Sounds good to me...

In huge agreement with you. But can it be done in a different way that doesn't create the black market problems of the prohibition era? (Do we have a better chance now with gen z's aversion to drugs/alcohol?)

Don't mistake media narratives about small percentage point swings for mass momentum. Especially when those swings are probably not even real: e.g. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/mar/05/gen-z-binge-...

I’m having a hard time coming up with a better way. Simply banning all manufacturing and import is not going to work when it’s heavily addictive. In the case of alcohol, quitting cold can kill you.

Banning it today and expecting people to cope, or attempt to fund recovery efforts for a whole nation would completely misunderstand the addicts mind. If you don’t want to quit, you never will.

Instead we have a total ban that is timeboxed to allow the addicts the rest of their lives to quit one way or another.

Awesome! Where can I sign?

It’s awesome to decide what your children, once they are adults, can’t do? Seems borderline psychopathic. Kinda sums up democracy in current times though.

If future generations want to smoke, they can change the law as easily as yours passed it.

Running government budgets further and further into deficit, believing that, as a result, your children will, some day, be in a stronger financial position to repay the resulting debt that, until that day, continues to grow at an ever-increasing rate?

That seems psychopathic.

Given the population pyramid, it would be impossible for them to change the law until they are well into old age.

You both have good points.

That's not how politics works, and you probably know it. "Easily passing laws" is not a matter of voting demographics but of political power, and any thinking person knows political power usually does not belong to younger voters.

> It’s awesome to decide what your children, once they are adults, can’t do?

You do realize that this is what basically every single law in existence does, right?

That my kids, and likely yours, once they're adults, can't drive under the influence, rob a bank, impersonate a cop, lie under oath, exercise medecine without a licence, walk downtown naked, jaywalk, evade taxes, criticize the King?

Well to be fair, it's not that they can't, it's that society is telling them there will be repercussions if they're caught. You can still technically do whatever you want.

Laws are threats made by the dominant socioeconomic-ethnic group in a given nation. It’s just the promise of violence that’s enacted and the police are basically an occupying army.

I've seen confusion about this before with people that I know.

You tell them it's against the law to drink, and they'll point out that it's restrictive and controlling. You tell them it's against the law to commit tax fraud, and they'll have no objection.

Why? I think, at least with the people that I know, it's related to what they want to be able to do. They want to be able to drink alcohol, so it feels controlling to tell them they can't. They aren't interested in committing tax fraud, so they're not bothered by that being restricted.

If you check it the other way around, you'll get consistency. Almost everyone that is against taxation is also against restrictions on consuming drink.

If you ask an addict then yeah you'll get some gibberish that enables them whether it fits into a logical paradigm or not.

I think it's also because a lot of people act like laws are passed down by god, immutable.

Reminder that slavery was legal.

you can but they can't. just plain hypocrisy.

I don't think this law is getting voted into existence by smokers, though.

The distinction here is, this law is a do as I say not as I do. Different laws for different dob ( dob not age )

Why would someone be pro-tobacco without a financial motive? What’s your angle on pushing this crap?

People have been using tobacco for many thousands of years. if they want to use it knowing full well the consequences, they should be able to. Unless we also ban things like skydiving, rock climbing, and fast cars and motorcycles, it makes no sense to me.

Why isn't prohibiting something known to cause harm a good thing? Plus, smoking doesn't just harm the individual doing it, its harm extends to those in the immediate (and sometimes not so immediate) vicinity, as well as the environment. There is literally zero good to gain from it.

I'd probably start learning how to homebrew beer.

Sounds like a great way to avoid alcohol addiction, prevent drunk driving deaths, and save countless generations from being negatively impacted in one way or another by alcohol.

Different apples. Cessation vs never starting is completely different.

A lot of young people don't drink anymore anyway tho. It's not as extreme as it sounds.

As someone who's been sober for only 16 months, not sure how I feel about this. It is surely unrealistic.

Apples to oranges. It worked (and works) with the advent of Islam in Muslim lands.

or prohibit going to church or practicing any kind of organized religion? would yield a lot more positive than banning alcohol

Prohibition doesn't work because people want to modulate their consciousness, chemically force-relax, reduce inhibitions, etc. It didn't work before, and it won't in the future. The more things are forbidden, the more taboo and attractive they become.

This banal, smiling, petty authoritarianism sickens me. Bodily autonomy trumps "common good" arguments, and where it somehow doesn't, injustice abides. Society's job isn't to crush individualism in order to create the safest and most financially efficient outcome. Shall we throw everyone in prison for their safety and protection next, and control their diet to ensure maximum healthspan and potential for participation in the labor market?

Rather than banning anything, point out at an early age that cigarettes stink, get you addicted, cost money forever, and cause health problems. Point out that alcohol makes you fat and causes heart problems and cancer. The accept that each person has the right to make a decision for themselves about what risks they're willing to accept to achieve a desired outcome, and that they have to own those consequences.

Don't want to pay for smokers' lung cancer treatment? Then only fund palliative care for smoking-related cancers. Man enough to smoke a pack a day, man enough to buy smokers' insurance. There, now we can live free.

Smokers already more than pay for their healthcare so punishing them further is silly. Not only is their lifetimehealthcare cheaper, because smoking disqualifies you from many procedures and kills most users right around retirement age before the expensive age-related care becomes common, but the sin-tax collected from smokers in most countries is larger than the average lifetime medical care cost.

It's basically taxing people for saving everybody else money.

An interesting point. So over the next ~60 years, the UK has committed itself to having to find a replacement for all the tax revenue that will be lost by eliminating tobacco products. Additionally, the number of people with longer lifespans will increase, necessitating more late-life care delivery through the NHS, which will also have to be funded.

Outcome: this will cost everyone a lot of money. Time to raise the retirement age to 80!

You have conveniently left out the cons and only listed the pros. That's just a comment in bad faith.

But "they" aren't. So your point is irrelevant.

Maybe start by tracking consumption against their ID.

Tho that creates significant black market incentive.

Other option is only serving ultra light drinks (2.5% beer, cider, sangria or cocktail).