The UK Is Banning Cigarettes. Permanently. People Born 2009 Or Later Will Never Be Allowed To Legally Purchase Tobacco
Really wanted to title this blog with a different, more British word for cigarettes. Don't think I could have snuck that one by the editors, but it would have made for some top tier click bait.
BBC – Children aged 17 or younger will face a lifelong ban on buying cigarettes, as the Tobacco and Vapes Bill clears Parliament.
Both the Commons and Lords have settled on a final draft of the "landmark" legislation that aims to stop anyone born after 1 January 2009 from taking up smoking to create a smoke-free generation.
When it gets royal assent, ministers will also have new powers to regulate tobacco, vaping and nicotine products, including their flavours and packaging.
It is part of a series of measures aimed at tackling the health effects of smoking, one of the UK's leading causes of preventable death, disability and ill health.
Vaping will be banned in cars carrying children, in playgrounds and outside schools and at hospitals, expanding smoke-free laws.
The sad thing is, I don't even think the kids are going to be outraged about this. The teens aren't as cool as they used to be. Binge drinking is down. The legalization of marijuana has turned weed into a drug for parents. Fentanyl scared everyone away from harder drugs. Nobody has sex anymore. Guys are all busy smashing their cheek bones with hammers, just so they'll be confident enough to rush a fraternity where they can spend time with more hot dudes. I'm not sure if any of what I'm saying is actually true, but that's my "outraged millennial yelling at cloud" version of what's wrong with kids these days.
Now, across the pond, youths won't even have the option to do the #1 coolest thing a youth can do. Smoke a cig. Hack a dark. Bum a fag. And it probably won't even phase them.
Unless this kingdom-wide cigarette ban has the reverse effect. Recreational marijuana dispensaries opening up on every street corner (and doctors finally admitting that it really doesn't harm you much) took all the edge out of smoking weed. Perhaps the UK slapping an official BAN on cigarettes will make people say, "Don't tread on me, King. I'm gonna smoke this WHOLE PACK of cigarettes."
Maybe we've reached the point of the alcohol & drugs lifecycle where we need to reinstate prohibition laws. For all substances. Just to remind people what they're missing out on. To make people appreciate having the option. I don't know about you, but one surefire way to make me want need something is to tell me I can't have it. If we reinstate prohibition right now, by 2036, young adults will be fiending for substances they've never even consumed. The economy will boom. Music will get good again. Loose women will flood the streets. Your dick will work under pressure, every time. Our long national "nobody is cool anymore" nightmare will be over (for the next 90 years or so).
Just look how happy everyone was in 1933. There wasn't a sober brain in the United States until after the war.
What a blow this new UK smoking ban must be to the few young smokers we have left in this world. It was one thing to have the legal age raised from 18 to 21. Anybody can wait a few years. But to wake up this morning and learn that you may never be able to legally purchase a cigarette in your life… that's quite the bummer. Like anything else, I'm sure people will find a way to get their fix. But I never thought I'd live to see the day where cigarettes were starting to be outlawed for good. Thanks, King Charles.