Wednesday 6 December 2023

Last chance to speak your brains

The public consultation on the government's Tobacco and Vapes Bill closes today at 11.59pm so make some noise. It won’t take you long. Answers are limited to 300 words and you don’t have to answer all the questions. You don’t even have to write anything. You can just tick the ‘disagree’ or ‘agree’ boxes. You can read my response here. Attention vapers: most of the questions involve you.

FOREST have done some polling and found that most people believe that you should be allowed to buy tobacco once you've turned 18. This is interesting because when people are asked if they support the Sunak prohibition, most of them say yes. 

These opinions are obviously mutually exclusive but I suspect most people have simply not thought it through. Smoking is a low salience issue these days and when people hear the government say "14 year olds will never be allowed to buy tobacco" all they can picture is a 14 year old. They don't picture 24 year olds and 34 year olds not being allowed to buy cigarettes in the future. 

No wonder the government is trying to rush this stupid policy through before the public have had the chance to give it some serious thought.

 


 



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