One Puff and It's Gone?

Yesterday, the UK parliament voted through some of the world's strictest limitations on the sales of tobacco products. Now, no young person, on reaching the age of 15, will ever be legally able to buy cigarettes. Chris Whitty (Chief Medical Officer for England), along with most other health professionals, strongly supported this new legislation. Whitty points out that nicotine addiction "traps, then slowly disables and kills thousands of our fellow citizens" (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/apr/16/smoking-vaping-tobacco-and-vapes-bill-mps-disease-inequality-chris-whitty). Each year, in the UK, 80,000 folk die as a result of cigarette smoking and many more are harmed. Smoking is currently the UK's major cause of preventable disease. It produces lung cancer deaths and has also been linked to stroke; heart disease and dementia. The link is also most obvious in the most deprived areas of the country. These conditions cost the health services billions of pounds. This is far from compensated for, by tobacco duty. It's highly probable that smoking also contributes to the current general ill-health of the UK's working age population (https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/apr/17/record-37m-workers-in-england-will-have-major-illness-by-2040-study-finds). Some members of the current UK government voted against the measure. They cited the importance of 'individual choice'. If 'individual choice' is paramount, they should, of course, also support the legalisation of marihuana; cocaine and heroin. They don't. Nicotine's current position is a historical anomaly for an addictive drug. The new legislation also tries to bring some order to the sales of vaping products to young folk. It probably doesn't go far enough. It would be a pity, if addiction to cigarettes, is simply replaced by a psychological reliance on vapes.