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  "path": "/t/uk-plans-to-pass-law-banning-anyone-born-after-2008-to-buy-cigarettes/37301?page=6#post_120",
  "publishedAt": "2026-04-24T09:26:08.000Z",
  "site": "https://discuss.privacyguides.net",
  "textContent": "jonah:\n\n> because the government generally shouldn’t take away privileges from people who already have them.\n\nThis is indeed the crux of the issue. Smoking is bad, so I can understand progressively getting rid of that privilege. But there are certainly things for which I wouldn’t agree, like Brexit.\n\nWhyRhy:\n\n> Anyone under 18 is not legally able to purchase tobacco. Therefore: no one is legally affected by this and is pretty much a non-story.\n\nI’m not necessarily against this law, but you could say the same thing about privacy. Kids today have less privacy than their parents and grandparents had at the same age. One could argue that they’re not missing anything. But you could also argue that they are.\n\nZenByte:\n\n> What does this story have anything to do with privacy though?\n\nPrivacy comes in when you’re asked for age verification to buy cigarettes. It’s normal to verify that someone is an adult, but in this case, that’s not the only reason the buyer would be verified for. Also, although most people buy cigarettes in person, I would not be surprised if they can be bought online too, which is where age verification becomes more invasive.\n\nWith all the age verification laws that are being passed for social media and NSFW content on the internet, I hope that governments and businesses make no exception for online grocery stores and liquor stores. If someone orders groceries online and puts any alcohol in their cart, they better be asked to provide ID. They shouldn’t be able to check out without it. If an exception is made for online grocery stores and liquor stores, people should riot.\n\nZenByte:\n\n> Doing unhealthy things is not just a personal choice, it’s a choice that affects everyone.\n\nYou are 1000% right. But this doesn’t just apply to smoking. It applies to many things that governments and regular people refuse to do to protect the health of others because it’s an inconvenience to them or because it hurts capitalism.\n\nThe COVID-19 pandemic was a rude awakening for a lot of people who realized that people just don’t care about others, but of course this is something disabled and chronically ill people already knew. I invite you to read about disability rights and justice, and you’ll understand how people are unwilling to change their behavior to protect the health of others and allow them to access the world as freely as able people can. We live in a very ableist world, and that is a major healthcare issue.\n\nThe thing people don’t appreciate, and I didn’t appreciate until I started educating myself about this, is that most of us will become disabled at some point in our lives. If we’re lucky, it will be at an old age. But anyone can become disabled at any moment. It doesn’t matter if you’re young or old.\n\nSome people are born disabled. Others become disabled because of an accident, an infectious disease they caught, or something else. So we should care about disability issues because they are a healthcare issue too. And when you protect the vulnerable (in this case children), you protect everyone. If you suffer from asthma or any respiratory illness, you are more vulnerable to secondhand smoke than the average healthy person.",
  "title": "UK plans to pass law banning anyone born after 2008 to buy cigarettes"
}