Once again I find myself firmly aligned with dear old barking Lizzie Truss, Big Dog Boris and Sir Roland Bufton-Tufton MP (Con). This proposed smoking ban is too much. Stop picking on smokers! You've had your fun. I know there are few minorities against whom you can discriminate and oppress these days, but don't take out all your authoritarian jackboot fantasies on us poor puffers. Just because you know you'll be backed by millions of smug, pained-face, nose-fanning, oh-so-holy, middle class twåtterati. LEAVE US IN PEACE! We do NOT need saving, thanks very much all the same for your concern. Mind yer own blessed business. From the lord enjoying a fine Romeo y Julieta cigar after his expensive lunch, to us humble souls huddled round the back door of work for a nerve-soothing rollie, to good friends enjoying and sharing a big fat Herby one together. My god you've hammered and cursed and banned us already. You've got us paying £12.50 for a packet of simple oily rags! £12.50!! English! Not pesos. Can't smoke here, can't smoke there. It's un-fackin-conservative! My god.... Leave. Us. Alone!
I'm a non smoker, so it doesn't effect me. But isn't it just for anyone who is currently 14 or under, who won't be able to buy cigarettes? Guessing that you're over 14, therefore very unlikely to be effected. As long as they increase benefits so Sharon, Tracey, Daz and Wayne can still afford them over food for their kids, i don't really care.
I can’t be with you on this one Clive. It was the fags that did for my dear old mother. I mean not directly, she got run over on her way to the tobacconist, but I still hold them responsible.
Affected compadre. Affected. Quick edit it before Keighley gets here. Yes, it only affects the poor youth. They don't know and won't put up much fight. What a sneaky trick. Richie says he wants that to be his grand legacy to the world. A dirty, sneaky ban on folk's little bit of enjoyment. Smarmy, whingy, little puritan half-yankee-doodle, Tory tosspot.
And you KNOW they'll come for the booze next, don't you? Oh, but the health concerns! Look how it costs the NHS! Shame! Let's make it really, really expensive and then gradually BAN it! I don't drink myself, so why not? It'll be a legacy is what it'll be. Just leave those blue label bottles of beer-flavored zero alcohol and nice chemical mocktails. We should have took to the streets and set light to the barricades when they banned Capstan Full Strength and packets of 10.
Just heard on the radio that tobacco brings in around £10bn to the treasury each year. OK its going to take 10 to 15 years before this starts to kick in, but thats a huge amount that will be passed on to the next generation.
I wonder if it would be possible to grow your own tobacco after the ban? A bit of hydroponics and lights. Drying racks in the greenhouse. I mean you wouldn't then be 'buying' fags would you?
Who would actually take up smoking if it wasn't "cool" and easy to get? As drugs go it's really a **** one. Harder to kick than smack with none of the buzz.
I feel sorry for our young people who are going to be hounded for enjoying the innocent pleasure of fags. I gave up years ago but not a day goes by that I don't regret my foolish decision to kick the habit before it killed me. I am currently considering taking up pipe smoking. A pipe clenched between the teeth while mowing the lawn or tinkering under the bonnet of a Morris Minor is the ultimate expression of masculinity
Also a pipe is excellent for giving advice to people and can be waved in the direction of whatever you're talking about.
My Uncle Mike (season ticket holder in the Taylor era) smoked a pipe in his twenties and thirties. Looking back now, this seems a little odd. However, he also owned a Morgan, so perhaps it was the tinkering under the hood bit that led him in that direction.
Suppose they found a cure for cancer and all the ills of smoking in the future. Pound to a pinch of shįt they'd still press on and ban fags anyway. Puritan, killjoy, bucket-of-water-over-the-fiesta muthafakas...
One of the Torie rebels made a great point in yesterdays debate In 25 years time, how is a shop keeper going to be able to say yes to a 41 year old But no to a 40 year old, when buying cigarettes. The ban works on the U16's for the next 10 years only
Well, in the same way that you would say yes to an 18 year old and no to a 17 year old buying booze, surely? But in any case, the point is that if those aged U16 now have no opportunity to try tobacco, they won’t have any incentive to do so in later life.
Asking for ID from a 17/18 year old will be a lot easier to ask for and age to judge compared to someone in their 40s I'm knocking on 60, but look 20 years older than Brad Pitt, who is the same age. If they think kids of 14, 15 haven't tried vaping or smoking then they are delusional, yet they are still under age.
I would suspect that middle-aged people (and above) are going to have to get used to carrying ID if they want their fix. Yes, many kids that age will have tried it but if they can't now easily continue, the hope is that they will just quit. And the 9,10, 11 year olds etc will never get around to starting. Imo a more serious objection is the likely creation of a black market and associated criminal activity.
It'll be fine. The AI shopkeeper won't serve them when the barcode on their forehead is scanned and shows their real age.
Good. Make vapes only available by prescription to those using it to get of ciggies while you're at it as well.
They can ask for ID for all cigarette sales. Besides, in 2048, the number of 40 year olds wanting to smoke will be vanishingly small.
My ex wife’s grandfather grew tobacco in his Doncaster garden. Dried it in the loft. He had enough to fuel his pipe for most of the year. bearing in mind that the slave trade grew to serve the tobacco plantations. Plus the current use of child labour in its production. And the fact that UK tobacco profits are >£1 billion. You wonder why any progressive would tolerate the stuff.
it’s cardiovascular disease that is the principle killer for smokers. My dad a regular smoker from 14 to 79 with a decade of abstinence from 60 to 70 until the pain in his blood starved legs drove him back on to the roll ups. Despite five major surgeries in his groin to by pass his clogged up arteries. Eventually he lost one leg to it. Then the two heart attacks. I think it was the first - seeing him suffer the agony from the drain they stuck into his lungs at Harefield. And by the way the black ooze that drains out from the pipe they (literally) punch into your lungs either side of your spine, is not congealed blood - that made me realise that actually lung cancer would have been a more merciful end.
I read this pronounced in RP with cut glass vowels, whilst turning the nose up a little and fanning the face with one hand.
You stink. (You might not think you do, but as practically no one in my circle smokes any more, when an old friend came out for dinner who had to go out for a fag three times during the meal, sitting next to him was not very nice. Of course, no one would have dreamed of mentioning it.) This is why my dad always got caught out when he claimed to have given up after nagging from my mum. He died of COPD. It was horrible. It is a hard, hard habit to kick. I was on 40 a day by my early 30's when I packed it in, after starting at 14.
