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There are two separate issues here: 1. will this work (will the UK stop smoking) 2. is this something the UK government should be doing Setting aside 1 and loo

by gcanyon 6mo ago

There are two separate issues here: 1. will this work (will the UK stop smoking) 2. is this something the UK government should be doing Setting aside 1 and looking at 2, it seems silly to me to point out that other things (alcohol) that cause problems and are not being restricted. You take the wins where you find them, and the government isn't a magical force that can impose its will on the people arbitrarily. This is obviously the government responding to the general sense of the people (perhaps putting its thumb on the scale). The UK doesn't support cigarettes, so the law gets passed. If someone has a public opinion poll there showing less than 50% support for this, I'd love to see it.

squigz 6mo ago
From the government's perspective, this may (or may not) be silly. But putting that aside, if a citizen supports banning cigarettes for people born after a certain date, but not alcohol, that certainly seems hypocritical to me.
- brador 6mo ago
  We know the dangers of second hand smoke. Someone drinking near you does not impact your health.
  - Ylpertnodi 6mo ago
    You've probably never been out on a Friday night in the Uk.
    - drcongo 6mo ago
      This comment doesn't deserve the downvotes, it's a very valid point.
      - lokar 6mo ago
        Is it really that bad? Is there something I can read to learn more?
        JumpCrisscross 6mo ago
        > Is it really that bad? I say this as someone who quite enjoys his drink–you haven't seen a hardcore drinking culture until you've dodged multiple projectile vomiters in SoHo at like 5PM on a random Tuesday.
        ben_w 6mo ago
        I somehow managed to avoid experiencing this despite living in the UK up to the age of 34.
        drcongo 6mo ago
        I'm a bit late responding on my own sub-thread, but if you haven't seen these photos before, this is roughly what every city centre in the UK looks like after dark. https://www.maciejdakowicz.com/cardiff-after-dark/ https://www.maciejdakowicz.com/cardiff-after-dark/
        ben_w 6mo ago
        Not Havant, though I was there to 18 and would've only had the independence to examine the nightlife for the two years in which I was doing my A-levels; not Aberystwyth as a university student, nor Plymouth city in my industrial year even though I lived here: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Capitol+Students+Central+Point+Student+Accommodation/@50.3706289,-4.1429754,64m https://www.google.com/maps/place/Capitol+Students+Central+P... Likewise, Cambridge was far too genteel for that, when I lived there. Sheffield managed one night that would've fitted in with those pictures. When my partner and I walked past the football stadium as everyone was leaving.
        drcongo 6mo ago
  - squigz 6mo ago
    It doesn't? That should be good news for victims of drunk driving, and the families of abusive drunks.
    - afavour 6mo ago
      There’s still a difference, surely? Drinking alcohol can lead to drunk driving and it can lead to abuse. Thankfully in the vast majority of instances it doesn’t. Second hand smoke, however, inflicts damage the moment it’s inhaled.
      - squigz 6mo ago
        I'm not saying there's no difference. I just don't that difference is as pronounced as some people think, and I don't think it excuses the apparent double standard. Brief Googling also suggests that second-hand smoke affects at least similar levels of people as drunk driving, if not more - to say nothing of e.g. domestic violence. Not to mention, there are already various laws designed to mitigate the effects of second-hand smoke, such as not smoking indoors or in cars with children. Overall, I am just not convinced that it's necessary to focus so much more on cigarettes over other drugs.
        afavour 6mo ago
        > there are already various laws designed to mitigate the effects of second-hand smoke And there are already various laws designed to prevent drunk driving and drunk domestic abuse. I think the broader picture here is a simple one: drinking alcohol is more societally acceptable than smoking. A government is going to be reflective of its voters, “necessary” or not, a law to ban drinking would be enormously unpopular in a way a law to ban smoking would not.
        squigz 6mo ago
        > I think the broader picture here is a simple one: drinking alcohol is more societally acceptable than smoking. A government is going to be reflective of its voters, “necessary” or not, a law to ban drinking would be enormously unpopular in a way a law to ban smoking would not. Sure, and this is why I put aside the issue of whether the government is doing the "right" thing in its position and focused on the people who it supposedly reflects - because it doesn't make sense to me that one is more acceptable than the other to an individual, and thinking so doesn't seem to reflect any sort of realistic view on alcohol and its impact on society, while holding cigarettes to a much higher standard.
  - hyperpape 6mo ago
    With all due respect, this is completely wrong. There is a difference that someone smoking nearby automatically harms people around you. With alcohol, the effect is more unpredictable, but it is equally real. Alcohol is a factor in an automobile crashes, and a factor in a significant proportion of violent crime, especially domestic violence (https://www.cato-unbound.org/2008/09/17/mark-kleiman/taxation-specific-prohibition/ https://www.cato-unbound.org/2008/09/17/mark-kleiman/taxatio... edit: this source isn't as great, Kleiman has written elsewhere about the subject, but google is failing me). If we could wave a magic wand and cause drinking to cease to exist, many lives would be saved. Note: I do in fact drink, I am not a teetotaler. But what I said above is factual. I personally believe that prohibition would be worse, and it's reasonable for individuals to make their own choices. But that does not entail denying that it goes very badly for many.
    - Findecanor 6mo ago
      Second-hand smoke does affect people around you. It is how people get addicted to nicotine. It is how new smokers are created. And there are some people who are more sensitive to temporary exposure to smoke (and pollution in general) than others. That is why smoking tends to be is banned around hospitals and day care centers — because those are places where you will find those people. My father was one of them, after he had got his larynx removed for throat cancer after having smoked for decades. He could not suffer being subjected to even small amounts of second-hand smoke again because then the breathing hole in his throat would get irritated, fill up with mucus and have to be cleaned with a suction device. And if you drink alcohol next to me, it does not make my clothes and my hair stink so much afterwards that I will want to wash my hair and change my clothes before going to bed.
      - Gud 6mo ago
        No, but the person drinking next to you can suddenly decide you gave them a bad look and decide to pick a fight.
      - hyperpape 6mo ago
        Why are you replying as if I denied second hand smoke harms people? I very clearly said it did.
  - Sweepi 6mo ago
    iirc alcohol is the drug with the highest amount of 3rd party harm due to the high number of people beating their spouse, children and sometimes random strangers under the influence. (+ 3rd party property, car crashes, ...) Keep in mind this was evaluated with current laws, which bans most kinds of indoor-smoking. Still a good idea to ban cigarettes and force people to consume their nicotine in healthier ways.
  - hagbard_c 6mo ago
    That is, until that person gets behind the wheel or on a (motor)bike and impacts you - and with that, your health - directly. Having said that I don't like the nanny society which acts like it knows better. People sometimes want to do stupid things and I think they should be able to do so. They should also not burden society with the consequences of their stupid actions so smokers either pay in more for health insurance or get relegated to the bottom tier - e.g. "palliative care for smoking-induced illnesses, no life-extending treatments for smoking-related diseases". No smoking where it impacts others negatively - this includes minors living in their house - but if they want to smoke where it doesn't impact others just let them do it.
    - ErroneousBosh 6mo ago
      > That is, until that person gets behind the wheel or on a (motor)bike and impacts you - and with that, your health - directly. Which is something weirdly North American - it's insane how okay USians are with drinking and driving considering how Puritanical they are about drinking generally.
      - hagbard_c 6mo ago
        Are they? I have not experienced this myself. The Americans I met seemed to have the same position towards DUI as the north-western and northern Europeans I know: it is a bad idea which leads to needless accidents, injuries and death. Being a north-western European living in northern Europe I know far more of the latter two than I know Americans but, having visited the country many times for business and a few times for pleasure (north, south, east and west) I haven't met anyone who considered it 'OK' to drink and drive even though I did meet a few who did so anyway. The same is true for the Europeans I mentioned, some do get behind the wheel while they know they shouldn't.
  - guzfip 6mo ago
    > Someone drinking near you does not impact your health. Hah, alcoholics have done more damage to my life than a smoker could ever dream of.
  - wookmaster 6mo ago
    If you just ignore alcohol fueled violence, birth defects, deaths from drivers hitting people and cars and the emotional health toll to others from dealing with an alcoholic, sure.
  - temp0826 6mo ago
    Grow up with an alcoholic parent then get back to us
  - joquarky 6mo ago
    I know at least one hacker news reader who didn't grow up with an alcoholic parent. Congratulations!
- LeChuck 6mo ago
  Sure, maybe, arguably. Does it matter though? A world without smoking is still better than a world with smoking, right?
  - noduerme 6mo ago
    A world without hypocrisy would be better still.
  - squigz 6mo ago
    Perhaps. The viability of that aside, I would rather attempt to create that world with things like education rather than the government mandating it. That tends not to work out as intended.
  - AlexandrB 6mo ago
    And a world where the government tells you what to eat, what to drink, and how much to exercise under penalty of jail is the best of all worlds!
  - oceanplexian 6mo ago
    [dead]
- drcongo 6mo ago
  Don't forget gambling. Though given that the gambling lobby were the only donor's to Starmer's leadership campaign that out-donated the pro-Israel lobbyists, I wouldn't bet on them doing something about it. Pun intended. Edit: just realised I posted under the wrong comment. Doh.
- FatherOfCurses 6mo ago
  Incremental change isn't a thing? Focusing on one health area, which will certainly be a massive undertaking, instead of trying to wipe out all unhealthy things at the same time?
- X0Refraction 6mo ago
  I think there is a reasonable argument to be made that they're a different degree of societal problem. I think there's quite a few people who drink on special occasions, but not every week or even every month (I'm one of them). I think it's very rare though for a smoker to not smoke several a day. A friend of mine was that rare breed and would buy a 10 pack occasionally - usually on a Friday and it'd be gone by Monday - but that would maybe be once a month. I think every other smoker I've met though goes through that amount every day. So it seems to me the average smoker is much more likely to become a burden on a nationalised health service than the average drinker. There's more to this of course, smoking to excess generally doesn't increase the chances of you getting into a fight like drinking does for some people, but social pressure counters that partially too.
  - joquarky 6mo ago
    Smoking may be a burden on the healthcare system, but the effects of alcohol are a burden to everyone due to the resulting erratic and often directly destructive behavior.
    - X0Refraction 6mo ago
      Being a burden on the healthcare system in a country that has nationalised healthcare is being a burden on everyone through increased taxes and reduced spending in areas the money could be more useful. Those erratic behaviours you talk about are generally illegal in most countries as well with drink driving, public intoxication, assault laws etc. Drinking does have some positives as well, pubs are one of the few third spaces we have remaining. I know there are alternatives, but there are people who won't socialise in a cafe or a book club, but will go to the pub to see the regulars. Considering lots of Western countries have loneliness epidemics I think there'd be a downside to removing that option. Drinking does seem to lubricate social situations, weed can help with pain etc. The only upside from smoking for the individual as far as I can tell is that it fixes the problem it created from you being addicted to it i.e. you get calmer when you get your fix.
- larrik 6mo ago
  A minority of people who drink are addicted to alcohol. Basically everyone who smokes/etc is addicted to nicotine. They aren't the same at all.
- panny 6mo ago
  >But putting that aside, if a citizen supports banning cigarettes for people born after a certain date, but not alcohol, that certainly seems hypocritical to me. Why does everyone on HN seem to have a hate boner for alcohol? The main problem there is car culture, not the alcohol. In any case, the hypocritical part is where the UK, like many US states, has legalized marijuana for medical use and is well on its way to legalizing it for recreational use. Pipe tobacco at least smelled good. Cigarettes, not so much. But marijuana smells like a mix of stale cigarettes and body odor. AND the second hand smoke isn't just harmful, it can make you high along with the dirty smelling marijuana smoker. At least with nicotine, it sharpens your concentration. THC on the other hand makes you a lazy Cheeto eating couch potato with no future.
  - squigz 6mo ago
    > Why does everyone on HN seem to have a hate boner for alcohol? The main problem there is car culture, not the alcohol. I don't really see how car culture has anything to do with stuff like domestic violence, child abuse, or various other side-effects of alcohol culture.
    - csnover 6mo ago
      As with the cars, those are not alcohol issues, they are violence issues. Whether a drunk person turns to saccharine displays of affection or destructive acts of violence is likely driven by cultural norms and the underlying conditions of their lives.[0] Blaming alcohol for violence is akin to blaming the internet for increases in fraud. [0] https://doi.org/10.4135/9781483331096.n184 https://doi.org/10.4135/9781483331096.n184
      - frm88 6mo ago
        Globally, 38% of violent deaths are alcohol-related 81% of male perpetrators of intimate partner violence in England and Wales test positive for alcohol at arrest https://worldmetrics.org/alcohol-violence-statistics/ https://worldmetrics.org/alcohol-violence-statistics/
mytailorisrich 6mo ago
I think it is also part of a trend. More and more control over people's lives, more and more bans. Beyond whether something is "bad for you", the key aspect in a free society is whether the State should decide for you (we're entrusted with the right to vote, after all). Demolition Man has turned out to be the most accurate prediction of the future regarding those issues among all the 90s movies. Quite interesting.
- afavour 6mo ago
  I see smoking as a separate category owing to the existence of second hand smoke. Smoking in a room with other people adversely affects those people. I think government is the correct body to be intervening in that scenario.
  - mytailorisrich 6mo ago
    That's not a separate category, that's the general principle in a free society: There is a limit to "doing what you want" when it impacts others/imposes on them. That's why smoking is already heavily regulated in order to limit and minimise the impact that your choice has on others.
    - LtWorf 6mo ago
      In sweden it's forbidden to smoke at public transport stops. Nobody cares though so you often have to choose between cancer or getting soaked.
      - jpfromlondon 6mo ago
        in the UK you cannot smoke on public transport or inside buildings, and this is strictly adhered to.
        tialaramex 6mo ago
        In fact one of the most important fire disasters in England, the Kings Cross fire started because nicotine addicts used to light up on their way out of the tube (which had already prohibited smoking, it's kinda crazy to imagine people in the 1970s used to smoke on the fucking underground railway, deep under the ground where you are unavoidably breathing the same air as everybody else) Somebody probably drops a spent match, it's still smouldering and it drops inside the escalator where it finds plenty of fuel and begins a fire. From there you mostly just need bad luck - yes the staff could be better trained, but even when they do summon professionals the firefighters don't arrive in time to tackle it while it's still small, the then-unknown trench effect allows the hot gases to pool and initiate flash over suddenly, a bunch of people die.
zbentley 6mo ago
> other things (alcohol) that cause problems and are not being restricted Alcohol is heavily restricted, though. You can't sell it to minors, younger minors can't drink it in public, you can't sell/buy/make it above a certain proof, you can only resell it from authorized distributors, it is taxes, and so on. Sure, banning cigarettes for a specific generation is a much more stringent restriction, but plenty of other restrictions exist.
- noduerme 6mo ago
  what if they told you your kids would never be allowed to have a drink?
  - mingus88 6mo ago
    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.
  - voidUpdate 6mo ago
    Sounds good to me...
    - temp0826 6mo ago
      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?)
      - troad 6mo ago
        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-drinking-triples-since-teens https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/mar/05/gen-z-binge-...
noduerme 6mo ago
>> the government isn't a magical force that can impose its will on the people arbitrarily You must live in a democracy. If you ever lived in a country where the government curtailed freedoms by fiat, you'd understand that it can and it will. I happened to be living in Vietnam when the government just randomly decided one day that smoking would be banned everywhere, effective immediately. You might think that's simply putting a thumb on the scale; but you also haven't tried to visit the New York Times website from there and later found yourself in a room with officials asking for all your passwords. And clearly you're not familiar with the preferred way of clearing traffic jams, which is driving a jeep through a crowd of motorbikes while a guy with a long bamboo cane whacks anyone who's in the way. Thumb on the scale my ass. Totalitarianism is control over the little things.
- lokar 6mo ago
  This seems really out of context
  - defrost 6mo ago
    They appear to have taken a specific reference to "the (UK (implied by context)) government" as an arbitrary generic reference to any government on the planet.
- nerdsniper 6mo ago
  Is it possible to buy nicotine in Vietnam today? Is it de jure illegal but de facto widely available? Did everyone switch from cigarettes to vapes?
unethical_ban 6mo ago
My suspicion is that alcohol is mind-altering in ways smoking is not, and has a large effect on social interactions in business and romance and coping with the drudgery of daily life. Take away smoking from the next generation and they move to caffeine or vapes. Take away alcohol and there are revolutions and religious extremist revivals.
- sir0010010 6mo ago
  Taking away smoking still solves the secondhand smoke issue.
  - ErroneousBosh 6mo ago
    Not the second-hand vape issue though. Those of us who don't smoke or vape can smell that shit a couple of hundred metres away.
    - ImPostingOnHN 6mo ago
      You should have smelled the bathroom here an hour ago. They ought to ban chipotle for the same reason. Secondhand chipotle is the worst.
      - ErroneousBosh 6mo ago
        > chipotle Have you considered just eating food?
        ImPostingOnHN 6mo ago
        Has everybody in the world considered just not vaping? Like secondhand vapor, we can't control other people's secondhand chipotle unless we ban chipotle. And since I don't like the smell, we've got to ban both.
    - butlike 6mo ago
      Those of us who don't drive can smell the exhaust a couple hundred meters away, too.
neonstatic 6mo ago
Cigarettes are not incorporated into the UK culture the way alcohol is. Drinking at a pub is sacred to them.
- pjc50 6mo ago
  People used to be able to smoke in pubs. But I agree it wasn't quite so culturally foundational. I'm not going to lose sleep over the idea of a smoking ban, since it was already driven to the margins, but the implementation of it by age is really weird. Clearly a move to avoid annoying pensioners, like everything else.
  - seba_dos1 6mo ago
    It makes sense to me, we're talking about a highly addictive psychoactive substance. It's much harder to get out of addiction than not get addicted in the first place, and people born after 2008 did not have a legal way to get addicted yet. That's exactly how I'd approach having a transition period to not cause unnecessary suffering in the process.
  - OJFord 6mo ago
    But nevermind culturally foundational, if you take away drinking at pubs then they're not pubs, it's immediately more of an impact, and more of an effect on local economies, small businesses, etc. too. I disagree that age-based is weird: these are people who can't (yet) already do it, so they're not having something (current) taken away from them. It's a lot harder and crueller to say you're taking away something someone likes/does, even if they're not fully addicted to it.
azangru 6mo ago
> 1. will this work (will the UK stop smoking) What mechanisms do you foresee for it to fail? If stores stop selling cigarettes, the UK will have no other choice but to stop smoking them. I wonder what will come to replace them though. People have a peculiar tendency of forming addictive habits. Regarding question 2, personally, I am uncomfortable with the idea of a nanny state.
- shmel 6mo ago
  Right, because it totally worked with drugs. People just don't use them anymore. Weed is impossible to come by nowadays.
- kjksf 6mo ago
  Prohibition did fail and US had to revert ban on alcohol. The rules are made by politicians. All it takes to change the rules is to rotate politicians. Or enough public dissent that the same politicians are forced to revert the rules.
  - sir0010010 6mo ago
    A smoking ban could easily be enforced by allowing anyone bothered by secondhand smoke to report it.
- sailfast 6mo ago
  Is weed legal in the UK? Do people still smoke it? This might play right into the hands of bootleggers and gangs but also into the Swedish / American nicotine pouch industry which is basically marketing straight at kids. Also - vapes. Most folks don’t smoke cigarettes anymore. How does this control vaping?
  - cucumber3732842 6mo ago
    That's exactly what this is. The money has moved on to pouches and vapes. It's like how everyone pat themselves on the back for banning child labor after the industrial revolution had rendered it obsolete outside a few niches that weren't economically important enough to put up a real fight. Politicians "win" by pandering to voters and interests. So this is an obvious move since they can pander to all those people who grew up being told a cigarette takes a minute off your life while only pissing off some niche industry and a few smokers who are unwilling to vape.
OkayPhysicist 6mo ago
If they wanted to ban cigarettes, they should have banned cigarettes. The whole "let's pass a law that only affects people who can't vote" strategy applied here is tyranical.
- mothballed 6mo ago
  The US did the same thing with cockfighting. It was already illegal in all the states, but they passed a federal law binding on all states and territories to stop Puerto Ricans (who had no such law against it), who have no meaningful federal representation.
  - cucumber3732842 6mo ago
    >The US did the same thing with cockfighting. Two wrongs don't make a right.
    - mothballed 6mo ago
      No, but my point is this argument isn't really consistently applied. The excuse about a law made specifically to apply against people that can't vote is quite popular and accepted. The cockfighting law was cheered by most the mainland US, while Puerto Rico desperately fought against it, though they weren't able to get cert in SCOTUS to challenge it. There was never really much of any concern of "wait, Puerto Rico has no representation in the law that was essentially drafted to target specifically them." All these people claiming to not support the smoking laws on this kind of basis were nowhere to be found. The law passed like a thief in the night.
      - cucumber3732842 6mo ago
        I'll happily endorse the idea that double standards and hypocrisy are the true evil if that's what you're getting at.
        mothballed 6mo ago
tim333 6mo ago
Alcohol is quite different to cigarettes. It's fun and part of the culture - most people drink and the country is full of pubs and restaurants serving it. You couldn't ban it without most of the country, including me, objecting. Cigarettes on the other hand are not so popular. If you ask most smokers if they regret starting about 90% say yes. They mostly want to quit but are addicted. Quite different from booze.
- mothballed 6mo ago
  If you look at the US about 50% have ever smoked some form of tobacco at least once. Only 11-15% currently do. For booze it's much 'worse.' Nearly 80% have ever drunk alcohol but 50% of them still do. A much higher rate of ongoing use. Also note a very large portion of people that have ever smoked have had a nice cigar or pipe, smoked once in a blue moon is extremely unlikely to cause cancer or addiction. This likely represents a 'quiet' large portion of the statistic that have ever used tobacco. The loudest are the pack a day smokers who loudly proclaim everyone else will be like them and therefore everyone else should suffer restrictions that presume the same.
- AngryData 6mo ago
  They seem pretty popular in my neck of the woods.
andy99 6mo ago
You seem to misunderstand the concept of liberal democracy.
ramblerman 6mo ago
> The UK doesn't support cigarettes, so the law gets passed. If someone has a public opinion poll there showing less than 50% support for this, I'd love to see it. Isn't the impetus on the makers of this bill to show there is more than 50% support for this. I'm not a fan of smoking but this isn't the governments job imo. Not to mention the odd precedent of do what I say not as I do, with different laws for different generations.
- tim333 6mo ago
  The Yougov poll I found has: >Would you support or oppose a law banning anyone born after 2008 from ever buying cigarettes or tobacco products? >Strongly support 34% Somewhat support 23% >Somewhat oppose 16% Strongly oppose 12% (https://yougov.com/en-gb/daily-results/20221214-abbaa-1 https://yougov.com/en-gb/daily-results/20221214-abbaa-1) I'm a non smoking Brit and figure maybe give it a go and see how it goes down? Perhaps let young people who deeply want to smoke apply for some sort of smoking pass? You could do similar for other problem drugs too maybe. A lot of addictive drugs don't do much harm if prescribed - the NHS gave some fentanyl to help chill out which was good - but having illegal dealers causes no end of problems.
subscribed 6mo ago
Re 2 only: Yeah, except for alcohol all the other drugs are heavily controlled (contrary to the medical or scientific evidence). Tobacco doesn't offer any benefits* *yeah, I struggle to find significant benefits of alcohol, but there are some. There's nothing that would be beneficial in smoking.

by gcanyon 6mo ago

squigz 6mo ago

From the government's perspective, this may (or may not) be silly. But putting that aside, if a citizen supports banning cigarettes for people born after a certain date, but not alcohol, that certainly seems hypocritical to me.

brador 6mo ago
We know the dangers of second hand smoke. Someone drinking near you does not impact your health.
- Ylpertnodi 6mo ago
  You've probably never been out on a Friday night in the Uk.
  - drcongo 6mo ago
    This comment doesn't deserve the downvotes, it's a very valid point.
    - lokar 6mo ago
      Is it really that bad? Is there something I can read to learn more?
      - JumpCrisscross 6mo ago
        > Is it really that bad? I say this as someone who quite enjoys his drink–you haven't seen a hardcore drinking culture until you've dodged multiple projectile vomiters in SoHo at like 5PM on a random Tuesday.
        ben_w 6mo ago
        I somehow managed to avoid experiencing this despite living in the UK up to the age of 34.
        drcongo 6mo ago
        I'm a bit late responding on my own sub-thread, but if you haven't seen these photos before, this is roughly what every city centre in the UK looks like after dark. https://www.maciejdakowicz.com/cardiff-after-dark/ https://www.maciejdakowicz.com/cardiff-after-dark/
        ben_w 6mo ago
        Not Havant, though I was there to 18 and would've only had the independence to examine the nightlife for the two years in which I was doing my A-levels; not Aberystwyth as a university student, nor Plymouth city in my industrial year even though I lived here: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Capitol+Students+Central+Point+Student+Accommodation/@50.3706289,-4.1429754,64m https://www.google.com/maps/place/Capitol+Students+Central+P... Likewise, Cambridge was far too genteel for that, when I lived there. Sheffield managed one night that would've fitted in with those pictures. When my partner and I walked past the football stadium as everyone was leaving.
        drcongo 6mo ago
- squigz 6mo ago
  It doesn't? That should be good news for victims of drunk driving, and the families of abusive drunks.
  - afavour 6mo ago
    There’s still a difference, surely? Drinking alcohol can lead to drunk driving and it can lead to abuse. Thankfully in the vast majority of instances it doesn’t. Second hand smoke, however, inflicts damage the moment it’s inhaled.
    - squigz 6mo ago
      I'm not saying there's no difference. I just don't that difference is as pronounced as some people think, and I don't think it excuses the apparent double standard. Brief Googling also suggests that second-hand smoke affects at least similar levels of people as drunk driving, if not more - to say nothing of e.g. domestic violence. Not to mention, there are already various laws designed to mitigate the effects of second-hand smoke, such as not smoking indoors or in cars with children. Overall, I am just not convinced that it's necessary to focus so much more on cigarettes over other drugs.
      - afavour 6mo ago
        > there are already various laws designed to mitigate the effects of second-hand smoke And there are already various laws designed to prevent drunk driving and drunk domestic abuse. I think the broader picture here is a simple one: drinking alcohol is more societally acceptable than smoking. A government is going to be reflective of its voters, “necessary” or not, a law to ban drinking would be enormously unpopular in a way a law to ban smoking would not.
        squigz 6mo ago
        > I think the broader picture here is a simple one: drinking alcohol is more societally acceptable than smoking. A government is going to be reflective of its voters, “necessary” or not, a law to ban drinking would be enormously unpopular in a way a law to ban smoking would not. Sure, and this is why I put aside the issue of whether the government is doing the "right" thing in its position and focused on the people who it supposedly reflects - because it doesn't make sense to me that one is more acceptable than the other to an individual, and thinking so doesn't seem to reflect any sort of realistic view on alcohol and its impact on society, while holding cigarettes to a much higher standard.
- hyperpape 6mo ago
  With all due respect, this is completely wrong. There is a difference that someone smoking nearby automatically harms people around you. With alcohol, the effect is more unpredictable, but it is equally real. Alcohol is a factor in an automobile crashes, and a factor in a significant proportion of violent crime, especially domestic violence (https://www.cato-unbound.org/2008/09/17/mark-kleiman/taxation-specific-prohibition/ https://www.cato-unbound.org/2008/09/17/mark-kleiman/taxatio... edit: this source isn't as great, Kleiman has written elsewhere about the subject, but google is failing me). If we could wave a magic wand and cause drinking to cease to exist, many lives would be saved. Note: I do in fact drink, I am not a teetotaler. But what I said above is factual. I personally believe that prohibition would be worse, and it's reasonable for individuals to make their own choices. But that does not entail denying that it goes very badly for many.
  - Findecanor 6mo ago
    Second-hand smoke does affect people around you. It is how people get addicted to nicotine. It is how new smokers are created. And there are some people who are more sensitive to temporary exposure to smoke (and pollution in general) than others. That is why smoking tends to be is banned around hospitals and day care centers — because those are places where you will find those people. My father was one of them, after he had got his larynx removed for throat cancer after having smoked for decades. He could not suffer being subjected to even small amounts of second-hand smoke again because then the breathing hole in his throat would get irritated, fill up with mucus and have to be cleaned with a suction device. And if you drink alcohol next to me, it does not make my clothes and my hair stink so much afterwards that I will want to wash my hair and change my clothes before going to bed.
    - Gud 6mo ago
      No, but the person drinking next to you can suddenly decide you gave them a bad look and decide to pick a fight.
    - hyperpape 6mo ago
      Why are you replying as if I denied second hand smoke harms people? I very clearly said it did.
- Sweepi 6mo ago
  iirc alcohol is the drug with the highest amount of 3rd party harm due to the high number of people beating their spouse, children and sometimes random strangers under the influence. (+ 3rd party property, car crashes, ...) Keep in mind this was evaluated with current laws, which bans most kinds of indoor-smoking. Still a good idea to ban cigarettes and force people to consume their nicotine in healthier ways.
- hagbard_c 6mo ago
  That is, until that person gets behind the wheel or on a (motor)bike and impacts you - and with that, your health - directly. Having said that I don't like the nanny society which acts like it knows better. People sometimes want to do stupid things and I think they should be able to do so. They should also not burden society with the consequences of their stupid actions so smokers either pay in more for health insurance or get relegated to the bottom tier - e.g. "palliative care for smoking-induced illnesses, no life-extending treatments for smoking-related diseases". No smoking where it impacts others negatively - this includes minors living in their house - but if they want to smoke where it doesn't impact others just let them do it.
  - ErroneousBosh 6mo ago
    > That is, until that person gets behind the wheel or on a (motor)bike and impacts you - and with that, your health - directly. Which is something weirdly North American - it's insane how okay USians are with drinking and driving considering how Puritanical they are about drinking generally.
    - hagbard_c 6mo ago
      Are they? I have not experienced this myself. The Americans I met seemed to have the same position towards DUI as the north-western and northern Europeans I know: it is a bad idea which leads to needless accidents, injuries and death. Being a north-western European living in northern Europe I know far more of the latter two than I know Americans but, having visited the country many times for business and a few times for pleasure (north, south, east and west) I haven't met anyone who considered it 'OK' to drink and drive even though I did meet a few who did so anyway. The same is true for the Europeans I mentioned, some do get behind the wheel while they know they shouldn't.
- guzfip 6mo ago
  > Someone drinking near you does not impact your health. Hah, alcoholics have done more damage to my life than a smoker could ever dream of.
- wookmaster 6mo ago
  If you just ignore alcohol fueled violence, birth defects, deaths from drivers hitting people and cars and the emotional health toll to others from dealing with an alcoholic, sure.
- temp0826 6mo ago
  Grow up with an alcoholic parent then get back to us
- joquarky 6mo ago
  I know at least one hacker news reader who didn't grow up with an alcoholic parent. Congratulations!
LeChuck 6mo ago
Sure, maybe, arguably. Does it matter though? A world without smoking is still better than a world with smoking, right?
- noduerme 6mo ago
  A world without hypocrisy would be better still.
- squigz 6mo ago
  Perhaps. The viability of that aside, I would rather attempt to create that world with things like education rather than the government mandating it. That tends not to work out as intended.
- AlexandrB 6mo ago
  And a world where the government tells you what to eat, what to drink, and how much to exercise under penalty of jail is the best of all worlds!
- oceanplexian 6mo ago
  [dead]
drcongo 6mo ago
Don't forget gambling. Though given that the gambling lobby were the only donor's to Starmer's leadership campaign that out-donated the pro-Israel lobbyists, I wouldn't bet on them doing something about it. Pun intended. Edit: just realised I posted under the wrong comment. Doh.
FatherOfCurses 6mo ago
Incremental change isn't a thing? Focusing on one health area, which will certainly be a massive undertaking, instead of trying to wipe out all unhealthy things at the same time?
X0Refraction 6mo ago
I think there is a reasonable argument to be made that they're a different degree of societal problem. I think there's quite a few people who drink on special occasions, but not every week or even every month (I'm one of them). I think it's very rare though for a smoker to not smoke several a day. A friend of mine was that rare breed and would buy a 10 pack occasionally - usually on a Friday and it'd be gone by Monday - but that would maybe be once a month. I think every other smoker I've met though goes through that amount every day. So it seems to me the average smoker is much more likely to become a burden on a nationalised health service than the average drinker. There's more to this of course, smoking to excess generally doesn't increase the chances of you getting into a fight like drinking does for some people, but social pressure counters that partially too.
- joquarky 6mo ago
  Smoking may be a burden on the healthcare system, but the effects of alcohol are a burden to everyone due to the resulting erratic and often directly destructive behavior.
  - X0Refraction 6mo ago
    Being a burden on the healthcare system in a country that has nationalised healthcare is being a burden on everyone through increased taxes and reduced spending in areas the money could be more useful. Those erratic behaviours you talk about are generally illegal in most countries as well with drink driving, public intoxication, assault laws etc. Drinking does have some positives as well, pubs are one of the few third spaces we have remaining. I know there are alternatives, but there are people who won't socialise in a cafe or a book club, but will go to the pub to see the regulars. Considering lots of Western countries have loneliness epidemics I think there'd be a downside to removing that option. Drinking does seem to lubricate social situations, weed can help with pain etc. The only upside from smoking for the individual as far as I can tell is that it fixes the problem it created from you being addicted to it i.e. you get calmer when you get your fix.
larrik 6mo ago
A minority of people who drink are addicted to alcohol. Basically everyone who smokes/etc is addicted to nicotine. They aren't the same at all.
panny 6mo ago
>But putting that aside, if a citizen supports banning cigarettes for people born after a certain date, but not alcohol, that certainly seems hypocritical to me. Why does everyone on HN seem to have a hate boner for alcohol? The main problem there is car culture, not the alcohol. In any case, the hypocritical part is where the UK, like many US states, has legalized marijuana for medical use and is well on its way to legalizing it for recreational use. Pipe tobacco at least smelled good. Cigarettes, not so much. But marijuana smells like a mix of stale cigarettes and body odor. AND the second hand smoke isn't just harmful, it can make you high along with the dirty smelling marijuana smoker. At least with nicotine, it sharpens your concentration. THC on the other hand makes you a lazy Cheeto eating couch potato with no future.
- squigz 6mo ago
  > Why does everyone on HN seem to have a hate boner for alcohol? The main problem there is car culture, not the alcohol. I don't really see how car culture has anything to do with stuff like domestic violence, child abuse, or various other side-effects of alcohol culture.
  - csnover 6mo ago
    As with the cars, those are not alcohol issues, they are violence issues. Whether a drunk person turns to saccharine displays of affection or destructive acts of violence is likely driven by cultural norms and the underlying conditions of their lives.[0] Blaming alcohol for violence is akin to blaming the internet for increases in fraud. [0] https://doi.org/10.4135/9781483331096.n184 https://doi.org/10.4135/9781483331096.n184
    - frm88 6mo ago
      Globally, 38% of violent deaths are alcohol-related 81% of male perpetrators of intimate partner violence in England and Wales test positive for alcohol at arrest https://worldmetrics.org/alcohol-violence-statistics/ https://worldmetrics.org/alcohol-violence-statistics/

mytailorisrich 6mo ago

I think it is also part of a trend. More and more control over people's lives, more and more bans. Beyond whether something is "bad for you", the key aspect in a free society is whether the State should decide for you (we're entrusted with the right to vote, after all). Demolition Man has turned out to be the most accurate prediction of the future regarding those issues among all the 90s movies. Quite interesting.

afavour 6mo ago
I see smoking as a separate category owing to the existence of second hand smoke. Smoking in a room with other people adversely affects those people. I think government is the correct body to be intervening in that scenario.
- mytailorisrich 6mo ago
  That's not a separate category, that's the general principle in a free society: There is a limit to "doing what you want" when it impacts others/imposes on them. That's why smoking is already heavily regulated in order to limit and minimise the impact that your choice has on others.
  - LtWorf 6mo ago
    In sweden it's forbidden to smoke at public transport stops. Nobody cares though so you often have to choose between cancer or getting soaked.
    - jpfromlondon 6mo ago
      in the UK you cannot smoke on public transport or inside buildings, and this is strictly adhered to.
      - tialaramex 6mo ago
        In fact one of the most important fire disasters in England, the Kings Cross fire started because nicotine addicts used to light up on their way out of the tube (which had already prohibited smoking, it's kinda crazy to imagine people in the 1970s used to smoke on the fucking underground railway, deep under the ground where you are unavoidably breathing the same air as everybody else) Somebody probably drops a spent match, it's still smouldering and it drops inside the escalator where it finds plenty of fuel and begins a fire. From there you mostly just need bad luck - yes the staff could be better trained, but even when they do summon professionals the firefighters don't arrive in time to tackle it while it's still small, the then-unknown trench effect allows the hot gases to pool and initiate flash over suddenly, a bunch of people die.

zbentley 6mo ago

> other things (alcohol) that cause problems and are not being restricted Alcohol is heavily restricted, though. You can't sell it to minors, younger minors can't drink it in public, you can't sell/buy/make it above a certain proof, you can only resell it from authorized distributors, it is taxes, and so on. Sure, banning cigarettes for a specific generation is a much more stringent restriction, but plenty of other restrictions exist.

noduerme 6mo ago
what if they told you your kids would never be allowed to have a drink?
- mingus88 6mo ago
  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.
- voidUpdate 6mo ago
  Sounds good to me...
  - temp0826 6mo ago
    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?)
    - troad 6mo ago
      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-drinking-triples-since-teens https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/mar/05/gen-z-binge-...

noduerme 6mo ago

>> the government isn't a magical force that can impose its will on the people arbitrarily You must live in a democracy. If you ever lived in a country where the government curtailed freedoms by fiat, you'd understand that it can and it will. I happened to be living in Vietnam when the government just randomly decided one day that smoking would be banned everywhere, effective immediately. You might think that's simply putting a thumb on the scale; but you also haven't tried to visit the New York Times website from there and later found yourself in a room with officials asking for all your passwords. And clearly you're not familiar with the preferred way of clearing traffic jams, which is driving a jeep through a crowd of motorbikes while a guy with a long bamboo cane whacks anyone who's in the way. Thumb on the scale my ass. Totalitarianism is control over the little things.

lokar 6mo ago
This seems really out of context
- defrost 6mo ago
  They appear to have taken a specific reference to "the (UK (implied by context)) government" as an arbitrary generic reference to any government on the planet.
nerdsniper 6mo ago
Is it possible to buy nicotine in Vietnam today? Is it de jure illegal but de facto widely available? Did everyone switch from cigarettes to vapes?

unethical_ban 6mo ago

My suspicion is that alcohol is mind-altering in ways smoking is not, and has a large effect on social interactions in business and romance and coping with the drudgery of daily life. Take away smoking from the next generation and they move to caffeine or vapes. Take away alcohol and there are revolutions and religious extremist revivals.

sir0010010 6mo ago
Taking away smoking still solves the secondhand smoke issue.
- ErroneousBosh 6mo ago
  Not the second-hand vape issue though. Those of us who don't smoke or vape can smell that shit a couple of hundred metres away.
  - ImPostingOnHN 6mo ago
    You should have smelled the bathroom here an hour ago. They ought to ban chipotle for the same reason. Secondhand chipotle is the worst.
    - ErroneousBosh 6mo ago
      > chipotle Have you considered just eating food?
      - ImPostingOnHN 6mo ago
        Has everybody in the world considered just not vaping? Like secondhand vapor, we can't control other people's secondhand chipotle unless we ban chipotle. And since I don't like the smell, we've got to ban both.
  - butlike 6mo ago
    Those of us who don't drive can smell the exhaust a couple hundred meters away, too.

neonstatic 6mo ago

Cigarettes are not incorporated into the UK culture the way alcohol is. Drinking at a pub is sacred to them.

pjc50 6mo ago
People used to be able to smoke in pubs. But I agree it wasn't quite so culturally foundational. I'm not going to lose sleep over the idea of a smoking ban, since it was already driven to the margins, but the implementation of it by age is really weird. Clearly a move to avoid annoying pensioners, like everything else.
- seba_dos1 6mo ago
  It makes sense to me, we're talking about a highly addictive psychoactive substance. It's much harder to get out of addiction than not get addicted in the first place, and people born after 2008 did not have a legal way to get addicted yet. That's exactly how I'd approach having a transition period to not cause unnecessary suffering in the process.
- OJFord 6mo ago
  But nevermind culturally foundational, if you take away drinking at pubs then they're not pubs, it's immediately more of an impact, and more of an effect on local economies, small businesses, etc. too. I disagree that age-based is weird: these are people who can't (yet) already do it, so they're not having something (current) taken away from them. It's a lot harder and crueller to say you're taking away something someone likes/does, even if they're not fully addicted to it.

azangru 6mo ago

> 1. will this work (will the UK stop smoking) What mechanisms do you foresee for it to fail? If stores stop selling cigarettes, the UK will have no other choice but to stop smoking them. I wonder what will come to replace them though. People have a peculiar tendency of forming addictive habits. Regarding question 2, personally, I am uncomfortable with the idea of a nanny state.

shmel 6mo ago
Right, because it totally worked with drugs. People just don't use them anymore. Weed is impossible to come by nowadays.
kjksf 6mo ago
Prohibition did fail and US had to revert ban on alcohol. The rules are made by politicians. All it takes to change the rules is to rotate politicians. Or enough public dissent that the same politicians are forced to revert the rules.
- sir0010010 6mo ago
  A smoking ban could easily be enforced by allowing anyone bothered by secondhand smoke to report it.
sailfast 6mo ago
Is weed legal in the UK? Do people still smoke it? This might play right into the hands of bootleggers and gangs but also into the Swedish / American nicotine pouch industry which is basically marketing straight at kids. Also - vapes. Most folks don’t smoke cigarettes anymore. How does this control vaping?
- cucumber3732842 6mo ago
  That's exactly what this is. The money has moved on to pouches and vapes. It's like how everyone pat themselves on the back for banning child labor after the industrial revolution had rendered it obsolete outside a few niches that weren't economically important enough to put up a real fight. Politicians "win" by pandering to voters and interests. So this is an obvious move since they can pander to all those people who grew up being told a cigarette takes a minute off your life while only pissing off some niche industry and a few smokers who are unwilling to vape.

OkayPhysicist 6mo ago

If they wanted to ban cigarettes, they should have banned cigarettes. The whole "let's pass a law that only affects people who can't vote" strategy applied here is tyranical.

mothballed 6mo ago
The US did the same thing with cockfighting. It was already illegal in all the states, but they passed a federal law binding on all states and territories to stop Puerto Ricans (who had no such law against it), who have no meaningful federal representation.
- cucumber3732842 6mo ago
  >The US did the same thing with cockfighting. Two wrongs don't make a right.
  - mothballed 6mo ago
    No, but my point is this argument isn't really consistently applied. The excuse about a law made specifically to apply against people that can't vote is quite popular and accepted. The cockfighting law was cheered by most the mainland US, while Puerto Rico desperately fought against it, though they weren't able to get cert in SCOTUS to challenge it. There was never really much of any concern of "wait, Puerto Rico has no representation in the law that was essentially drafted to target specifically them." All these people claiming to not support the smoking laws on this kind of basis were nowhere to be found. The law passed like a thief in the night.
    - cucumber3732842 6mo ago
      I'll happily endorse the idea that double standards and hypocrisy are the true evil if that's what you're getting at.
      - mothballed 6mo ago

tim333 6mo ago

Alcohol is quite different to cigarettes. It's fun and part of the culture - most people drink and the country is full of pubs and restaurants serving it. You couldn't ban it without most of the country, including me, objecting. Cigarettes on the other hand are not so popular. If you ask most smokers if they regret starting about 90% say yes. They mostly want to quit but are addicted. Quite different from booze.

mothballed 6mo ago
If you look at the US about 50% have ever smoked some form of tobacco at least once. Only 11-15% currently do. For booze it's much 'worse.' Nearly 80% have ever drunk alcohol but 50% of them still do. A much higher rate of ongoing use. Also note a very large portion of people that have ever smoked have had a nice cigar or pipe, smoked once in a blue moon is extremely unlikely to cause cancer or addiction. This likely represents a 'quiet' large portion of the statistic that have ever used tobacco. The loudest are the pack a day smokers who loudly proclaim everyone else will be like them and therefore everyone else should suffer restrictions that presume the same.
AngryData 6mo ago
They seem pretty popular in my neck of the woods.

andy99 6mo ago

You seem to misunderstand the concept of liberal democracy.

ramblerman 6mo ago

> The UK doesn't support cigarettes, so the law gets passed. If someone has a public opinion poll there showing less than 50% support for this, I'd love to see it. Isn't the impetus on the makers of this bill to show there is more than 50% support for this. I'm not a fan of smoking but this isn't the governments job imo. Not to mention the odd precedent of do what I say not as I do, with different laws for different generations.

tim333 6mo ago
The Yougov poll I found has: >Would you support or oppose a law banning anyone born after 2008 from ever buying cigarettes or tobacco products? >Strongly support 34% Somewhat support 23% >Somewhat oppose 16% Strongly oppose 12% (https://yougov.com/en-gb/daily-results/20221214-abbaa-1 https://yougov.com/en-gb/daily-results/20221214-abbaa-1) I'm a non smoking Brit and figure maybe give it a go and see how it goes down? Perhaps let young people who deeply want to smoke apply for some sort of smoking pass? You could do similar for other problem drugs too maybe. A lot of addictive drugs don't do much harm if prescribed - the NHS gave some fentanyl to help chill out which was good - but having illegal dealers causes no end of problems.

subscribed 6mo ago

Re 2 only: Yeah, except for alcohol all the other drugs are heavily controlled (contrary to the medical or scientific evidence). Tobacco doesn't offer any benefits* *yeah, I struggle to find significant benefits of alcohol, but there are some. There's nothing that would be beneficial in smoking.