UK Politics
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!ukpolitics@lemm.ee appears to have vanished! We can still see cached content from this link, but goodbye I guess! :'(
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I feel like I'm living on a completely different planet right now.
I'm really surprised to see that this tobacco ban has so many supporters on all sides of the political spectrum. I am also surprised to see so many people on Lemmy supporting this...
I'm all for making corpos squirm, especially ones which create products that are designed to be addictive (e.g. big tobacco). But let's not go around pretending that these businesses are the only victims of substance bans. For one, substance bans are always disproportionately applied to vulnerable minority groups.
Furthermore, folks who are motivated enough to acquire these substances despite bans will be more vulnerable to exploitation and adverse health effects than they already are. Big tobacco already does a great job of harming and exploiting folks. But at least we can regulate and monitor them. The customer can know with greater certainty exactly what each cigarette contains, you don't get that privilege when acquiring substances illegally. You can also be fairly confident as to the affordability of legal substances versus getting fleeced for your entire income by a dealer who knows personally just how addicted you are.
If nothing else, this is going to end up as a massive waste of time. It is a fools errand to ban substances, and history has shown this time and time again. I do not see any evidence that we have learned from history, of what we will be doing differently to make this work when it has failed in the past. This ban will not last more than a few years at most.
I really think people are overreacting to this.
The ban is of tobacco products to people born after a certain date. They'll still be able to get nicotine products, like vapes. Kids are already moving to vapes and they're significantly less deadly (and crucially less of a burden on the NHS).
This policy just ensures the generation shift away from smoking tobacco. It's a good thing.