Is this the end of smoking?

No, it won't be.

The tobacco industry is too powerful and governments have vested interests anyway.

I'd like to see a total legal ban on vape shops and flavoured vapes designed to appeal to children.

Hopefully - along with vaping too. Smoking is a vile, disgusting habit and it is utterly beyond my comprehension why anyone actually starts smoking in the first place.

I am torn on this proposed legislation.

I have never smoked, one AC and wife do smoke, one AC is an occasional vaper.

It is a nasty and dangerous habit, responsible for many deaths annually.

I like a glass of fizz, wine or a long vodka and tonic on a hot summers evening. Alcohol is also responsible for a variety of cancers, death and social problems, will banning it be next on the agenda?

It would be good to see the end of smoking. What a strange habit. One of my sons smoked in his mid-teens, and managed to convince me that the smell was just because he had been upstairs on a bus. I believed him, because (as
I told him later) I couldn’t believe that anyone in our family would be so stupid. He gave up totally when he was 24, and his son, born 2009, is just the right age to be subject to the ban - not that he wants to smoke, because he is very keen on gymnastics and keeping fit,

They can do it but enforcement will be the problem asking for ID is fine at the moment but when it gets later on in this endeavour everyone will have to produce ID
Perhaps alcohol will be next causes far more social problems in society than cigarettes do.

I'm torn too GrannyGravy. I do smoke and although this wont affect me, I do wonder what will be next.

Smoking has been steadily dying out in the UK for quite some time. The thing that is wrong about this proposed law is that adults will not be "equal under the law" which is surely a good principle for laws to be based on. As Kemi Badenoch points out, where two people have been born a day apart, one them will legally be able to buy cigarettes all their lives, and one won't. This is wrong whatever one's views on the ultimate elimination of smoking.

Baggs I totally agree with your post.

I agree with you too Baggs.

We read of convictions of sexual assault, domestic violence,
Drunk driving caused by alcohol consumption

i can't see why that is intrinsically wrong; annoying maybe, but applies to so many things.
discounts, benefits, pensions,
access to shingles vaccines !!!!!!
born one day later: come on in, get jabbed.
you, no! you're too old! wait til you're 70.

Baggs

Smoking has been steadily dying out in the UK for quite some time. The thing that is wrong about this proposed law is that adults will not be "equal under the law" which is surely a good principle for laws to be based on. As Kemi Badenoch points out, where two people have been born a day apart, one them will legally be able to buy cigarettes all their lives, and one won't. This is wrong whatever one's views on the ultimate elimination of smoking.

Yes.

Better to discourage cigarette smoking than introduce a two-tier system which sounds rather ridiculous in principle and will not work in practice.

Banning flavoured vapes aimed at children is a must.

I have not actively smoked but I grew up in a smoke filled environment and I must have passively smoked almost from birth. My mother used sit in the front of the car with me and my two sibs in the back. My mother was a chain smoker so always had a fag on throughout the journey. We were not allowed to have the windows open in case we caught pneumonia. My mother was quite a bit younger than I am now when she died. My main objection to smoking has always been that it is not always a solo activity, anyone within range is forced to breathe your carcinogenic smoke. Although some of this legislation seems rather bonkers even to me, anything which goes towards stamping out this dangerous habit is OK by me for the sake of the passive smokers as well as the smokers. On the subject of the old chestnut alcohol is more dangerous than smoking, both are dangerous and are not mutually exclusive in causing problems. You can't justify smoking by damning alcohol.

Baggs

Smoking has been steadily dying out in the UK for quite some time. The thing that is wrong about this proposed law is that adults will not be "equal under the law" which is surely a good principle for laws to be based on. As Kemi Badenoch points out, where two people have been born a day apart, one them will legally be able to buy cigarettes all their lives, and one won't. This is wrong whatever one's views on the ultimate elimination of smoking.

100% this...

I'd also agree with the poster commenting on alcohol.

I work in the Courts and at a rough estimate 60/70% of our crimes i.e violence and sexual are alcohol related, that's without drink driving etc.
There's also the health / social impact of alcohol.
Is that next ?

The law is daft - unenforceable.

But I would like to see the end of nicotine and all the nasties that go with smoking.

It's wrong because it's a killer and it's addictive.
We know it is and the medical profession know it is.

It's self harming by poison
The effects cost the state vast amounts.
I also cannot bear to see youngsters smoking so perhaps this law will help.

After all nobody believed that smoking would ever be banned from pubs, restaurants, planes and buses etc but it has been and it works.

BTW This idea began in NZ so my DGS is included in the plan .
Hooray because his dad was a smoker who quit with difficulty.

I understood that NZ's decision has been repealed.

The lifelong smokers that I know have died early of smoking related disease so if smoking in the young can be discouraged so much the better. I remember the hoohah about banning smoking in public places and having to run the gauntlet of smokers huddled in office doorways. I rarely see that now and if that legislation helped smokers to give up then it is a job well done.
As for the current ban, I will give it a few years to see if it works. The best way to stop smokers is to make it socially unacceptable which is the opposite of what it once was. When the smoking problem is solved then we can start on the wee glass of wine.

Smileless2012

I understood that NZ's decision has been repealed.

You are correct, it never got through once there was a change of PM/Government

Whenever this issue is raised, people always bring up the subject of alcohol - but two wrongs don't make a right. Yes, I understand the problems associated with alcohol too, but why don't we start by tackling smoking first?

This is making smoking and vaping illegal for part of the population but not the other part, throughout their lives.

What is to stop someone buying cigarettes or vapes and giving them to a younger spouse, sibling, friend? Will they be charged with an offence?

It really is ill-thought through.

The best way to stop smokers is to make it socially unacceptable which is the opposite of what it once was. When the smoking problem is solved then we can start on the wee glass of wine.
Yes, making smoking and vaping socially unacceptable and expensive does work but slowly.

Don't start on my wee glass of wine, Parsley

Enjoy it while you still can Callistemon Cheers!

The best way to stop smokers is to make it socially unacceptable

and more and more expensive!

Smoking is now regarded as a disgusting and increasingly lower class habit. Both my parents smoked although my mother gave up in later life because of ill health (heart problems). My father smoked from his teens and died horribly if a smoking related disease.

Neither my sibling nor the younger members of my family have ever smoked althugh I have one nephew (by marriage) who still does.

I agree with posters who feel that this ill thought out legislation will simply drive the habit underground.