Anticonsumption

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UK Prime Minister to create ‘smokefree generation’ by ending cigarette sales to those born on or after 1 January 2009 (www.gov.uk)

submitted 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I think it was the prime minister (or spokesperson) who made this very clever argument: (paraphrasing) “we are not taking away choice… cigarettes are designed to inherently take away your choice by trapping you in an addiction.”

I’m not picking sides here, just pointing out a great piece of rhetoric to spin the policy as taking away something that takes away your choice. Effectively putting forward the idea that you don’t have choice to begin with.

(sorry to say this rhetoric was not mentioned in the linked article; I just heard it on BBC World Service)

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

South Africa was trying this when I moved away about 15 years ago. If you wanted to smoke you had to sit in separate closed off area in restaurants (for example).

~~No idea what the ultimate outcome of that was though.~~

Edit: According to smokefreeworld.org:

The adult smoking rate declined from 27.1 percent in 2000 to 18.2 percent in 2012