Anticonsumption

353 readers

5 users here now

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

129

UK Prime Minister to create ‘smokefree generation’ by ending cigarette sales to those born on or after 1 January 2009 (www.gov.uk)

submitted 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) by activistPnk to c/anticonsumption

55 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I think it was the prime minister (or spokesperson) who made this very clever argument: (paraphrasing) “we are not taking away choice… cigarettes are designed to inherently take away your choice by trapping you in an addiction.”

I’m not picking sides here, just pointing out a great piece of rhetoric to spin the policy as taking away something that takes away your choice. Effectively putting forward the idea that you don’t have choice to begin with.

(sorry to say this rhetoric was not mentioned in the linked article; I just heard it on BBC World Service)

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] BluesF@lemmy.world 4 points 8 months ago (1 children)

The rhetoric seems clever, but it is based on very shaky logic. Smoking is a choice, I made it for years and eventually made the choice to stop. Banning the sale of tobacco also doesn't prevent smoking - it just prevents the government from taxing smoking. Just like weed, just like other drugs. We already have problems with unregulated vapes being sold to kids, surely this is only going to make that problem worse by driving even tobacco vape liquid sales underground?

[–] activistPnk 1 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

The ban is on cigs not really vapes it seems (apart from the flavored ones that attract kids). In which case people are being steered toward vaping, which will likely do well in competing against black market cigs. If the goal is to keep kids off the worst of the worst, focusing on cig bans while keeping unflavored vapes on the table would seem to be the most effective compromise.

I’m not endorsing it.. but just in terms of the gov achieving its goals (one of which is cancer reduction) it seems they will succeed to the extent possible with this approach.