Haven’t we learned anything from 1920s prohibition? That if you ban something, you immediately create a black market. Imagine how happy the world would be if there was no drug crime. And have you noticed that the medical advisers supporting banning the sale of tobacco to young people are the same scientists who destroyed their educations through successive covid lockdowns, which also destroyed livelihoods and brought the UK economy to bankruptcy. We are still paying for it.
I speak as someone who gave up smoking back in the 1970s, when smoking was still the cool thing to do. I gave it up because I am asthmatic. And because I was never a heavy smoker, giving up was not too difficult for me to do. For me, was just about breaking a habit. But is not for me to tell you what to do with your own bodies. Since then, there have been occasions when I have tried the occasional cigarette or cigar. Just to get in the party spirit. But I’ve never enjoyed it. The last time I smoked was 10 years ago on a baking hot summer’s day, when I shared a shisha pipe in someone’s back garden, whilst children were having a birthday party inside the house. It took me another two days to get my lungs back.
Going to the pub has never been the same since the government banned smoking back in the 1990s. The ambience has gone. They also say that people who don’t smoke, don’t drink. So no wonder so many pubs have gone to the wall. But isn’t there another reason why the government have chosen this election year to get us talking about smoking bans for young people?
Wouldn’t the government rather have us talking about smoking bans than its own economic failures? The fact that there is a housing crisis? That for the first time in 100 years, people are having to use food banks? That we can’t even walk down the high street without tripping over a sleeping bag?
BRUCE AND HOLLY 