I confess I am a buyer of cigarettes! I really don't intend to stop buying cigarettes any time soon either, in spite of the newly proposed British regulations that will make it illegal for shop owners to openly display cigarettes for sale!

It is already illegal for a person under the age of 18 to buy cigarettes, even though most of the smokers I see puffing away in the streets are actually teenagers. It is also illegal to smoke in any public building or under any covered area, making it necessary for smokers to take their pleasure out into the streets. However, since it is also illegal to stub out and drop cigarettes on the street (litter law) and/or stub out a cigarette on a wall (anti-graffiti law) in order to carefully dispose of it in an inconveniently placed bin, street smoking is almost as problematic as smoking inside. This begs the question; why not, after all, be hung for a sheep as a lamb and enjoy your cigarette in a warm, dry place - inside?

Smoking laws in the UK are, in fact, ridiculous! The very people they aim to 'protect' from us evil and inconsiderate smokers are actually., in reality, the biggest offenders. Hiding cigarettes behind a shop counter will be no more effective in stopping young smokers than refusing to sell cigarettes to someone under the age of 18 has been. I find it extremely interesting that there are so many young people smoking in spite of the government policy of trying to make smokers feel like criminals and outcasts. No doubt we elderly enthusiastic smokers will be blamed for this sad state of affairs - after all, it is a well known fact that it is only because teenagers have seen us smoke that they would consider smoking at all.

So, to get back to the original question. Yes, teenagers buy cigarettes - lots of them. They are our future hope for the tobacco industry. While we older people are being bullied and belittled into giving up, they are propping up the industry with youthful enthusiasm and energy. They are also doing their bit to keep lower income earners in tobacco growing countries gainfully employed as well as adding to The Treasury's coffers through the excessive taxes placed on a packet of cigarettes.

I suppose the next step will be to ban cigarettes completely. Maybe our children's children will look back on this time as the Great Tobacco Prohibition and classic movies will be made about the heroes who grew and rolled cigarettes in the Scottish Highlands to sell on the black market? Perhaps there will be stories of marvellous car chases and shoot outs as that canny Scotsman outwits the 'The Law' once again and lives to smoke another day!

Yes, I buy cigarettes and I don't intend to be bullied into stopping. In fact, all these bullying tactics serve no better purpose than to make me even more determined to carry on smoking. I will not be cowed and I will not be apologetic and I will most certainly not slink into shops to buy my cigarettes from under the counter like a criminal!

A smoker and proud!

Learn more about this author, Jayne Scott.
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