There should be a maximum smoking age

In January 2022, the New York Times ran a piece that declared that smoking was back, quoting Martin Amis’s daughter saying it seemed like it was. In the summer of 2023, the Guardian ran a piece that declared that smoking was back, because Lily-Rose Depp looks great when smoking. Last month, the Guardian again ran a piece that declared that smoking was back, because Dua Lipa smokes and Charli XCX pretends to. 

But it isn’t back, and there’s stats to prove it. However, what those pieces do say is that smoking retains its ‘cool’ image. We know that. Kate Moss and James Dean knew that. And because we know that, we can glean the real tragedy of Keir Starmer’s potential smoking ban – the aesthetic defeat. Nicotine is a decent, but not amazing, microdrug: it can marginally improve your afternoon and moderately improve your evening. But its real power is that it looks good, especially if you’re young.