Kamal Ghorui
UK’s resolve to end tobacco use is good, but its new law to do so is an example of bad logic
James-I would have approved. The British monarch was a staunch opponent of tobacco, so much so that he wrote a pamphlet – ‘A Counterblaste to Tobacco’ – about it. In his words, smoking was a “custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs…”
So, when Charles-III signs UK’s Tobacco and Vapes Bill, James’ 400-year-old dream of a tobacco-mukt Britain will be a step closer to realisation.
That’s laudable. WHO estimates tobacco kills 70L people each year, 13L in India alone. In Britain, 10% of adult population smokes, resulting in 64,000 deaths a year. The numbers are compelling. And considering that 75% of British smokers wish they’d never started, the case for state intervention is stronger. But that’s where the UK law gets puzzling.
It aims to create a tobacco-free generation, by banning sale to anyone born after Jan 1, 2009. Soon, there will be two kinds of adults in UK: those who can smoke, and those who can’t. This raises larger questions about adulthood and choice. What if a future law says people born after a random cutoff date may not use cash, or drive, or vote for a certain party, or convert to another faith?
The other problem with the UK law is that it’s too slow. The country’s life expectancy for women – who outlive men – is 83 years. If it doesn’t rise, 2092 is the earliest that Britain might be tobacco-free. That’s simply too long. New Zealand, which first introduced such a generational law in 2022, repealed it after a change of govt.
It was murmured that tobacco firms pushed a campaign called ‘Save Our Stores’, to scrap it. The lobby won’t sit quiet in UK, where tobacco has been smoked since at least 1565, when Admiral John Hawkins – uncle of William Hawkins, who visited Jahangir’s court in 1609 – introduced it from America.
High taxes and strict advertising rules can break the habit faster. Like the bucket of water that English statesman Walter Raleigh’s servant threw, when he first saw his master smoking. He thought Raleigh was on fire. James-I would have approved.
END OF ARTICLE
