Why Brexit couldn't save menthol cigarettes from prohibition
Monday, May 18, 2020 at 17:23 I have written an article for Brexit-Watch, the website edited by former MEP Brian Monteith. It begins:
Imagine you have been buying and enjoying the same product every day for 40 years or more. Imagine that product brought you pleasure and comfort in good times and bad. How would you feel if you were to visit your local convenience store or supermarket only to be told, "Sorry, we don’t sell that any more. The government has banned it.”
Yet that is the prospect facing hundreds of thousands of smokers this week. According to a poll conducted by Populus for the smokers’ group Forest, almost 40 per cent of smokers are unaware that on Wednesday 20th May it will no longer be legal for retailers to sell menthol cigarettes in the UK.
Those hardest hit will of course be law-abiding consumers whose freedom of choice will overnight be restricted by a regulation passed by the European Parliament without proper scrutiny from our own politicians in Westminster.
The gist of the article however is that even if the UK was free of EU regulations (we’re not) there was never any chance of the UK government reversing this unnecessary and spiteful measure.
After all, successive UK governments have taken great pleasure in going further and faster on tobacco control than any EU member state bar Ireland.
If that's not depressing enough and you can bear to read the rest of the article, click here.
Reader Comments (1)
Good analysis Simon. More evidence that a major political action campaign is needed to eradicate biased antismoker laws in the UK, EU, and beyond! Tobacco control's manipulation and political biases must be exposed.