• khannie@lemmy.world
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    4 days ago

    Straight up prohibition never works, especially with something like nicotine. Doing it by age will create a populous where it was never an option.

    New Zealand were going to do this before and honestly I thought it was a good way to phase out smoking for a population. They shelved it is I remember correctly.

    • sik0fewl@piefed.ca
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      4 days ago

      Doing it by age will create a populous where it was never an option.

      Because nobody would smoke if they were underage!

        • Chozo@fedia.io
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          3 days ago

          The only impact it will have is it will make smoking more dangerous, by removing what few regulations there already are in regards to the production of tobacco products. Alcohol prohibition in the US didn’t get rid of alcoholism, it just made drinking more dangerous as people turned to bathtub spirits that were made under questionable means. The amount of people who quit drinking directly because of prohibition is absolutely negligible.

          • zero_spelled_with_an_ecks@programming.dev
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            3 days ago

            Are they getting rid of regulations on tobacco products? Article says there will be more oversight. And because there are still legitimate avenues for people who aren’t impacted, there won’t be much support for black markets to develop.

            Some of the changes will prevent exposure of other people to smoke. That’s going to overall reduce danger from tobacco products at the population level. Even if it makes smoking more dangerous for those that defy the law, the number of people overall exposed to both firsthand and secondhand smoke is going to be reduced. I’d take that trade-off, but I don’t think the danger to would be smokers is going to increase.

            The amount of people who quit drinking directly because of prohibition was about 70% of the population at first decreasing to about 40% as prohibition continued. That’s not negligible. There are plenty of negative consequences that happened because of it, though. I don’t, however, think the UK is going to get a vape mafia.

        • sik0fewl@piefed.ca
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          4 days ago

          I’m not sure if it will have much of an impact, but I think it’s worth a shot.