Letter to MP about the incremental tobacco purchase ban contained in the Tobacco and Vapes bill

Dear Rt Hon Danny Beales, MP,

My name is Constantine Kitis and I am one of your constituents resident in Uxbridge, and I am writing to you about the Tobacco and Vapes Bill that will have its second reading in the House of Commons on Tuesday the 26th of November 2024.

The previously defunct until the last general election Tobacco and Vapes Bill under the current government is about to apply the punishment of the law to a well-intentional activity as an everyday life exchange between citizens of purchasing tobacco on behalf of adult citizens who have surpassed the age of legal responsibility of 18, based on the criterion that they have become adults after its enactment. In order to do so, the Tobacco and Vapes Bill contains the false statement that this activity constitutes an offence.

Buying tobacco after becoming an adult does not constitute an offence, because an offence is defined as an action that bears consequences and has victims out of its performance or invokes the guilt of the individual performing it. Therefore, because purchasing tobacco after becoming an adult does not satisfy any of these criteria, neither does smoking indoors or in smoke-free areas or convening in groups during the Covid pandemic, those activities are not real or organic offences but devised ones, that have been proclaimed as such by the selective choice of the Secretary of State or the author of the legislation, further confirming that offences cannot be chosen to exist.

In addition, when purchasing tobacco is an actual offence when sold to youngsters who are underaged, the Tobacco and Vapes Bill performs the assumption that all underaged people were not born before but were born after 2009 based on the variable date of the calendar.

This form of condemnation of the citizens of our country need not be necessary for our survival as a nation and for our good health. The minimum age required to buy tobacco has been raised in the past from the age of maturity of 16 to the age of legal responsibility of 18 and can be raised to the age of self-guardianship of 21. Young people who have become 21 years old have usually found their aim in life, entered university or found employment. This means that they can self-finance their smoking habit if it belongs to them, before they would be permitted to acquire it. This also means that smoking would not infiltrate schools and the younger community, and only those feeling the need to smoke would actually do so, instead of waiting to become 18 and start smoking.

The abuse of freedom which leads to offensiveness would be discouraged when that freedom would not be present in the form of the ability to smoke after the age of legal responsibility of 18, but would be available after the age of self-guardianship of 21 when one has decided what they want to do in life and which direction to take.

This calculated approach would control smoking rates according to the needs of society and its members instead of aiming to eliminate them and bring them down to zero, under the perception that if less is better then none at all is best.

In conclusion, the solution to the problem of smoking is provided by setting the minimum age requirement to buy tobacco to 21. The smoking rates do not have to equal zero, for this problem to find its solution, because there are still and still will be individuals with the physical need to smoke who have to be listened to and catered for from society and the state. Those individuals are an ever-decreasing minority whose size should not be forced to elimination. This is why I recommend conscientious voting and decision-making regarding this and every other issue to avoid popular and social disappointment.

Thank you for reading about my concerns.