Should smoking be completely banned? Yahoo readers have their say
Yahoo UK's poll of the week lets you vote and indicate your strength of feeling on one of the week's hot topics. After 72 hours the poll closes and, each Friday, we'll publish and analyse the results, giving readers the chance to see how polarising a topic has become and if their view chimes with other Yahoo UK readers.
The UK government wants to curb smoking and vaping, particularly among young people, and is planning to phase the habit out completely.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced last year that he intends to raise the minimum smoking age from 18 every year, until children who turn 14 this year or younger will never be able too legally buy cigarettes in England.
The plans are part of Sunak's ambition for a "smokefree generation". The proposed legislation will make it an offence for anyone born on or after 1 January 2009 to be sold tobacco products, with the potential to phase out smoking in young people as soon as 2040.
Yahoo UK asked our readers what they thought of the government's radical action on smoking, here are the results:
Our poll from Monday at midday until midday Thursday asked: 'Do you agree with a complete ban on smoking for younger generations?'
It received 10,567 votes and showed 67% of Yahoo readers agreed strongly with a complete ban on smoking for younger people.
Some 27% of voters said they did not agree 'at all' with the ban, while just 6% did not lean either way.
67% of Yahoo readers agreed strongly with a complete ban on smoking
Yahoo News UK readers were also asked: 'How strongly do you feel about preventing people smoking?'
This poll received 5,355 votes with the most common vote being 10, indicating many readers felt strongly that people should be prevented from smoking.
The average strength-of-feeling score on all the votes was 7.55.
Many readers felt strongly that people should be prevented from smoking. The average strength-of-feeling score on all the votes was 7.55
The results from our main poll mirrored the results of a YouGov poll on the topic. In their poll 67% of the 3,500 adults from England who were polled backed the government's plans to phase out smoking, with just 14% opposing the measure.
An official consultation on the government's proposed actions to implement a lifetime ban on smoking found that the large majority of responses supported it.
Respondents also supported the proposed measures to tackle youth vaping, with strong support for a ban on the sale and supply of disposable vapes.
The government is expected to implement this ban on disposable vapes at the end of 2024 or the start of 2025, as well as restrict the availability of fruity, sweet flavours and packaging that appeals to children.
It comes after figures from the Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) charity suggested that 7.6% of 11 to 17-year-olds now vape regularly or occasionally.
Sunak said: "Children shouldn't be vaping, we don't want them to get addicted, we still don't understand the full long-term health impacts."
Our original poll article can be found here.
Read more of Yahoo UK's Poll of the Week articles
