It is time to defend the smoker

It is time to defend the smoker

Smoking in the UK has become one of the most frowned upon habits imaginable, while other vices such as drinking and gambling have largely been left alone smoking has taken a real battering by the nanny state.  Not long ago you could smoke just about anywhere,in  the pub, at work, the airport even restaurants, but this is now a bygone age for smoking.  Smokers now have to stand outside in the cold and wet and this has massively damaged the good old fashioned British pub with thousands closing since the smoking ban.

 

Many will support actions like banning smoking indoors in public areas and to an extent this is a logical thing to do, everyone knows the damage of second hand smoke and even the most Liberal person must accept that in a confined space their cigarette smoke is harming the non-smokers around them hence encroaching on their rights not to smoke. But other developed western countries have not been as harsh on their smokers as the UK, some German pubs have smoking rooms and you can smoke in private functions, why does the UK have such draconian laws when it comes to smoking?  After all the industry brings in around £12 billion in excise duty and £2.6 billion in VAT a year and approximately 70,000 people are employed in tobacco related jobs.  Yes smoking is bad for you there is no denying this but it is not the states job to kill off a legal product through high taxation and absurd laws, taxes on tobacco in the UK are bordering on the insane.  Such high taxes on tobacco are counterproductive and are losing the treasury billions of pounds due to tobacco smuggling and cross boarder shopping, in 2012/13 the Treasury estimated that 16% of cigarettes and 48% of hand rolled tobacco had not paid UK duty.  Just to show a comparison of how high UK tobacco taxes are 20 premium cigarettes in the UK cost £7.89 which is the highest in the EU by some way only Ireland and the UK charge over £6 for 20 cigarettes.  Lithuania has the cheapest cigarettes in the EU with a pack of 20 only costing £2.30, and in Germany, Denmark, Italy, Spain, and Belgium you can get 20 cigarettes for under £5. In fact the tax on UK cigarettes is so high that the price of 20 cigarettes in any other European country excluding Ireland is less than the amount of tax paid on 20 cigarettes in the UK, for every 20 cigarettes a person buys they pay £6.17 in tax which is astronomical. Combine the price of tobacco with the high price of beer in pubs and you can see why hard working people are struggling to make ends meet.

The bashing of the tobacco industry and people who smoke by the state has got so bad now that it looks like it may become illegal to smoke in your own car if a child is present, that includes your own child, why not just open the windows to ventilate the car.  However it is still fine to feed the same child fast food, processed food, fizzy drinks and even alcohol if they are above 5 and in private premises.  There are also plans for plain packaging for cigarettes even though this has been shown to have no effect on peoples smoking habits in Australia and it has increased tobacco smuggling.   Both main parties show no sign of providing smokers any relief in regards to VAT which is quite interesting, as both Alcohol and gambling received some form of tax relief in the Chancellors latest budget and although Alcohol may cause less deaths than tobacco it still has serious social effects such as 28% of homeless people in the UK are homeless due to alcoholism. 

Although not all smoking legislation is unnecessary such as banning smoking in indoor public areas, the government is getting far too involved in smoking.  We are supposed to live in a Liberal Democracy in which the state protects the freedom of the individual, it is not supposed to prevent people from using a legal product through draconian laws.  There is no doubt that cigarettes and other tobacco products are bad for you, but so are hundreds of other products which don’t get nearly as much attention for the government.  My argument is not that tobacco is a good thing but that a government in a Liberal society should not be infringing a person’s rights to smoke, with laws such as no advertising, plain packaging and the total ban on all indoor smoking (for example what is wrong with a smoking room in a pub).  Even if you don’t smoke this topic should interest you, because once the state has practically outlawed smoking, then it will be drinking, fatty foods or even violent video games and TV programs.