Why The UK's Cigarette Ban Is Completely Insane
Ah, that sweet first drag of tyranny...
The UK government is trying to ban the sale of cigarettes to anyone born after 2008, and I am furious.
Not because I smoke — quite the opposite! I hate smoking, as any of my friends can attest. I am one of those annoying anti-smokers, who endlessly bug everyone around them to quit.
But this proposed law is madness for so many reasons:
It’s a huge encroachment into personal autonomy, with minimal public health upside (cigarette smoking rates are trending to zero in this cohort of young people because they all vape like lunatics instead).
It’s extraordinarily undemocratic to force something upon a one subset of people who will never get the opportunity to vote on that thing.
It’ll create an obvious black market to satisfy demand, reducing tax revenue
It’s yet another step towards mandated ID-checking culture
But most crucially:
It’ll create a new system of segregation. Think about it: if you ban something, but only for people born after a certain date, then when they all become adults a few years later, they’re forever stuck in a separate class to their fellow citizens. They’ll always be that annoying guy having to ask their slightly older workmates to go buy them a pack, who in turn will be made into criminals for doing it.
We have no idea what this kind of permanent infantalization will do to people psychologically long term… but worse, it’s ripping up one of the core principles of liberal society: that all adult citizens must be treated equally under the eyes of the law.
It’s literally creating a cohort of adult citizens who will never have quite as many freedoms as their fellow citizens. A permanent underclass. There’s a word we use for governments who willfully do that kind of thing.
But what about that generation’s health you may say!
I say: be consistent!
If cigarettes are truly that evil, then by all means propose a full ban on them and see whether that passes popular opinion. If not, then let that generation continue to decide, as we still will do, what they can do with their lungs once they reach the legal age of smoking consent.
But to be clear, there must be a very high bar on what personal products get banned for health and safety reasons… yes, second hand cigarette smoke is bad, but that problem was largely solved by banning smoking from all public and workplaces. Yes, the UK populace is ok with banning other dangerous products like guns, but I think we can all agree there’s a huge difference between a cigarette and a gun whose main purpose is to directly harm other people. Not a relevant comparison.
Lastly, think about the slippery slope this law opens up. If a government can ban purely by date of birth (or any other delineator of its choosing), what other kind of nannying laws will it usher in under the guise of health/taking pressure off the NHS? No high heels for women born after 2014? No vodka for those with family history of alcoholism? No fish-and-chips for anyone with BMI over 30?
These might sound ridiculous. But governments are capable of many ridiculous things. Have we forgotten how far they all went went with batshit arbitrary COVID rules, long after the peak had passed? If a supposedly “free and liberal” nation as the UK is able to get away with this style of date-of-birth based lawmaking, all bets are off what they’ll come up with next. The Nanny State knows no limits in her quest for dominion over her citizens.
So pardon the pun, but we gotta make a stink about this. Smoking sucks, but tyranny sucks worse.
I can imagine a possible society in which I’d support such a ban — but it would be a society with far fewer and way less pressing problems than the UK has today! People may need a smoke in the coming years! (I say that as a fellow anti-smoker.)
My first impression is that this is an overreaction. Most countries ban sale of alcohol and tobacco to minors. That's 'age-based discrimination' already.
It also already requires the seller to check a confirmed ID (with DOB).
A birth *cohort* ban is mechanically identical as far as I can see (seller must check ID with DOB; this time the seller actually has less mental arithmetic to do because the comparison date is constant). So this isn't giving the govt any new capabilities to be abused later (important check!) or making anything newly onerous (purchase of cigs already requires DOB IIUC).
It's a slightly novel mechanism. I'd guess they considered a total ban based on the first- and second-hand health effects, noted this would be overly harsh for existing addicts, didn't want the faff (or intrusion!) of an alternative legal patch like 'medically licensed tobacco user', and went with this approach.
Re 'never get the opportunity to vote...', of course they will, once they're older, as with all laws which apply to minors.
If smoking rates are trending to zero, it's unlikely to create a black market, and unlikely to produce onerous requirements on many/any people.