Smoking Bans - Authoritarian and Economically Illiterate

 

The year is 2050 - continued government intrusion into our lives mean we all walk around as barcodes, flashing our digital ID to access public services and conduct financial transactions. This will most likely be through simply showing our faces, which will be promptly scanned and checked against a database of millions (the Home Office is already constructing such a database, using 13million of our passport photos sans consent) either on entry to a public building or through our smartphones. Sadly, this is likely to be the case in much of the developed world.

Following Sunak's announcement of a smoking ban, in the UK this distopian nightmare now takes on a farcical dimension - a 41 year old's face grants them access to a packet of Marlboros while the 40 year old's face is declined. The State has simply no right to dabble in such lunacy. The authoritarian lunatic is also an economic illiterate:

At the current average UK price of £11.46 a packet, a 20 a day smoker will spend approximately £4000 a year on cigarettes. About £3000 of this will go straight into government coffers in tax, or in other terms about the same figure it now costs the taxpayer to entice a migrant onto a plane to Rwanda. Assuming our smoker fails to contract lung cancer after their first few drags, their tax receipts will more than cover their treatment on the NHS. (Let's leave discussion of the taxpayer being forced to fund the lifestyle -influenced healthcare needs of others for another day).

A lifetime smoker will also die an average of 10 years earlier than a non-smoker. That's 10 years less of later life care. 10 less years of dementia, cancers, care needs and so on. With each puff, their burden on The State melts away.

The government has not articulated any sound plan for how they are going to cover the shortfall. So from 2026 they are going to tax vapes. This not only represents another unnecessary and intrusive tax on personal choice but will discourage the use of the most successful smoking cessation aid. It leaves one confused as to the objective of the smoking ban.

The shortfall will therefore have to be covered with tax rises elsewhere. And there we have it: a not-smoking tax to pay for a ban on smoking. You couldn't make this up.