Prime Minister to create ‘smokefree generation’ by ending cigarette sales to those born on or after 1 January 2009
www.gov.uk
Government to introduce historic new law to protect future generations of young people from the harms of smoking.

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)

    • @jpeps
      2•7 months ago

      Isn’t that the same thing, only making the cutoff 2006 instead of 2009?

    • @[email protected]English
      1•7 months ago

      What is the minimum age there in the UK? Here in the United States, it’s 18. And alcohol is 21. I would say raise that to at least 21 to match alcohol.