Under the Counter Cigarettes - Bad for consumers in its present form

aldredd

EycplUK wrote: »

Where are people getting harmed by passive smoking now please ? Not in Pubs , clubs and workplaces so where ?

- The home (yes people really are stupid and inconsiderate enough to smoke in the same room as their / other people's children)
- The Car

aldredd

Derivative wrote: »

irrelevant waffle

The key differences between smoking and alcohol / unhealthy foods / skydiving (what a ridiculous thing to say):

- Doesn't have a direct affect on the people around you (yes, well aware the impacts an alcohol-dependent person can have on those near to them, or someone drunk can have causing trouble etc, but it's not like these aren't being taxed to death etc)
- Takes a lot more to have any long-term negative effect - and are usually reversible. Same cannot be said for smoking, where it takes around 20 years for your risk of smoking-related diseases to reduce to that of a non-smoker

On your point on hiding them / making people feel guilt for doing something legal etc.

Lets expand it a little. Pornography. Perfectly legal yes? Yet most places disguise / cover these magazines in opaque wrappers to hide them from view.

Sex toys. Perfectly legal, yet they will be in a shop / area of shop where under-18s are not allowed.


Why? To protect children / those who do not want to see them, form seeing them - nothing nanny state about it.

I don't see why having cigarettes behind doors is such a problem.
No one is stopping you from buying them, most will already know what they want - and you already have to ask for them - I just fail to see the big issue here.

Perhaps a better solution is to have dedicated tobacconists where you can buy them, where under-18s are not allowed - and then ban them from sale elsewhere. Would that be your preference?
(Works quite well in many other countries as it happens)

dacouch

aldredd wrote: »

On your point on hiding them / making people feel guilt for doing something legal etc.

Sex toys. Perfectly legal, yet they will be in a shop / area of shop where under-18s are not allowed.


Why? To protect children / those who do not want to see them, form seeing them - nothing nanny state about it.

Not in Boots they're not

aldredd

dacouch wrote: »

Not in Boots they're not

Hmm, not sure I've ever seen sex toys in Boots, so couldn't say. (except for the 'fancy' condoms I guess)

custardy

aldredd wrote: »

Hmm, not sure I've ever seen sex toys in Boots, so couldn't say. (except for the 'fancy' condoms I guess)

and in a reverse to cigarettes
condoms are something you want to normalise to kids

Azari

Jules22 wrote: »

Wouldn't it be good to go back to the days of self responsibility, you know, when we made our own decisions and stood by them.

Excellent idea.

Let's remove all drug legislation including age restrictions and make everyone responsible for their own health. And when crime soars because some people will become so addled with their drug taking that they can't or won't work and thus have to steal to fuel their habit, don't blame the government.

Of course, that includes drink driving legislation.

So everyone will have to take responsibility for setting their own limit. And as the number of people killed and maimed soars, don't go blaming the government. It's not society's fault if people can't drive properly when they're drunk.

People who use LEGAL substances such as tobacco and alcohol pay the tax on them and know the long term effects. Leave them alone, its their responsibility.

Absolutely.

We'll just accept the carnage on the roads and the increase in crime as the price we have to pay for allowing people to be self reliant.

Azari

Derivative wrote: »

Chocolate is not healthy. It is basically nutritionless

If your knowledge of nutrition is as poor as the underlined section above makes it appear to be I'd suggest you shut up to avoid embarrassing yourself by posting utter claptrap.

shaun_from_Africa

Chocolate is not healthy. It is basically nutritionless and has high amounts of saturated fat.
(where did you find this "fact"? A weightwatchers pamphlet perhaps?
Neither is alcohol healthy unless you consider studies in the Daily Mail as fact
(or one of the many other studies that have taken place around the world.)
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/what-should-you-eat/alcohol/
http://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/arh24-1/05-11.pdf

(those daft 1 glass of wine studies - failing to take into account the obvious willpower bias there).

Both chocolate & alcohol will do you little or no harm if taken in moderate amounts and as part of a balanced diet, and in fact, numerous studies have shown that they both have health benefits when not consumed excessively, but the same can't be said of tobacco.
Cigarettes contain various chemicals which are poisonous and have a cumulative affect on the body and I've yet to read a single study that has stated that there is a safe amount that you can smoke.

Derivative

aldredd wrote: »

The key differences between smoking and alcohol / unhealthy foods / skydiving (what a ridiculous thing to say):

- Doesn't have a direct affect on the people around you (yes, well aware the impacts an alcohol-dependent person can have on those near to them, or someone drunk can have causing trouble etc, but it's not like these aren't being taxed to death etc)

Smoking doesn't have a direct effect on the people around you unless you choose to smoke in enclosed areas with them. The only case in which this is unavoidable, are parents/guardians smoking with their children in the home.

I don't think we should be legislating to fix bad parenting - the same parents are probably feeding their kids McDonalds and failing to take interest in their education amongst other things. Smoking is just a tiny part of that problem.

Takes a lot more to have any long-term negative effect - and are usually reversible. Same cannot be said for smoking, where it takes around 20 years for your risk of smoking-related diseases to reduce to that of a non-smoker

I'll give you that, but I don't see the relevance here. Skydiving and riding motorcycles can have pretty long-lasting negative effects when things go wrong. (I do both, by the way).

I see no problem with drawing an analogy between the two. Smoking almost always causes low levels of negative effects, whereas the aforementioned rarely cause catastrophic injury.

On your point on hiding them / making people feel guilt for doing something legal etc.

Lets expand it a little. Pornography...

Lads mags are still displayed at top shelf with provocative imagery. Whether or not it is illegal, I doubt that family stores would openly show hardcore pornographic imagery in the magazine aisle - it just wouldn't be good for business.

Same with sex toys. Ann Summers shows them in the front window pretty openly (and their stores are often located in shopping centres in plain view, not back alleys), but a supermarket doesn't.

I don't see why having cigarettes behind doors is such a problem.
No one is stopping you from buying them, most will already know what they want - and you already have to ask for them - I just fail to see the big issue here.

By the same token I don't see why we should put them behind doors. Either way I don't think it makes any sense and it has the effect of stigmatizing those who choose to smoke further. Why is it needed?

It's not so much that there is a terrific "problem", just that it is unnecessary. I understand that smoking has negative effects but so do many other behaviours. I don't see it as the Government's place to decide to stigmatize certain behaviours. It's social engineering.

To again take an example from earlier - motorcycles have flashy exteriors, obviously crafted to cultivate the cool/sexy image. Yet they are rather dangerous and we'd have less deaths on the roads if they all switched over to cars. Should we mandate that all motorcycles look bog standard boring in grey? If not, why not? What is the fundamental difference between that and plain packaging for cigarettes?

Jules22

Azari wrote: »

Excellent idea.

Let's remove all drug legislation including age restrictions and make everyone responsible for their own health. And when crime soars because some people will become so addled with their drug taking that they can't or won't work and thus have to steal to fuel their habit, don't blame the government.

Of course, that includes drink driving legislation.

So everyone will have to take responsibility for setting their own limit. And as the number of people killed and maimed soars, don't go blaming the government. It's not society's fault if people can't drive properly when they're drunk.



Absolutely.

We'll just accept the carnage on the roads and the increase in crime as the price we have to pay for allowing people to be self reliant.

Now this is taking things too far.

So are you saying that we SHOULDN'T take responsibility for our own decisions?

Or only those in Government are allowed to tell us what to do in our every day lives, as we have lost the ability to decide for ourselves.

Beggars belief if its the latter!!