Illiberal Shit
This government just keeps on plowing out illiberal shit. Anything to prevent us from being able to make our own decisions and take responsibility for our own actions.
First of all, they want to ban cigarette vending machines and packs of ten. To “prevent children and young people smoking”. They have already raised the cigarette purchasing age to 18 and banned smoking in all public enclosed areas, and just want to keep on with their vendetta against smoking.
Let me make one point clear now: I am not, never have been, and never will be a smoker. But I believe that smoking and smokers should not be villified or outlawed.
Cigarette vending machines are used by one in six child smokers. The simple way to prevent these underage children smoking is, for vending machines, to make them credit card operated.
But the other five in six children buy cigarettes from shops. The way to combat this is not to make packs of 10 illegal or to remove cigarettes from view - which will be counter-productive since it will make cigraettes even cheaper ["Under current pricing, a packet of 10 cigarettes cost about £3, compared to nearly £6 for 20"] and make them more mysterious and elusive and hence appealing to children - but to provide simple education to children in school about how smoking can cause them such large problems.
The only good thing about the proposals above is that it’s not quite as illiberal as this idea for smokers to have to purchase licences.
This proposal is just as illiberal, but I just can’t be arsed to rip it to shreds right now.
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How much paternalism can one government peddle? It’s just incredible that they keep churning out these outrageous policies.
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