UK smoking ban starts July 1st, 2007

BBC News: England smoke ban to start 1 July

They can't say it was unexpected. But if everyone stops smoking now the revenue from cigarette sales will drop drastically. Will that drop be balanced by the decrease of costs for treatment of smoking-related diseases?

I don't really follow this line of argument. Should the government set up campaigns to encourage schoolchildren to start smoking, so as to increase tax revenue? I think that if we can afford to launch holy wars on the Middle-East, then we can also cover the small drop in tax revenue that will result from a ban on smoking in public places.

I'm not sure how high tabacco is taxed in the UK, but cigarettes are almost twice as expensive as here. And drastic reduction of smoking leads to drastic cuts in revenue. Simple as that. They might tax alcohol or gas higher to compensate.

short term, of course not. It'll take a generation of non-smokers to make a serious difference.

In the meantime, i think they should introduce a "fat-tax" on foods with high fat contents to help pay for the medical costs of heart attacks etc.

I'd just like to point out that measures like this haven't had THAT much effect on people's smoking habits in other places. Where I come from (NY State), this kind of ban has been in place for years, and they're still talking about trying to reduce the number of smokers/how much people smoke. They just smoke outside. Even in the dead of winter, which is much more severe than in England (yes, I've lived in England during the winter).

Nobody stops smoking just because they can't smoke in place A or B.

As it is, a serious number of places here in the UK are already no-smoking establishments, or have a large no-smoking section.

Effectively they are doing this, why do you think the legal age to buy cigarettes is still at 16? Especially when the cigarette manufacturers themselves have been urging the government to increase the age to 18, it's really stupid and I don't understand why more people aren't concerned about this.

BTW, according to ASH (an anti-smoking group), it costs £1.5bn to treat all smoking related illnesses, but the government get £8.1bn of duty from cigarettes, plus VAT. So yes, I think the government is scared of losing a hgue source of income. But at the same time they need to appear to be doing stuff, so it's tricky for them.

I heard 18 Billion a year somewhere the other week. I wouldn’t worry about it anyway as it wont be long before car owners have to pay for every mile they drive that should more than compensate for it.

Interestingly, Scotland announced just this week that they plan to increase the age to 18. Maybe this will mean the rest of the UK follows suit -- in the past couple of years it's been a case of 'Where Scotland leads, England and Wales follow', for example with the smoking ban itself or pub opening hours.

Smoking age rise 'within months' (check out their 1980s photo!)

If the crazy cost of cigarettes and related health issues haven’t stopped people smoking then it’s unlikely a bit of fresh air or change of venue will make a dent in the government coffers.

I help people quit smoking etc. so am curious to see the impact on demand for services.

As a non smoker, I can’t wait until Germany wakes up to this trend.

Well, it seems to be making a dent in Ireland: BBC News article.

Good info- But the 7.5% fall is blamed on a combination of tax increases and the ban... so not a massive short term change for the long term financial effect upon health treatement.

I heard on DLF this morning that the Große Koalition had apparently decided they were going to go for a ban on smoking in all public buildings (inc. trains, restaurants, etc.) in 2007. Given that it will probably then be challenged through the courts (this is Germany after all, so the right to smoke is bound to be defined somewhere in the Grundgesetz ) and then have to be adopted by the Länder then I'd imagine it might actually happen sometime around 2010...

(anyone else hear the report? I was only half-listening so could have misunderstood, but I think I got the gist of it)

I can’t speak for Ireland but I’m guessing that this doesn’t take into account that a large proportion of smokers now buy cigarettes on the black market.

Unforunately though 7.5% of £8.1bn (plus VAT, plus corporation tax from the cigarette manufacturers) is not an insignificant amount of money, and governments can't just say "oh hang on, we'll be fine because in 25 years time we won't need to pay as much on health treatment". It doesn't work like that. I'm not saying the governments can't do it, but they will have to fill the financial gap somehow if a significant number of people stop smoking suddenly.

So let them fill the gap. It's not much of an argument against reducing the smoking rate.

em, isn't this just an English thing? Scotland's ban came in last year.


they already do. The experience in Scotland does not show any drastic drop in smoking rates, a slight dip maybe. But that was not the reason for the ban. The reason was that workplaces must be safe and clean for employees whether they smoke or not. The ban ensures that workplaces including bars and restaurants do not constitute a health haard through smoky atmospheres.

Well yeh exactly, I'm all for it, I was just replying to Personal Change who said it wouldn't make a dent in the coffers. But for the government it is an argument against it (although they will never publicly admit it), because as well as potentially losing votes due to introducing the ban, they will also need to increase some tax to fill the gap.

I cannot wait until smoking is totally and completely outlawed, then I will sit back and piss myself laughing when the Government find someone else to pick on.

Personally, I think there should be a baby tax as I am sure that the total cost for delivering babies costs the NHS more than the total cost for smokers.

Interesting that to get a drug addict off his addiction it costs £44 000 a person.

Drug related crime causes several BILLION £ each year in the UK alone, yet the powers that be like to make good honest smokers feel like they are doing wrong. Outrageous!

They should legalise all drugs, let the government sell them and tax them and let the tax from that pay for the drug addict to get off the drugs and then save all us regular folk the billions of pounds we lose to drug crime each year. Problem solved.

Anyway, to bring it back on topic, this issue is not about banning cigarettes, its about making sure that other people who do not smoke don't have to put up with the consequences from the people that do. ANyway, we've done this a million times.

It's No Smoking Day in the UK today. this is taken from today's Sky News:


so what's in like in your place of work?
we have special smoking rooms for smokers, although my boss smokes 'while he works' in his office which is next door to mine.
myself and my colleague both don't smoke, however in other shared offices the smokers have to go to the smoking room for a ciggy, meaning they're having constant breaks from their work. doesn't really bother me, as long as I get my work done, don't really care what my colleagues get up to.

Ok, I dont mean to be picky, but by the UK I am assuming that you mean England, as the other member states of the UK, Scotland and Northern Ireland have had such a ban for some time.

Haha, I can beat your pedanticism! Only Scotland has already introduced a ban; it came into effect in March 2006. Wales and Northern Ireland will introduce bans in April 2007, a couple of months before England, but are both using the same legislation as England - passed by the British Parliament. The Channel Islands have enacted their owns bans.

Smoking ban has been in place in Scotland since last year - quite good to do to a pub and come out not smokey. but where you previously smelt smoke you now smell other things - people's BO, stale beer etc. Sometimes the smoke was quite good to mask these unpleasenties.

I doff my cap to your unquestionable pedantory prowess.

Indeed you are correct and I stand suitably chastised at my ignorance

Yep, I agree, wise words.
Not only can the govt tax drug usage but they can control it too (in terms of purity), resulting in fewer deaths

Good to see England leading the way with this, its a pity Germany is not doing the same thing. They will probably catch up by about 2050.

In light of the above posts, I am going to be pedantic too. England is hardly leading the way since Ireland, Austalia, Norway, Italy, Sweden, Uruguay, Scotland have already broguth in bans.

As well as NZ.
I'm a non smoker but am against the ban, the amount of media coverage this gets and how riled it gets the anti-smoking nazis is astounding. There are far more important things to be concerned about.

When this was introduced in Scotland, there was the expected uproar from the usual suspects, mainly folk in the licence trade. Claiming that it would effect their custom and profits, it in fact had the exact opposite effect.

It's a great idea, I managed to enjoy the smoking ban for a couple of months before I moved over here and it's was great. coming home from a night not stinking of smoke, getting up in the morning and almost boking at the smell of stale fags in your room is just shit.

I don't see what harm it does to the smoker to go outside and have there fag, especially when they're all game for sitting outside at every bloody oppertunity anyway.

It's even worse over here, when I was out for dinner the other month we were in a restaurant and the woman next to us was just chain smoking, she didn't even stop during course, it was like have a bite, have a draw, have a bite, have a draw. It was rank.

The quicker something like this becomes the norm everywhere the better.

It's on.

http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/europe/0...=rss_topstories

When is this expected to come in in Germany?

I understand the rules will differ from one state to another (?) I've read/head stuff about this on the German news, but my German's not good enough to understand whether these are just proposals or actual laws that will soon take effect.

According to wikipedia.de and Smoking ban with exceptions agreed for Germany, bans should come in on the 1st of August, although I have my doubts because I haven't seen anything else about it. Other dates such as the 1st of January, 2008 have been talked about too. I find it strange that we can't get a straight answer on this issue actually.