Prohibition and 'public health'

If Rishi Sunak goes ahead with his ruse of banning anyone born after a certain year from ever buying tobacco, the UK will be the only country in the world to have such a policy, but it will not be the only place in the world. I have only recently learnt this, but apparently there is a suburb of Boston where no one born in the 21st century can buy tobacco.

 

Politicians in Brookline, Massachusetts introduced the law under the cover of Covid in 2020 and it is currently being reviewed by the state’s Supreme Judicial Court. The Boston Globe has been covering the story...

 

Katharine Silbaugh, a Boston University law professor and one of the leading petitioners of Brookline’s bylaw, argued that nicotine and tobacco shouldn’t be regulated like alcohol or cannabis, which “whether we’re right or not, we believe at some age, they are safe enough to use.”

 

No, Katharine. You don't have age restrictions on alcohol and cannabis because they become safe enough to use when you're 21 (as the law is in the USA). It is because once you reach a certain age, you are old enough to make your own decisions. Once you are an adult, you can make your own trade-offs between risks and benefits, rather than have them made for you by some bossy law professor.

 

“It doesn’t make sense to have an age restriction that seems to indicate that you have become old enough to smoke,” she said. “You’re never old enough to smoke.”

 

This is what the anti-smoking lobby have believed all along, but have only had the stones to say out loud in recent years. Tobacco control has always been a prohibitionist movement. 'Public health' is a prohibitionist movement. You cannot trust them.

It is ironic that Silbaugh cites alcohol and cannabis as products that are more suitable to age restrictions than to prohibition. In the USA since the start of the 20th century, both products have been legal before being made illegal and then being made legal again. Americans can't seem to make their minds up about whether you are ever "old enough" to consume these products. Now it is tobacco's turn to undergo prohibition.

It is almost a cliché to say that prohibition doesn't work but it bears repeating. Take Australia, where nicotine vapes have always been illegal. For the last few years it has even been illegal to import them for your own use. Figures published last week by the Australian Bureau of Statistics show how well the ban has worked: 14.4% of Australian adults have used an e-cigarette. In the UK, where nicotine vapes have always been legal and public health agencies have actively encouraged smokers to switch to them, the figure happens to be exactly the same: 14.4% of British adults have used an e-cigarette.

The figures for young people are even more striking. Among Australians aged 18-24, 38% have ever used an e-cigarette. In the UK, 22% of 16-24 year olds have ever used an e-cigarette. The figures are not directly comparable because the UK figures include 16 and 17 year olds, but it is clear from the data that more young adults have tried vaping in Australia than they have in Britain.

There is nothing wrong with that, but it is a pretty remarkable fail for a country that not only prohibits the sale of nicotine vapes but whose government, media and public health establishment is hysterically opposed to them.

If the prohibitionists want a crumb of comfort, the rate of current use is slightly lower in Australia (4%) than in Britain (5.2%). So, er, well done.