Crass stupidity
Cas asked yesterday why I hadn’t mentioned the proposed new anti-smoker law in the UK.
I think I possibly had a go when New Zealand proposed such a law but very sensibly dropped the idea.
In theory it is an ingenious law to gradually phase out smoking by banning the sale of tobacco to anyone born after 2008. I can just imagine the anti-smoker lobby clapping itself on the back and having wet dreams at such an ingenious way of eliminating tobacco use over time.
In practice it just comes across as a stupid and utterly unworkable law. It is a typical idea from the anti-smoker lobby which is even more risible than any of their previous measures. Raising taxes on tobacco annually might have some slight affect. Lurid photoshopped pictures on packaging are just ignored. Making all products look the same just makes extra work for retailers who have to examine every pack they sell. One of their oldest ideas – an age limit of 18 – doesn’t stop thousands of schoolkids from taking up smoking as statistics always show us. Has any country ever announced that there is zero smoking amongst the teenage population?
How is the new law supposed to work exactly? Does everyone born before 2008 have to carry a green card to prove their age? In the future, a middle aged man asks for a packet of cigarettes: how is the shopkeeper to know whether he is old enough? Does the customer have to produce not a proof of age but a proof of birth year? Will a 56 year old be legally sold tobacco when a 55 year old is banned? A 55 year old is a mature adult probably with a family and a mortgage not to mention a responsible job, yet he is being denied the opportunity to make a rational, adult choice because of when he was born?
Of course there is always the black market. They will have a field day with this one. What will most likely happen is that ordinary [normally law abiding[ adults will be legally be allowed buy any quantity of tobacco and pass/sell it on to their younger friends. The black market has always existed along with people’s natural ability to circumvent laws. I cite the example of the number of young people who regularly smoke in spite of age restrictions. If the law works, then there shouldn’t be a single smoker aged 17 or younger yet it is patently obvious that this isn’t the case.
What I don’t understand is how rational adults and law makers really believe that this will work. Why cannot the lawmakers point out that the law is unenforceable and even probably against the constitution which in most countries protects the rights of adults to self determination?
The whole business just reeks of desperation in the anti-smoker lobby who ran out of ideas a long time ago.
There are loads of other issues too. Just to mention a couple…..
As you will have seen here in Ireland, tourism is a big earner for any economy. What happens to smokers coming into Britain from abroad? Are they to be denied their addiction too?
And the reverse of that, What happens to someone bringing in tobacco from their holidays abroad? Horror of horrors, in the future they may even be too young to smoke their ill gotten ciggies in the UK! If someone gives holiday ciggies to a third person, are they then guilty of a crime?
If an existing smoker who would fall foul of the age limits moves to the UK, what happens then?
It is a ridiculously complicated minefield that will be impossible to police.
Just like alcohol, this mad UK proposal only relates to the act of purchase – it remains quite legal, as it always has been, for under-age folk to drink alcohol or smoke tobacco, they just can’t legally buy it. That doesn’t stop an older person giving them the booze/smoke, but if the older person buys it on their behalf as an ‘agent’, that agent would then transgress the law when they later ‘sell’ it on to the younger user.
Any travellers over 18 will still be allowed to bring in 200 duty-free cigarettes, but would not then be legally able to purchase more, which may shorten many holidays, reducing tourism trade etc.
All completely bonkers, ill-conceived, unworkable, unenforceable and with vastly more downsides than benefits, which probably explains why an utterly incompetent, brain-dead government is proposing it.
The problem for the UK is that the opposition parties, probably the next government-in-waiting, are even more enthusiastic about it, so the thinking UK voters will have nowhere to turn, apart from civil disobedience.
Banning hard drugs is working so well. They are now expanding their scope. Oh, wait….
The Lib Dems (illiberal anti-democrats) voted for it. They still advocate legalising smoking cannabis.