You’re an adult at 18 and should be allowed to purchase tobacco
Wednesday, December 6, 2023 at 14:45 
Today is the closing date for submissions to the Government consultation, 'Creating a smokefree generation and tackling youth vaping'.
A new poll has found that almost three-fifths (58%) of people in Britain say that when people are 18 and legally an adult they should be allowed to purchase cigarettes and other tobacco products.
The survey, conducted by Yonder Consulting for Forest, found that 58% of respondents think that if a person can vote, drive a car, buy alcohol, or possess a credit card at 18, they should also be allowed to purchase tobacco.
Fewer than a third (32%) said they should not be allowed to purchase tobacco products when they are legally an adult at 18, while 10% said 'don't know'.
The Government will ignore it, of course, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't share it as widely as possible.
If, however, you're in any doubt about the Government's plans, this press release (Plans progressed to create a smokefree generation), issued today, makes clear their partisan position.
It includes quotes from ASH, Cancer Research UK, and Asthma + Lung UK.
It's almost as if, since the PM's announcement of a tobacco sales ban at the Conservative conference in Manchester in October, Downing Street and the DHSC have decided they no longer have to even pretend to remain neutral during a 'public' consultation.
Plans to introduce the most significant public health intervention in a generation and phase out smoking are progressing at pace, as the government’s consultation closes today.
It must be extremely liberating, but what a joke.
PS. The Telegraph is reporting that 'Vapes could be prescription-only under Labour government'.
Out of the frying pan and into the fire …
Reader Comments (2)
What is the point of elections when Prime Ministers are selected and not elected, and non elected civil servants make policies and laws. Why can't they be honest and admit we live in a dictatorship and say do the consultation by all means but we won't listen because the real rulers in Whitehall have told us not to.
Andrea Leadsom is a disgrace. She is trying to play the victim because she began smoking at 14 and claiming it is a lifelong addiction but dishonestly omits that she quit the habit 40 years ago when she was 20.
The Government is gaslighting smokers and using us as scapegoats for the failures to properly manage the NHS and cash cows for a whole industry set up to make money out of bullying us.
Meanwhile the next target in their sights, the overweight, are being lined up as the next to become abused, bullied and lied about by politicians bereft of ideas on how to improve lives but wanting to make a name for themselves.
Just imagine if they were discussing a law instead that promises no person born after 2009 would ever face homelessness? There are so many far more worthy causes to improve future lives but this current lot of political pygmies have absolutely no clue on how to make anything better for anyone.
Smokers and smoking are easy targets and our political class of elite snobs attack it because it is easy to do.
Who can save us from these nasty intolerant fascists? Who is worth voting for now when democracy is dead and the democratic system is nothing more that an exercise in pretending it exists.
They make me sick.
“ … the next target in their sights, the overweight, are being lined up as the next to become abused, bullied and lied about …”
And you can bet your bottom dollar that the inconvenient fact that obesity rates have risen at almost exactly the same pace as smoking rates have fallen will be quietly ignored, too. It must be very frustrating to be one of those people who have given up smoking to stop the bullying, harassment and persecution and subsequently piled on the pounds - only to discover that they are now being set up as the new punchbag for the very people whom they hoped to appease by giving up smoking in the first place! They must wonder why they bothered. It’s enough to drive anyone (anyone who can see which way the wind is blowing, that is) back to smoking again!