Message to the BBC on Have Your Say on generational quagmire for smoking plan of the prime minister

Dear BBC Have Your Say,

Thank you for inviting your readers to submit their opinion about the prime minister’s plan to enforce a generational quagmire for smoking to exclude future generations from being eligible to buy tobacco products.

I have been smoking for 31 years from when I was 20 years old and I find myself unable to quit. I know many people who have been able to quit smoking even though they smoked more often than I smoke. Cases of people smoking two, not one like myself, but two packets of cigarettes a day have been able to quit completely or switch to alternative electronic substitutes which are relatively harmless. In spite of this there are still people such as myself who cannot quit smoking who do not derive the same satisfaction from smoking alternatives to be in a position to use an electronic substitute for replacing smoking. This is a specific category of smokers who are unable to quit whilst another category of people who used to smoke find substitutes for smoking sufficient to replace it. (It depends which group is larger.)

This is one of the reasons why I would oppose the enforcement of a generational quagmire for smoking, because there is no guarantee that members of the group of people who are not complacent with electronic smoking alternatives would not be found among the next generation, although the new generation of young people have grown up in an era of prohibition of smoking and think that vaping is the same and they would belong to the group of those who can substitute vaping for smoking, or smoking with vaping. But there is no guarantee that younger people from the next generation would not fall in the category of smokers who cannot use vaping instead of smoking, because the existence of this type of person has been scientifically proven and the existence of their group has been ascertained.

Secondly, the age limit for buying tobacco products has been set so as to prevent and deter underage smoking and should not be used as a manipulated variable instead of a constant of 16, 18 or 21 to serve other purposes like the extinction of smoking among the population. If it is so, there should be no legal minimum age to buy tobacco or there should be a minimum age of 18 or 21 that serves its designated purpose. The generational quagmire for smoking in New Zealand takes advantage of the existence of the law with its socially approved purpose and purposes it serves, to make it say what the government wants, whilst this is arbitrary. The socially approved purpose in this case is that underage teenagers and children cannot buy tobacco products in exchange for money, and this should be maintained and remain as such.

A third point that I would like to make is that it is cruel for people not to be allowed to live their life in the way that they choose, by condemning them to spend the rest of their lives – and die – with the same condition with which they were born, by not being eligible to purchase tobacco products while they were underage, if this is going to continue after acquiring their legal responsibility and becoming responsible citizens. It is known that smoking can happen in another country and it is not up to the interest of the state of this country to bar its population and punish people for doing what you can do on your own and send us to another country to be able to smoke. Punishing people for exercising their rights is not the right thing for anyone to do, including the prime minister and the parliamentarians, and deciding on whether to smoke is a right that those with legal responsibility have. It is also a consumer right to decide on whether to smoke from what is available to you in the market in the same way that we choose what we buy and consume it.

Thank you for reading my opinion.