Politics and appeasement – be careful what you wish for
Wednesday, May 1, 2024 at 10:17 According to a newspaper report in Ireland yesterday, the Irish Government is to consider raising the legal age of sale of tobacco ‘within weeks’:
Health Minister Stephen Donnelly flagged his intention earlier this month to seek government approval to ban the sale of tobacco products to anyone under the age of 21 as part of a wider strategy to create a tobacco-free generation.
For the record, Forest is firmly against raising the age of sale of cigarettes and other tobacco products.
Our view is that once you’re legally an adult at 18 you should be treated like one, and if you can legally drive a car, join the army, purchase alcohol, and vote, at 18 you should be allowed to buy tobacco too.
That said, we acknowledge that, in the UK, raising the age of sale to 20 or 21 would be better than Rishi Sunak’s generational ban so although we could never support it, it wouldn’t be the worst option.
In Ireland however an incremental ban is not currently on the table so it’s not yet an issue, hence our strongly worded opposition to increasing the age of sale to 21.
To its credit, the Examiner was quick to report our reaction (Pro-smoking (sic) campaigners challenge plan to raise age limit for buying cigarettes) which led to a comment on X by Tom Gleeson, co-founder of the New Nicotine Alliance Ireland, who tweeted:
TBF This is a good policy idea, raising the age gate is a supportable policy as long as non combustible alternatives remain available. If both are included then all we do move the illegal market up an age bracket.
‘Good policy idea’? Be careful what you wish for, Tom. It might benefit ‘non combustible alternatives’ in the short-term, but how long before even reduced risk nicotine products are subject to similar age restrictions in the future?
The tobacco playbook is coming for vaping too. In fact, the process has already started - public vaping bans, increased restrictions on marketing and packaging, excise duty on e-liquids etc - and it will only get worse.
Meanwhile, in a statement issued yesterday by the UK Vaping Industry Association - who are understandably indignant that neither they nor any vaping groups have been called to give evidence to the Tobacco and Vapes Bill Committee - it was noted that:
The UKVIA is broadly supportive of the aims of the Tobacco and Vapes Bill.
Of course they are! The UKVIA wants to eradicate smoking and replace it with vaping. But after that? Don’t they realise there is no appeasing government or the ‘public health’ industry?
If government achieves its 2030 smoke free objective in England (which the UKVIA seems to support), does the vaping industry seriously believe that making vaping history won’t be the next logical step?
It can't have gone unnoticed that the Tobacco and Vapes Bill includes a ban on disposable vapes plus potential restrictions on flavours and packaging.
And this from a 'Conservative' government that was thought to be relatively liberal in its attitude to vaping and only a year ago put vaping (and its Swap to Stop scheme) at the heart of its tobacco control policy.
Does the UKVIA seriously believe things will end there, especially under a Labour government whose shadow health secretary Wes Streeting has promised to ‘come down like a ton of bricks’ on the vaping industry?
Appeasement never works and saying you’re ‘broadly supportive of the aims of the Tobacco and Vapes Bill’ will not only encourage government to be even more repressive, it is yet another example of smoking being thrown under the bus by vaping advocates who refuse to acknowledge that freedom of choice should apply equally to future generations of adults who want to smoke, vape, or do both.
Instead, by supporting the Government’s goal of a smoke free society by an arbitrary date, the vaping industry is effectively sealing its own long-term fate.
Then again, why would most vaping entrepreneurs care? They’ll have made their money and sold their businesses long before vaping, like smoking, is marginalised, stigmatised, and eradicated.
Update: After the Examiner posted its report on X yesterday, Green Party TD Neasa Hourigan had a little dig at Forest.
Here’s her tweet, highlighting our UK origins, with our response (below). The link, btw, takes you to this post, John Mallon RIP. I hope she reads it.
Reader Comments (5)
Vaping organisations deserve all that's coming and we smokers know only too well what that is. Bans, bans, and more bans. We know appeasement doesn't work. It just concedes another slice of the prohibition cake until the government comes for the lot.
They may think their product is the saviour of the age but many people despise it and would love for it to be removed from the market especially as it is very clear, age limit or not, that kids are vaping in huge numbers like they once smoked back in the 60s and 70s.
There are also genuine concerns because we do not know the long term effects of vaping yet. 20 years is nothing compared to 600 years of smoking. For sure back in my day, we never heard of kids being hospitalised because of sneaking a cig behind the bike shed, or smoking after school with their mates, like we hear all too often today of kids being hospitalised due to over indulgence of a vaping habit.
The product is already in the hands of the black market with trading standards raids often uncovering stashes of the illegal type of vape high in nicotine, with the number of puffs well over the limit and in a variety of bright colours and flavours meant to appeal to children more than adults.
Instead of being so smug and self assured that anti smokers believe their mantra that Vaping can save the world (hallelujah) they should join with those in favour of free choice to fight together to stop government encroaching on our lifestyle choices and stop overregulation of both products to ensure that regulation that works can do the job it is meant to without going so far it encourages the non regulated, contaminated, black market to step in and supply the demand that, like it or not, is there for both smoking and vaping.
If anti smokers and bullies in Government want smokers to vape instead of smoke, while saying that non smokers should not vape, it is because they want to use smokers as guinea pigs to test the long term effects of vaping on people whose lives they clearly believe are worthless and worth sacrificing and not because they believe for one minute that "ecigs save lives."
Raising the minimum age to buy tobacco to 21 doesn't matter at all, all that it will do is trim off the sales of tobacco from those who are 18, 19 or 20 and from those who needn't smoke who won't in the end get needlessly addicted to something they don't really need. That's what happened in America where the smoking age has been set to 21 by Donald Trump in 2019, where smoking rates have reached record low levels. But that is necessary to happen here as well in order to avoid the generational smoking ban.
Setting the legal age to buy tobacco to 21 is not an anti-smoking restriction or any restriction at all might I add, it is not like having a smoking ban, not like having plain packaging, not like having higher cigarette prices to avoid their sale, which are being robbed from those who are paying them anyway, it is rather than that an expected measure and form of legitimate regulation to achieve the ends that these means are set to achieve. Fully reasonable and balanced in compromise, setting the minimum age requirement to buy tobacco to 21 has avoided localised generational smoking bans in the United States, because Donald Trump knows what he is doing. It is good that this is being proposed in Ireland, and to prove the reason why, it would be good if it were proposed here as well as an amendment to the Tobacco and Vapes bill.
'Raising the minimum age to buy tobacco to 21 doesn't matter at all, all it will do is trim off the sales of tobacco from those who are 18, 19 or 20 and from those who needn't smoke who won't in the end get needlessly addicted to something they don't really need ...
'Setting the legal age to buy tobacco to 21 is not an anti-smoking restriction or any restriction at all ... it is not like having a smoking ban, not like having plain packaging, not like having higher cigarette prices ...
'It is good that this is being proposed in Ireland, and ... it would be good if it were proposed here as well as an amendment to the Tobacco and Vapes Bill.'
Those are your quotes, Costas, and here's my response.
An amendment raising the age of sale from 18 to 21 in the UK would obviously be better than a generational ban, but it's still wrong, in principle and in practise.
As for everything else, I think we'll have to agree to disagree.
Many thanks for responding to my comment, Mr. Clark!
All I was saying is that it is preferable to the generational smoking ban to set the minimum age to 21 and I am glad that you agree and get my point! That's what I mean, but I thought that because the minimum age requirement is being discussed in parliament there is little alternative to avoid what Sunak is about to craft for us other than proactively proposing to set the minimum age to 21. Additionally, it is not a substantial loss just because it is a decreasing value concerning smoking which is persecuted in other much worse ways and not with that measure. I thought that Donald Trump has been able to avoid incremental tobacco bans proposed in some areas of America by having that measure in place, whether he consciously realises it or not. I was also able to discern from the effect of a restriction that is unconstitutional and unjust towards the citizen like indoor or even generational smoking bans versus the effect of a legitimate form of regulation constituting a measure like having the age restriction set to 21. That latter restriction is part of a legitimate form of regulation while arbitrary restrictions like bans and tax hikes and plain packaging are illegitimate for politicians to decide based on having to obey the constitution. Setting the age limit to 21 is not arbitrary or unconstitutional or oppressive and illegitimate to perform anywhere near the exchange of blackmail performed by indoor and generational smoking bans. The purpose it has is to prevent and deter underage smoking while at the same time waiting for young citizens to obtain a meaningful purpose in life like getting into university or deciding or making plans about their work before they start thinking about smoking and what it would be. This also limits and controls the way in which individuals can abuse their freedom by using it in the wrong way to the detriment of others and society because they obtain that certain freedom at a later stage like I mentioned.
Anyway, Rishi Sunak and his government seem to be giving enough detailed attention to what they have named the Tobacco and Vapes bill by treating it close to the way he treated the Windsor Framework or the Safety of Rwanda bill, by acting wisely and which I think he both succeeded in. He could well be controlling a future Labour government which declared that it will come down like a ton of bricks on this sort of bill by trying to avoid implementing it by them which would be certain.
First of all, smoking is not an addiction. It is a habit. I have never known anyone who wanted to quit not able to do so easily with a bit of willpower. Quitting does not change their life just their routine in a slightly different way.
I have know heroin addicts who were addicted who could not stop because of the physical repercussions even though they had made up their mind and desperately wanted to. Many died young, others literally had to move away from their home town and everyone they knew to be able to create a barrier between them and their addiction.
Secondly, the age to be able to legally smoke was 16 back in the 60s, and 70s when so many underage kids smoked, when it was raised to 18, underage kids still smoked so thinking that age laws make a difference and stop young people smoking who want to is just wrong.
To call for an age to smoke now to be 21 in a bid to stop extremists from pushing their dream of tobacco prohibition is not even appeasement, it is simply surrender and suggests agreement with even the craziest claims of the anti smoker extremists.
The best way to stop underage smokers, and to persuade adults to quit is not with clearly unrealistic and hysterical scaremongering or prohibition, but rational education, and covert denormalization as opposed to publicly celebrated stigmatisation and state bullying, which just makes smokers who do not want to quit say F...You to the puritans, anti smokers, and any old uninformed Tom, Dick or Harry who jumps aboard the bandwaggon because they think they know how smokers think or act based on their own prejudices.
Also those people are so uncool that any underage teenager will do anything to not be like them even if that means grabbing a cigarette in defiance as a way of saying their body is theirs and their mind is their own.