Well there's certainly no way this will create a black market, and become impossible to enforce!

We all know that banning drugs means that people will stop using them. Or so.

Prohibition is never good, removing individual freedom is never good. I can see the point for some of these restrictions, to provide a safe basis for other people around (because we can't ask people to simply be nice), but more than that… meh.

I will not be up in arms to defend smoking rights, but that's probably not the way to do it.

How kind of the government to decide that people born after 2008 have fewer freedoms than those born before it!

Now, this is a good thing, but I can't help but imagine in 2099, a 90yr old begging their friends to sell them a pack

Good. It'll cut down healthcare costs

Not including vaping is kinda... Odd.

I think people should be allowed to harm themselves with drugs of they want. Maybe I’m a radical.

Lemmites normally: smoking is bad and should be banned.

UK government: ok then.

Lemmites now: YO WHAT THE FUCK.

Did they look at Australia and the colossal failure trying the same thing, and thought "but we will be different"?

It's OK, nobody born after that will be able to afford them.

There's a reason vapes got popular, and part of that is a pack of 20 ciggies costing £15+.

So now everyone smells of either fruit salads or weed.

Just ban smoking in public places. I don't want people blowing smoke at me when I'm walking down the street or when I'm siting outside drinking coffee. If they want to smoke in their apartment or their car it's their business. It would be easier to fight people smoking in the street than check what age every smoker is.

This is a stupid decision. Prohibition has never worked. Instead there will be more illegal, unsafe and unregulated cigarettes that the newer generations will smoke which will be more harmful while at the same time losing tax revenues and an increase in policing costs.

A better solution will be just to tax the shit out of these products and fund healthcare with it.

Smoking is bad, but prohibition of drugs just drives them underground and denies freedom. Bad call UK

This law was originally implemented within New Zealand some years ago and I believe it is based on the same principles. I am all for it because it doesn't affect those that already smoke, just the ones that would potentially get into it in the future. And it has a rolling eligibility year so every year it will move, stopping all future generations from potentially being able to try it legally. Eventually it would get to the point where the generations that currently smoke die off completely and then it would be most likely looked at from an antiquated perspective. Unfortunately, in our case, as soon as the latest conservative parliament got into power, they completely rolled it back. We never got to see the long term potential positive implications of it in practice.

This is one of the few bans that actually makes sense. Carcinogens are genuinely bad for a person's future.

Oi cunt, 'ave you got a loicense for them cigarettes?

I sometimes feel like people get so caught up on the word "prohibition" that their arguments bend towards addiction enabling at a societal scale. Smoking is beyond crazy when you look at the stats (using USA for convenience, but similar for other countries)

• Cigarettes are the leading cause of preventable disease and death, causing nearly 500k deaths per year. [For reference, the far more popular drug alcohol is the 3rd highest with under 100k deaths]
• In 2024, 41k deaths were due to second hand smoke exposure alone
• Cigarettes cost the USA more than $600B in 2018
• Private insurance only pays for a fraction of the health care costs, the larger majority coming directly/indirectly from public funds
• The damage done has a vastly disproportionate burden on minorities, the poor and other at-risk populations

The problem is simple: cigarettes are a massive drain on the health system, directly and indirectly. The solution should be just as simple: buying cigarettes forfeits your rights to health care treatments for the damage caused. You get some palliative care but we save the lung transplants for people who aren't killing themselves.

If you think that's too harsh then you should stomach the cost of prohibition, policing and black markets. No matter how shitty, costly and dangerous it may be I promise that it will save lives and money if it's a barrier to even a fraction of smokers.

I honestly don't think this will lead to a massive black market like some people seem to think. I don't see big profit margins that would make cigarettes an attractive thing to sell illegally. You can only make them so expensive if you can just find someone older to buy them for you for the normal price.

Besides, smoking is pretty shit really. There aren't going to be loads of people willing to go through the hassle of getting cigarettes illegally when all they do is stink and give you cancer. Especially when the people who can't buy them will mostly be people who haven't had a chance to get addicted yet.

I think this will work and be a net positive in the long run.

Well. This will create an underground for buying cigs. Hopefully though it kills smoking forever. I vape myself but used it to get off cigs. Young kids in America at least hate both, some are still doing it but the stigma is vaping/smoking bad.