I've never understood why cigarettes are not illegal.

I smoke. I don't want to but I have a habit and I don't have a lot of willpower.
When the going gets tough the fags come out. I gave up for seven years but started again. Stupid.

However - I'm not a law breaker (like 99% of the population) so if they were illegal I would not try and source them from some dealer.

So why go with this new "plain packaging" legislation.

Ban them. And put up taxes to raise the revenue lost so that all tax payers have to pay for the loss in income the Government receives.

We'd all be healthier and we'd have a fairer tax system not based on peoples habits that they struggle with. Just a thought

Well - a Random Rant

How would it be just to criminalise smoking?

For that matter how is it just to criminalise marijuana? As recreational drugs go it's relatively benign, and the criminalisation of marijuana creates more problems than there are to be solved.

There are health problems with smoking cigarettes, but criminalisation is hardly the way to go, education and a change in social attitudes is much preferable.

Marijuana - What is marijuana these days? Certainly not the old type. I think they call most of it "skunkweed" now and from what
I gather it is similar to Class A... A lot of people end up in the loony bin (sorry not PC)...

Education will always fail on this matter. Its a waste of time. It's in a lot of peoples nature to destroy themselves.

If its available and it makes you "forget" then for a lot of the poor its a lifestyle "choice"
Always has been - Always will - In bygone years it was "Mothers Ruin" - Now where have I put my gin bottle?

Then of course there is the gross misuse of alcohol. I disagree with a lot of their culture but perhaps the US is right in this instance in making the legal age 21.

Prohibition doesn't work. It is also treating the symptom, not the cause. The biggest problem we have with drugs, etc, is prohibition: crime is built on it.

Ignoring the personal freedom bit, the only real objection I have to smoking is the bits they leave behind. Fag buts and empty packets don't easily degrade and both just make the place look filthy. Rather than putting cigarettes in plain boxes, I'd suggest selling them in thin plain single paper bags would be far better.

The government have had a go at reducing smoking by increasing the tax and getting it banned in workplace and public places.
I would like it to be banned in cars and lorry cabs as well. I saw some dangerous git getting out a fag and then lighting it the other day. Must be as bad as using a mobile phone IMO.
Watched a bit of a program the other night when a few of the UK's scroungers were on screen with debts and on benefits, non payment of rent and rates etc. Every one of them seemed to have a fag on whenever they appeared. I wondered how they could afford to smoke but not pay their rent. I got really pee'd off and changed channels.
I don't care what people do to themselves by using a known carcinogenic but as the NHS is under such pressure I do object to smokers using up our facilities because of their conscious habit.
Packaging in fancy boxes might be construed as advertising but I would have thought the manufacturers might be glad to get rid of the expensive box as long as it had a brand name on it. People who smoke know their brand and probably don't give the style of packet or any other message a second glance. How this nonsense about packaging came about Lord only knows but it has to be a real timewaster with, as far as I can see, no benefit.

I agree with banning it but slowly. Anyone under the age of 35 who smokes is clearly pretty foolish, but there is still a generation around who were told it was good for them. They are now hooked and it would seema little unfair to punish them.

Why not raise the age limit for purchasing cigarettes by a year, every year?

Good idea but difficult to check.

Branding isn't about keeping customers, it's about getting them and I suspect smokers and drinkers pay for themselves, judging by the tax they pay. I don't begrudge scroungers smoking: I'd rather be a tax payer than a benefits receiver.

It's not that they smoke, not all of them I might add, but scroungers who smoke but don't pay their dues so that you the tax payer is penalised by the shortfall of rental and rates. Those I begrudge.

On the other hand they pay a disproportionately high level of tax on the fags. Assuming they're not duty frees.

Yes, but it's my money that is paying the tax that I have already paid.

The biggest argument against prohibition is that you'll force a load of people addicted to nicotine who aren't necessarily bad people, to interact with a load of existing criminals who could well be, to supply their habit. Sure they could all give up smoking, but as we've heard from the OP, it isn't as easy as that for some people.

The only thing that's really likely to stop it is public opinion. In my youth, many years ago, it was quite acceptable to drink and drive, it isn't anymore, and whilst there are still offenders, they don't get much sympathy.

WTFAYTA


I understand that the tax yield from smokers is higher than the cost of smoking is to the NHS and people claiming benefits rather than work are people that are not competing for my job.

Absolutely. Social change is far more effective. Criminalisation is a clumsy weapon.

Sorry if that doesn't work for you.

I pay tax which pays their benefit

They spend the money on fags and pay tax on them but they don't pay their rent cos they've spent it on fags

I pay tax which makes up the rent shortfall that they haven't paid and no court will be able to make them pay

I've paid, as you have as well, for their expensive habit.

Do you see my logic ?

There's a lot more costs than that though, the clean ups, the drain blockages, and the working time lost to name a few.

Smokers don't work?

You've come in a bit late, the conversation had drifted towards scroungers who smoke. Nothing personal.

You mean the ones who feel the need to break into smoker's ash stations to get the butts out?
So sad.

Criminalisation is often the driver of social change - think racism, domestic abuse and indeed drink driving.

I'm not entirely convinced that it was criminalisation that made those things socially unacceptable. For example, drink driving has been illegal since the nineteenth century before there were any cars on the roads, but it was really only after the TV campaign that it became socially unacceptable. I agree with you that criminalization can affect social attitudes, but it doesn't necessarily dictate attitudes, and to be honest I'm not sure it's healthy that smoking should be despised like drink-driving, I'm sure it would be more effective if it was just seen as anachronistic, like whitebait, space-hoppers, and cravats.

Smoking / Drinking will not be banned because of the taxation revenue.
Government says:

"SMOKING / ALCOHOL IS BAD FOR YOU. IT CAN KILL YOU. YOU CAN BUY IT IN YOUR LOCAL SHOP".

And yet, and sorry to go there, Cannibis, which is less harmful than either of the above, is illegal.

Why not sell cannibis in shops and tax it.............worked wonders in some parts of the USA.

Then again, if tobacco / alcohol came out now, in such a way that cannabis has taken center stage in the war against drugs, they would be illegal...

I don't care what people do so long as it doesn't effect me.
What i care for is hypocracy within a government .... it's laughable.


as for people who have no jobs / are on benefits getting a fag... you make allowances to get what you want.
when i was broke no matter how broke i was, i still had fuel in my car (my car obviously being my form of tobacco if that makes any sense).

Unlike

Agreed.

Pros (few) and Cons (many): http://www.nhs.uk/livewell/drugs/pages/cannabis-facts.aspx

I know quite a few people who dabble in cannabis and they are all Muppet now with no direction in life.

Sorry Motormad, I am pretty strong on JeffG's "cons" point of view.
I have a son who took to weed in his 16s and his friends did as well.
We were all liberated parents , souls of the 60s.
So it was part of growing up. I didn't like smoking so I guess I was lucky.
I certainly have sunk a swimming pool of booze over the years.
But I still pay the bills.
It has wrecked at least 4 of my friends lives to have dope raddled middle aged children around our necks.
He's been unemployable for years. Nice chap. Sleeps all day and goes out after dark.
ce

And I know many who 'dabbled' for a while, and are leading normal productive lives having found no difficulty in giving up cannabis use. Much the same as alcohol, many partake in moderation to little disadvantage - a minority can be found begging on the streets for the price of a 'cuppa'. Some people just seem to be more inclined to addiction than others.

The issues with cannabis are mixed - on the one hand it is in itself less addictive and less harmful than legal drugs like booze or tobacco; on the other its illegality brings users into contact with users/dealers of more dangerous, harmful substances and the temptation to try them.

If you want someone to live a healthier life it is better they avoid all of these drugs, legal or not. If you see alcohol and tobacco as acceptable then it is difficult to argue against the decriminalisation of cannabis on health grounds.