Prime Minister Sunak’s Smoking Ban Bill gone up in smoke?
05th Jun 2024
The bill to ban smoking in the UK could be scrapped. This is the outcome after Prime Minister Rishi Sunak called a general election for 4 July and dissolved the UK Parliament.
“The Tobacco and Vapes Bill will most certainly be binned if Labour wins the election. They will want to go forward with their own proposals. But even with a continued Tory government, we are still hopeful that changes can be made to the old bill”, says Markus Lindblad, Head of Communications at Pouch Patrol.
Still, more than twice as many Britons smoke as Swedes, for example. Study after study concludes that this is because Sweden has long encouraged harm reduction and the use of alternative sources of nicotine.
“Tens of thousands of British lives could be saved every year with a harm reduction policy similar to the one in Sweden”, Lindblad concludes:
“This will be a fateful election for the UK. And it’s up to the voters to put the candidates against the wall with demands for concrete and evidence based measures instead of even more of the poster politics when it comes to smoking cessation”.
