Tobacco and Vapes Bill

Written evidence submitted by Constantine Kitis to The Tobacco and Vapes Public Bill Committee (TVB32).

My name is Constantine Kitis and I am a Greek freelance interpreter living in Uxbridge, Middlesex. This document is a submission that I would like to make to the Committee on Public Bills about the Tobacco and Vapes Bill that has passed its second reading through parliament. The aim of this submission is to prove that raising the minimum age required for citizens to purchase tobacco from the market to 21 years is an adequate form of regulation that caters for the contemporary public health needs of the U.K. population but doing so incrementally by one year every year is equivalent to the deprivation of liberty of almost every citizen and eventually of all the citizens of the country.

In summary of my prepositions and arguments:

§ Setting the minimum age limit for purchasing tobacco from the market to 21 years is not a restriction that is imposed on the liberty of citizens but a legitimate form of expected regulation from the state.

§ This regulation as described above addresses social rules and perceptions as well as the public health needs of the population.

§ This regulation standing alone is adequate to address a considerable proportion of contemporary public health needs of the population without requiring additional restrictions that are already in force and have been introduced in the past.

§ Raising the required age limit for purchasing tobacco from the market by one year every year treats citizens unjustly and restricts their daily life and monetary exchanges by abandoning activities that are not guilty to perform by arbitrarily punishing social exchanges with the punishment of the law that is not proportionate to be applied to the innocence of each individual.

§ Raising the minimum age limit for purchasing tobacco from the market by one year every year makes reference to the end of each person’s life to abandon the purchase of tobacco for life from the citizens that are acquiring their legal responsibility after its enactment and thus constitutes a form of condemnation addressing the wider population and the general public.

1) Many civil rights advocates have often confronted and opposed the measure taken by the state of designating the minimum age limit at which tobacco can be purchased to the age of self-guardianship of 21 years from the age of legal responsibility of 18 years as an unwarranted restriction when in fact it more or less deals with the same social rule and the same social perception and does not deprive 18, 19 and 20-year-olds of any of their rights which can be exercised at a later stage when they become 21 years old. This is still the same legitimate form of expected regulation aimed at designating tobacco use as a mature activity and maturely-corresponding choice.

2) Designating the age required to buy tobacco to 21 years has taken place in the United States at the Federal level since late 2019 and has proven successful in reducing smoking rates both as a quantity and under a qualitative perspective of which individuals smoke versus which individuals do not.

3) Apart from American smoking rates being at their lowest recorded level for several years after the age requirement was set to the age of self-guardianship of 21 years raised to that from the age of legal responsibility of 18 years, those who contribute to the smoking rate appear to only be those individuals who have the particular need or the physical need to smoke, as smoking has not been spreading through schools and among youngsters since when it can be exercised by those who have typically entered higher education or have found professional accomplishment or have defined their aim in life after being younger.

4) When smoking is permitted to be bought from the market after the age of legal responsibility of 18 years it becomes common-place for most or many youngsters and infiltrates the school population of each country. It spreads through the young population indiscriminately and becomes common place in society irrespective of if each person’s physical needs do not require it to be present and be practised by them.

5) When the age limit for that is raised to 21 years, most youngsters have reached their point in life when they have found their own direction and aim in life. Most have entered university or have found professional accomplishment and many can finance their smoking habit independently in contrast to if they would be permitted to smoke right after graduating from school. This reduces the smoking rate against its absolute minimisation to be contributed by roughly only those individuals having the physical need to smoke more imminently. This does not minimise the smoking rate progressively when perceiving that the less is better, but balances the smoking rate and the composure of those who contribute to it according to the needs of society and its individual members.

6) Those who have the physical need to smoke more imminently are being ‘filtered’ from the rest of the population and their needs are properly catered for by the state and their society. Those who would not smoke would not prefer to spend the money they earned independently on smoking after having reached the age of 21. They would neither aim at doing so without a more substantial reason than being influenced and less and less would take advantage of their freedom and commit various illegal acts or offences when the freedom to smoke would not be present or available as early as when they graduate from school as opposed to when they enter higher education and get professionally accomplished, taking their aim in life and finding their direction. This plays its part in reducing criminality and crucially reducing criminality among younger people who were more recently educated as a means to counteract the development of criminality and counteract the emergence of criminality at its root.

7) The smoking rate has not got to be completely eliminated or gradually decreased for accomplishing the pursuit of the public health of the population. There are still and still will be those people feeling the physical need to smoke who have to be taken into consideration and be catered for from society and the state. Controlling the smoking rate against its absolute minimisation using the method of raising the minimum age requirement to do so to 21 years is ideal for the reasons that I described above.

8) However, pursuing a gradual minimisation of the smoking rate irrespective of society and irrespective of social needs unfortunately has led to pursuing its forced and imposed elimination using the force of the law with the current version of the Tobacco and Vapes Bill. This method is towards one extreme and unbalanced and all cultural trends should be represented in a healthy society.

9) Using the punishment of the law to criminalise daily activities that have been chosen from daily life and characterise them as "offences" following the choice made by the author of the law or the Secretary of State is not derived from a truthful statement of the law and it has been proven by the legal science that not any activity could be an offence because it has been declared as such in writing with the legislation.

10) For an action to qualify as an offence, it must return a victim or have similar consequences and invoke the guilt of the individual performing it. Neither purchasing tobacco after a certain age of legal responsibility of 18 and selling it to that person nor indoor smoking and similar forcefully abandoned activities fall under that definition of being offences, and the same written proclamation of the corresponding legislation is untruthful and a false statement as made. The punishment of the law should only correspond to guilt and never be applied to innocence as a general principle, and using it against activities that have been chosen to become offences does not make those activities offences by writing or by saying so without falling under the same definition or proof.

11) The current version of the Tobacco and Vapes Bill condemns each citizen except those who were already adults before its proposed enactment to never be permitted to purchase tobacco without respecting each person’s choices and preferences, their free will and their natural right to do so should it be their own decision. The Tobacco and Vapes Bill should instead raise and designate the legal age to buy tobacco to 21 years and respect each person’s right to do so and allow for its exercise without punishing the exercise of natural rights that were conferred upon people by nature.

December 2024.