- Technically, the new law will raise the legal age requirement in the UK for buying cigarettes, cigars or tobacco, which is currently 18, by one year in every subsequent year, starting on January 1, 2027
- This will effectively mean that people born on or after January 1, 2009 will never be eligible to buy them
- Retailers will face financial penalties for selling the products to those not entitled to them
- The government will also be empowered to impose a new registration system for smoking and vaping products entering the country, seeking to improve oversight
- The bill will expand the UK’s indoor smoking ban to a series of outdoor public spaces, for instance in children’s playgrounds, outside schools and hospitals
- Most indoor spaces that are designated smoke-free will become vape-free as well
- Smoking in designated areas outside pubs and bars and other hospitality settings will remain permissible
- Smoking and vaping will remain legal in people’s homes
- Vaping will become illegal in cars if someone under the age of 18 is inside, to match existing rules on smoking
- Advertising for smoking and vaping products will be banned
- People aged 18 or older will remain eligible to purchase vaping products, but some items targeted at younger consumers like disposable vapes have already been outlawed as part of the program
Why is my freedom to build bombs in my basement being overridden?
Oh that’s right, because laws are ultimately created based on relative perceptions of risks and social acceptance of the populace (generally, in a democratic society, there are a lot of exceptions here).
Note for my FBI agent : I’m not building bombs in my basement, I’m using that as an example of why we have laws at all.
Well to be honest, there is an argument for letting you build bombs in your basement. A bullet is effectively a bomb. Plenty of people make their own bullets/shells. Should they be forced to buy those from a company?
There is nuance to just about everything.
Laws should be restricted to protecting people from other people, not from themselves.
For very, very small definitions of “plenty”.
Sure, in that example, plenty is small. But who decides how small a group has to be to be allowed to take their rights away when they have committed no crime.
If a law is passed making what they’re doing illegal and they continue to do it, then they are committing a crime.
You really wrote that right? So don’t like someones rights. Justify taking them away because you wrote a law to make what they were doing a crime. It wasn’t a crime until you decided it was okay to take their rights away. So they hadn’t committed a crime when you made the law.
Sure there is an argument for letting me do anything, but when you keep persuing and reducing the argument, it eventually boils down to “Why do we even have laws at all?”
The answer to that question is “because we as a society decided to.” By their very nature, laws created by people are arbitrary and intangible, their only actual effect is derived from society’s willingness to actually enforce them.
If the laws were actually agreed upon by the people… but they aren’t. And most are really to protect businesses, not people.
But no, it doesn’t boil down to why have laws at all. Laws should protect people’s rights. Like the right to not get murdered. But that’s not what this is.
Okay, let’s play this out. Laws against murder remove my right to murder people. Just because you weren’t going to use that right doesn’t mean that I wasn’t going to.
Maybe you came in on a side thread. The only rights that should be considered for law are rights that impact others. It’s still a super large list. But your right to snoke in you basement isn’t on it. Your right to murder is.
It has nothing to do with using it or not. Just who it impacts directly.
A bullet isn’t even remotely “effectively a bomb.”
But the things you use can also be made into a bomb just by putting them in a pipe instead. Where is the line? Who decides?
Lots of things are made from the same ingredients. That doesn’t mean they’re the same thing.
Sure but how do you plan to make a law that makes it illegal to make bombs in your basement?
That’s already a law in many places.
Find one. Take a look at it. It bans the ingredients in certain quantities usually because it’s hard to argue with. Just saying “bomb making” is illegal ends up being highly objective. I mean, my propane tank is a kind of bomb really.
We’re kinda getting into the weeds here man. What you’re describing is just banning a bomb with extra steps. Regardless, I don’t know what this has to do with your original assertion that an ammo cartridge is basically a bomb.
But you’ve never had that freedom. Do you really not see the difference between taking away freedom that people have had for thousands of years and a hypothetical that nobody has ever had?
People who were not permitted to buy tobacco and vape products are not losing a freedom they had either.
Regardless, laws are written and removed constantly throughout our lifetime. It’s not legal for me to park where I used to, it’s not legal for me to bring a big bottle of orange juice or a tube of toothpaste on a plane anymore. The fact that things can become illegal or legal is a necessary consequences of having laws that can be changed.
Also, you could legally make your own explosives right up until there was a law passed that made it illegal. There isn’t some universal property that says humans aren’t allowed to make explodey shit.
Yes, they literally are losing that freedom. Just because it may come later in life, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.
Just remember that laws are not inherently moral or ethical. What people do in their own time in their own space is their own business, as long as they’re not doing it in a way that puts other people in danger. This is purely about control and you’re just wolfing that boot down.
Smoking does put other people in danger. So does driving, or skipping vaccines.
Yes… That’s kinda my whole point. The sole basis for a law is if people decide to enact it and then enforce it.
You understand that if we change laws, then things that were previously legal will become illegal and vis versa? This avenue of argument ends in “Laws can never be created, removed, or changed.”