Plans to stop young people born since 2009 ever smoking are being debated and will be voted on later.
Rishi Sunak’s bill aims to create the UK’s first smoke-free generation in a major public health intervention.
The Tobacco and Vapes Bill would ensure anyone turning 15 from this year would be banned from buying cigarettes, and also aims to make vapes less appealing to children.
A number of Tory MPs have told the BBC they won’t back the bill.
The BBC understands that Business and Trade Secretary Kemi Badenoch is considering voting against the plans.
Smoking does cost society money. Where medical care is subsidised by the public; we sure should prevent people from making money of selling self destructive stuff.
People shouldn’t have to be treated like children just because there’s public healthcare. People should be allowed to smoke, do drugs, and eat cheeseburgers if they want to.
IIRC in the US, it’s revenue-positive for the government. Smokers tend to die earlier, and on average don’t collect various old-age benefits, and that outweighs the costs.
googles
This was from 1989, so inflation will have changed the dollar values, but I doubt that it’s changed qualitatively:
https://www.nber.org/system/files/chapters/c11584/c11584.pdf
Put down that bag of chips, fatty.