of videos on my channel, at the time we hadn't had the inquest so there was a degree of speculation around exactly what happened, but the inquest made the cause of death clear.)

If he hadn't been a smoker, he'd still be alive today.

I'd tried, many times over the years, to talk to him about his smoking, but he was having none of it, it was off-limits as a topic of serious conversation, all I can really remember is variations on the lines above ('It helps me concentrate' is one I remember) as an 'explanation' for an addiction to something that was slowly killing him.

I remember the late night run that my brother, me, and my sister-in-law made to the hospital, responding to a call from them to advise that dad's condition was deteriorating and they would need to ventilate him, and for that, he would need to be sedated. (They use the word sedation, but what they mean is a medically induced coma.)

What I also remember, more clearly than anything, is how scared my dad was, the fear in his eyes, the realisation that this might be it, the end of the road, and many, many years before he thought he would get there. What I also know, with absolute cast iron certainty, is that in that moment, he would have unsmoked every single cigarette of his entire life, to have got another few years, few months, few days, or even just a few minutes with his family - as every single reason he ever gave for wanting to continue smoking crumbled into nothing more substantial than the ash from a burnt cigarette.

But he did not have that choice, none of us did, because the choice had already been made, he had chosen to smoke - and it killed him.

In his house, after his death, there was a neat stack of six packs of cigarettes, ready to be smoked. They outlived him, the cause of his early death, that he paid handsomely to have visited upon him. All that was left to do was throw them in the bin.

So yes, by all means, if you're a smoker now and you wish to continue, then do so, Sunak's proposal will not infringe upon that in any way whatsoever. Yes there might be some weirdness about age verification going forward, but they will be edge cases and easily solvable with ID. What I actually suspect will happen is that smoking, already very much a minority activity, will simply fade into the past and become something that people in the UK just don't do anymore - and that will be a good thing.

The vast majority of smokers start the habit when they are fairly young, and very often try to quit (usually multiple times) in later years. Very few people make the informed decision to start smoking as an adult. I don't think that 'defending the right of the twelve year olds of today to kill themselves with smoking' is a particularly impressive hill to choose to die on.

I think perhaps people imagine that they'll go out smoking on their own terms (i.e. weesie's 'Bacardi in one hand and cig in the other'), and that it won't get them in one of the many horrible ways that, statistically, it has a very good chance of doing, and far before their time at that too.

Of course death is inevitable, 100% of people die of something in the end, but the time of our death, and the form it takes, is not inevitable. Choosing to smoke, or not smoke, is one of the levers we have available to us to pull. I think my dad would have chosen to pull the 'don't smoke' lever if he'd seriously thought, for one second, that this is where he'd end up at the age of 71.

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Sorry to hear about your dad Chopley you have my condolences and I completely understand where you are coming from, especially like myself having lost a parent as a direct cause of smoking. My mum smoked 60 a day and died from bladder cancer at the age of 64, which was caused by her smoking.

Like you, we tried to encourage her to give up, but she was hooked and needed it not just for the nicotine addiction but the habit it forms and as a social crutch.

Being an ex smoker myself, I however do differ with you on the proposed banning of tobacco by stealth. Personally I think it is a disgusting habit, you stink like an ashtray for one, as does everyone around you who you subject to your smoke.

Passive smoking is a very real live issue, which in turn can and does seriously damage the health of those subjected to it. Roy Castle is a famous victim of it here in the UK. He never smoked one cigarette throughout his life, but playing in clubs up and down the country meant he was subjected to smoke filled environments all the time.

The introduction of the indoor smoking ban was IMO a very positive thing. Also society as a whole has demonised smoking to the extent that it is now viewed negatively by most. Again this is a good thing IMO.

However, I strongly believe banning it is not the correct approach. Continuing to increase the taxable levy on it each year as well as concerted health campaigns making the public all too aware of the damage it causes is the way forward.

Also like yourself, my dad found packets of cigarettes throughout the house, hidden in various places for weeks after my mum's death. He was forever trying to get her to give up, but alas was not to happen.

Bear in mind our parents grew up in a different generation where smoking was deemed as a 'cool' and acceptable pastime. Completely the opposite to today.
 
It's a vice - it's supposed to be bad for you yet enjoyable.

Drinking and smoking are the things young people do for the most part as it makes them feel cooler and more 'adult'.

And whilst many may be able to pack in the smokes, of equal or greater concern is the free pass borderline alcoholism seems to get. Yet no mention of banning that it seems....

All that'll happen is the black market to thrive, with cig imports of varying quality - hardly conducive to alleviating smoking- related ailments, when you don't know what's in these things.

Clearly there'll be those that partake to a greater or lesser degree, like with anything in life. 60 a day is certainly a lot, that much is true.

Smoking is bad for you, and therein lies part of its appeal. And I think as it becomes effectively taboo, there'll always be an uptake of new generations puffing away, for that very reason. There is no logic or magical mystery behind it, it's just 'cool'. You'd entrust them to figure it out eventually that it really isn't it.

And how will they acquire tobacco for their, erm, 'other' recreational vice? Blunts are great and everything, but they only go so far peeps :D
 

Thanks for your condolences Webzcas, it's nearly six months since my dad has his fall and I still think about him, many times, every single day, I know it will be a slow process. I'm sorry to hear you lost your mum at a relatively young age too - it sucks.

As for my position on this issue, I'd be the first to admit it's somewhat incongruous, especially given my stance on drug prohibition in general, namely that it causes more harm than good, by handing over the manufacture, quality control, and distribution of potentially dangerous substances to criminal networks.

I also entirely take on board what goaty says above with regards to alcohol, it's hard to coherently rail against smoking whilst not addressing the elephant in the room that is alcohol. Let's face it, if alcohol were discovered tomorrow, it'd be banned outright. (As would tobacco.)

Obviously my feelings on smoking are quite personal as well, but at the same time, I've always, my entire life, thought it was such a strange and pointless activity, both unusually and perniciously addictive, and terribly harmful.

Like I said, I come from a background where nearly everyone smoked, and I can remember it always making people ill. You know, hacking coughs, bronchitis, that sort of thing. I also always hated the smell and the general 'debris' - (ash, cigarette butts, overflowing ashtrays, packaging, those little foil slips etc) - of smoking, and because smoking was allowed, almost everywhere, it was just something that was constantly present.

It never even remotely appealed to me at school, even though there were those who smoked and it would have been easy for me to do so. I just didn't see the point, didn't see the upside.

When me and my friends were old enough to get served in the pub (16-17) it was part and parcel of going out, you'd come home stinking of cigarette smoke, and even though none of us smoked, we'd sometimes feel like we'd smoked half a pack of fags ourselves!

So yes, much has been done since then, smokers now can't effectively force everyone to smoke along with them just because they're occupying the same space as other people, smoking itself has been entirely deglamourized and holy crap it's expensive too! Therefore you can indeed make the case that it's something that's on the way out anyway, especially as it seems to have been replaced by vaping, certainly amongst the young.

But then, that being the case, why not just get rid of it entirely in the fashion that Sunak proposes? I think we'd all agree that we're not denying future generations anything worthwhile or beneficial to them in any way whatsoever, and them not being able to smoke will save those who might have taken up the habit and become addicted from spending shitloads of money on something that is pretty likely to cause them all sorts of horrible illnesses and perhaps even ultimately their untimely death.

Also when it comes to passive smoking, whilst I can entirely avoid it pretty easily now, in a way I couldn't in the 1990s, there are going to be those who live in households where others smoke, and will just continue to be subjected to it - over time, that will get fixed too. (Smoking is unique in the world of drug use, in that the simple act of partaking in it, actively harms those around you.)

Prohibition for future generations doesn't make these problems go away entirely, but I think that as the market for legal cigarettes slowly dwindles as the current clientele literally dies off (often hastened by smoking itself, as happened to my dad), there won't be much of a black market to fill the gap. We're not talking about, say, cocaine, whereby the ONLY way to buy it for anyone is illegally, so there's a profitable black market there for dealers. I just don't see it when we're talking about small numbers of younger people who can't buy them legally, having never been exposed to them, so won't want to explore other avenues for acquisition, at least in the main.

For me, Sunak's proposal treads the line pretty well, it doesn't take away the rights of any existing smokers who wish to continue to do so, but also draws a line in the sand and says, 'You know what, no more, as a society, we're done with this now'.
 
Without going into ins and outs of the wrongs of smoking the government plan will never work.

There is still a larger number of youngsters who still buy cigarettes and always will. They might even class themselves as non smokers.

But especially in large cities amongst the young more are smoking green than ever before. And guess what they mostly roll joints and buy tobacco mainly cigarettes. And as people have smoked many different types of illegal cannabis products for many years hardly think it will stop anytime soon.

Also the age you can legally buy anything means nothing these days. Not sure about IOM but here have you saw the amount of young teenagers smoking vapes that they cannot buy until 18. Most young girls about 14 seem to constantly be puffing away on vapes. My own granddaughters (well sort of they are the partners granddaughters) are 14 and 16. They vape non stop and so does every pal they have. Would say the youngest goes through a full vape a day. And I'd say they are probably doing more harm to themselves the amount they vape than if they actually smoked 10 fags a day.
 
Tobacco lobbyists have been trying to demonize vaping for at least the last decade, with hit-pieces galore in attempt to prohibit their use.

And whilst far from perfect, I'd wager their potential harmful effects to be negligible at best.

All relative I'm sure, but by and large, they're really not what's going to cause the downfall of Western civilization. Only real differences are in the eliquid 'base', which would be PG (Propylene Glycol- harsher throat-hit) and VG (Vegetable Glycerin- bigger 'clouds', more flavour, mellower).

Most liquids comprise of a mixture, mostly 50/50 or 70/30. There can be health aggro with certain brands' effect on the lungs, as not all vape companies use the best ingredients let's just say. It's still not an exact science, with many brands from China and the U.S. etc.

Compare that to cigarettes which are a known health problem, laden with the likes of tar, acetone, and everyone's favourite, cyanide.

You'll find just as many studies proclaiming vapes to be harmless, though they tend to fall on deaf ears as it's easier to conflate vaping with smoking, because that liquorice waft offends someone's feelings.

Cigarette prohibition for future generations' health is one thing, but in regards to vapes, you'd just as easily remove nicotine from all products and problem solved right? Yet even in that scenario, ministers will fawn over some quack's findings that even imitating the 'act' of smoking without nicotine should lead to an outright vaping ban.

Because let's face it, vaping's next on the chopping block.

When that day arrives however, I'd expect all manner of Chinese eliquids and vaping devices to take their place, as vapers continue unabashedly, including kids. As the 'scene' is very open-source there'll also be many just rigging up their own mods and sub-ohms, it's not that difficult.

Provided the Government don't decree cotton to be punishable by death, that is :D
 
The main issue with vapes is possibly the strength of the disposable ones that the kids go for (God that's one powerful nicotine hit... lovely flavours though) - nicotine is a vasoconstrictor and can harm the circulation amongst other things. The "smoke" itself is fairly harmless though, it appears.

I do big clouds, low nicotine.
 
Yes, that's one of the main things overlooked.

The disposable vapes, or anything vaguely resembling the performative motion of 'normal', traditional smoking are known as 'lung-to-mouth' devices, and as such the liquids needed for them would be nicotine-heavy.

The typical range for these liquids is 18-20mg of nicotine, and usually heavier towards the PG side.

They're the most commonly used combination, used by kids and adults alike (although you can get 0,3,6, 10 and 12mg variants too).

The other type of vaping is using the 'box-mod' devices, where it's more about making huge plumes of vapour, from which a whole sub-culture of 'cloud-chasers' were borne. That's called 'direct-to-lung' vaping.

The liquids used for these devices are VG-heavy, so often 70/30 VG-PG. Yet they'll almost certainly be no more than 3mg of nicotine, 6 at most.

For all the fact that non-smokers and non-vapers couldn't give a flying monkey's about either types of vapes being outlawed, it's certainly worth noting that box mods are effectively harmless, and could easily be used with no nicotine.

The cigarette-y type devices, aka mouth-to-lung vapers will definitely be impacted with a nicotine reduction. It'd be like smoking Silk Cut ashtray rollies - ain't no enjoyment to be had there.

The Government could absolutely remove nicotine from all vaping juices and that'd be job done. After all, of all the kids vaping, many would have not even smoked. They're by far most concerned about the flavours, rather than getting a non-inhaled-properly nicotine hit.

Wouldn't expect any government body to consider these things in any capacity however, but still :D
 
goatwack said:
The Government could absolutely remove nicotine from all vaping juices and that'd be job done. After all, of all the kids vaping, many would have not even smoked. They're by far most concerned about the flavours, rather than getting a non-inhaled-properly nicotine hit.
Click to expand...
Here’s the thing, nicotine in its pure form has been shown by many studies to be beneficial to health.

It has been shown to increase levels of alertness, improved concentration and memory and can reduce anxiety. It has also been found by some studies that nicotine prevents aggregation of a protein linked to Alzheimer’s.

As far as its addictive properties are concerned, it’s on a similar level to caffeine…something that’s also been shown to have similar health benefits in moderation.
 
Seems that the grandstanding and "Won't somebody think of the children!" government proposals have taken a bit of a back seat to money, greed and influence. Who knew?

Tax cuts, becoming re-electable and not alienating a third of your voting base have taken precedence, with a few sweet nothings whispered by the Tobacco industry too I'd imagine ?

Expect Sunak & co to follow suit, as politicians seem to ape each other's behaviours on the regular. Well, that and one look at the spreadsheet of projected revenue losses, back in the real world...

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prohibition never works, weed is illegal but yet you can still smell it on every street corner, banning smoking will just create another black market lining the pockets of criminals while cancelling a ton of tax take at the same time and also increasing NHS and pension costs as more people will live longer.
 


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