Rishi Sunak is considering introducing some of the world’s toughest anti-smoking measures that would in effect ban the next generation from ever being able to buy cigarettes, the Guardian has learned.
Whitehall sources said the prime minister was looking at measures similar to those brought in by New Zealand last December. They involved steadily increasing the legal smoking age so tobacco would end up never being sold to anyone born on or after 1 January 2009.
“the overall societal cost is high”
Just like every other drug. Everyone wants to legalise marijuana, ostensibly for the tax money (but not really), and yet it has far greater social costs than tax will recover. Even the states that legalise it (and consequently becoming tourist destinations) are not actually benefiting from it even though the “Las Vegas effect” means that they should disproportionately benefit from it.