Earlier than 2007, going out in town within the UK concerned inhaling secondhand smoke – on trains, in eating places, in golf equipment and in pubs. Even non-smokers would discover {that a} stale tobacco scent may linger after a night out. The ban on smoking indoors in public locations modified issues nearly in a single day.
Now with smoking charges among the many inhabitants plummeting, the federal government goes a step additional: it intends to ban the sale of tobacco to anybody born earlier than 2009. To that age cohort onwards, the sale of cigarettes can be prohibited.
As Ben Quinn, the Guardian’s political correspondent, tells Helen Pidd, it’s a coverage that has by no means been tried wherever else on the planet. New Zealand got here shut however in the end has not enacted an analogous ban. Critics have been lining as much as denounce it as unworkable and intolerant.
The federal government admits it can result in seeming absurdities whereby in future a 40-year-old can be barred from shopping for cigarettes however their 41-year-old associate wouldn’t be. However the public seems to assist the invoice – and with Labour and different opposition events in assist too it’s nearly sure to develop into legislation this 12 months.
{Photograph}: Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto/REX/Shutterstock
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