I am 19 and have always looked older and was treated in a way which has really offended me and I feel so infuriated, especially becuse it is my first time being treated like that and the average smoker does not behave like this.
I went into the woods to have a cigarette, just a quiet place to smoke in peace and my ligher wouldn't work properly because I was in the wind, so I asked a bloke next to me on a bench, if he had a lighter, he said no because he probably didn't smoke. So I wondered further into the woods and asked an Indian guy and he looked like the type of person that works in a cornershop, he was smoking a cigarette, I asked if he had a lighter and he said 'how old are you', as I said before I am 19, but I accidently said 18 and he said 'no'. He looks like them shopkeepers that are so uncompromising. So I struggled in the trees and eventually lighted my cigarette.
There are a few reasons why I am so pissed off, firstly it goes against our friendly tobbacco culture, as I said I fucking look older and since I started smoking at 16, I haven't needed to do this often, but when I did, people either had it or didn't, but it was never because of my age, he said no in such an unfriendly way, In America I could maybe expect something like this, but in Britain it was such a shock. This is not the fucking shops, why do you need to feel the need to make up your own rules, even in the shops I don't always get ID or even when I go to the fucking betting shops.
Secondly the health campaigners and government are also to blame, since before mid 2007, the purchase age was always 16 since 1908, then they raised it, fair enough, but the part that pisses me off more is the fact that they started off with an u21 campaign, then they made it u25, so even obviously grown people have to show ID if they want to buy a cigarette which is completely outrageous. Now they are giving the shop keepers and smokers the impression that they have to do this normally. I know right now the average person is not like this, but it scares me to think of what it might be like in 10 years time.
Last but not least, it isn't even illegal. Our law states that the purchase age is 18, the smoking in public age is 16 and in private there is no age restriction to smoke. It is not illegal for a u18 to attempt to buy a tobacco product, only illegal for the shopkeeper to serve you and it is not illegal for an 18 year old or older to buy a tobacco product for someone under 18, although north of the border in Scotland it is. And also, the purchase age for lighters is 16.
Smokers are slowly starting to be treated as criminals and new smoking laws keep coming into force one after the other, now it seems like every fucking year, before in the 20th century, it happened like every decade. The most recent ones i'll explain here in my post, they stopped all shops from displaying tobacco, so it has to be covered up, they banned smoking in cars if you are travelling with an u18, you shouldn't do that anyway, but there's no need for it to become a law. They introduced plain packaging. Now they are trying to make it illegal to smoke inside your council home, soon by 2020 menthol cigarettes will be banned and cigarette prices will go up to £15 a pack. And doctors voted to lobby the government to ban people born after the year 2000 from buying tobacco products even when they bacome 18.
If we are being treated like criminals, we will have no choice than to go underground, prohibition of alcohol in America didn't work and Prohibition of tobacco in the UK won't work, espeially as around 20% of the British population smoke, although it's not outright prohibition, it is leading to that and it will not work, most British smokers agree with basic restrictions, but this has gone a step too far.
I don't give a fuck if it's plain packaging that is sold on the darknet, but we should not be robbed of our British Cigarettes, I really don't want to be forced to smoke foreign cigarettes, if i'm on holiday I have no problem with it, but not in my home country on a daily basis.
We need to prove a point to the government that this is not going to work and also I would like UK or even International vendors that are experienced with British cigarettes to please work on this, the work will be rewarding because so many UK smokers will turn to you. Please test and try to imitate as close as possible the old taste before plain packaging and sell our brands again in non-plain packaging. If you feel the need to, then cover it in 20% health warnings and on the back as it was before, but I would rather it had no health warnings, since people coming on the darknet and government education and adverts if you didn't know before will alert you to the dangers. Please don't make it unsafe like Jin Ling Cigarettes that burn and burn, put the fire safety bands on and make the official age to purchase 16+.
People campaigned to ban alcohol in America, the goverment listened and it failed, now doctors and health campaigners are reaaly strong and are lobbying the UK government to place extream restrictions on tobacco and not alcohol which is much worse according to studies, but this shall not work and if successful underground, as it was legal before, the government will consider their stance.
EDIT - Even in college when I was 16 and now, they let 16+ smoke, it's legal
2 lads in the woods wouldn't give you a light and you're blaming the government?