The Dictatorship

The U.K. banned tobacco products for anyone born after 2008. Here’s what could go wrong.

Published

2 months ago

April 27, 2026

Apr. 26, 2026, 6:00 AM EDT

In 1604, King James I of England wrote one of history’s most fervent anti-smoking tracts in response to the rising popularity of tobacco imported from the New World. Smoking, he concluded, was a “custome lothsome to the eye, hatefull to the Nose, harmefull to the braine, dangerous to the Lungs, and in the blacke stinking fume thereof, neerest resembling the horrible Stigian smoke of the pit that is bottomelesse.” [sic]

King James would have loved the new law set to be approved by King Charles III establishing a new generation in the United Kingdom that will be forbidden from purchasing tobacco for their entire lives. Specifically, the law makes it an offense to sell cigarettes, cigars, pipe or chewing tobacco, as well as various other forms of tobacco leaf, to anyone born after Jan. 1, 2009. This, its proponents say, will eventually lead to a smoke-free society, as the legal age for buying cigarettes rises inexorably until the last living smoker in the U.K. joins the choir invisible.

Australia provided a case study in how this could get out of control.

It’s not hard to imagine how this neat solution may falter. While no one is against banning the sale of cigarettes to teenagers, the situation will become increasingly absurd as today’s 17-year-olds age into maturity, creating a permanent division between adults allowed to buy tobacco and those who are prohibited. Supposedly, the day will come when a 50-year-old can buy a cigar from the tobacconist, but their 49-year-old friend must be turned away. Can one really expect this prohibition to be durably respected?

The U.K.’s new law takes an ultimately infantilizing view of tobacco use.

“Children in the U.K. will be part of the first smoke-free generation, protected from a lifetime of addiction and harm,”U.K. Health Secretary Wes Streeting said. But these children will eventually become adults denied the right to make decisions for themselves. It’s grossly illiberal.

In the two decades that I’ve been writing about tobacco policy, I’ve seen the meaning of the phrase “smoking ban” evolve from no smoking in bars to no smoking, period, even among consenting adults. Not long ago, warning of this could be dismissed as a slippery slope fallacy. Now, it’s the imminent reality for a country of 70 million.

Illicit tobacco sales are already a growing problem in the U.K., driven by rising taxes. An investigation by the BBC last year traced criminal supply chains for untaxed, and often counterfeit, tobacco from Europe and China making its way into stashes hidden beneath floorboards in retail shops. Generational prohibition would raise the incentives for illicit sales ever higher.

Australia provided a case study in how this could get out of control.

The country is widely praised for its strict anti-nicotine measures, including one of the world’s highest taxes on cigarettes and a ban on selling vapes without medical prescription. But the result has been a massive black market, with more than half of cigarettes and nearly all e-cigarettes estimated to be sold illegally. This market is violent, too: More than 250 arsons have been associated with gangs supplying illegal products, including one that killed a woman when attackers accidentally hit the wrong address. Crucially, Australia’s decline in smoking has stalled as well, likely due in part to the easy availability of contraband cigarettes.

Another country in the Commonwealth offers a different lesson. New Zealand passed its own generational tobacco ban in 2022, but the country repealed it before it ever took effect. Like Australia, New Zealand also has high taxes on cigarettes. Unlike Australia, it has relatively friendly policies toward safer nicotine products, such as e-cigarettes. The result has been a much tamer illicit market, while still seeing plummeting rates of smoking.

The outcomes of the U.K.’s smoke-free generation law will depend greatly on its policies toward alternative nicotine products. The growth of illicit markets can be attenuated if potential smokers choose to switch to products such as vapes and nicotine pouches, which have already contributed to dramatically reduced rates of smoking. Yet the same law also restricts advertising of these products and may lead to bans on flavors, a potential inhibitor for some on making the switch away from smoking.

Even the rosiest best-case scenarios, if they happen, will have unintended consequences. Illicit markets don’t have to be massive to create real harm in the form of corruption, lost tax revenues, violence and the costs of law enforcement and punishing offenders. Just look at the money and violence associated with Australia’s tobacco smuggling gangs, or organized criminals associated with illegal drugs everywhere in the world.

Conventional means such as taxes, educational campaigns, age restrictions, limits on where people can light up and innovation in safer nicotine products have already achieved great progress against smoking. Prohibition is neither necessary nor worth the risks.

Even the rosiest best-case scenarios, if they happen, will have unintended consequences.

The tendency isn’t limited to the U.K. Worldwide, governments are embracing a new era of prohibition for nicotine and tobacco products. Some of these are worse than others. Singapore, for example, has threatened importers of e-cigarettes with nearly a decade in prison. Here in the United States, statewide bans on flavored vapes have shifted demand to lethal cigarettes while leading to the arrests and prosecutions of sellers. And a few American cities have already implemented bans on tobacco sales or their own smoke-free generation laws.

The potential for such laws to go awry is clear enough from the drug war, alcohol Prohibition and past attempts at banning cigarettes. Around the early 19th century, 15 states in the U.S. experimented with bans on cigarette sales, and all of them eventually repealed.

Or one could look back to King James himself. Despite his status as one of history’s great opponents of smoking, his subjects took a different view, continuing to light their pipes even as he raised their taxes. Eventually, he opted to turn tobacco into a profitable royal monopoly.

Even with the powers of a king, one must reckon with adults pursuing their own desires, which will durably include some fraction of the population preferring genuine tobacco. A free society can accommodate them while still pursuing public health, without the heavy hand of prohibition.

Jacob Grier is a freelance writer in Portland, Oregon. He is the author of several books, including The New Prohibition and The Rediscovery of Tobacco, and a founder of the link-sharing platform Seabird.

The Dictatorship

Trump wants a Supreme Court do-over on birthright citizenship, but he won’t get one

Published

15 hours ago

July 9, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Trump wants a Supreme Court do-over on birthright citizenship, but he won’t get one

For months, Donald Trump made clear that he expected the Supreme Court to rule against him on birthright citizenship, and his expectations were correct: Last week, a narrow majority of the high court ruled that the Constitution’s 14th Amendment means what it says.

Hours after the decision came down, the president downplayed the importance of his defeat, saying that he would pursue a legislative solution through Congress, but eight days later, the Republican published a very different kind of message to his social media platform that approached the issue in a more hysterical way. The missive read, in its entirety:

Signs and Billboards are being put up all over our Southern Border, and Mexico, advertising BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP, with “Deliveries starting at $4000.” Likewise, similar signs going up all over our Country. Billions of Dollars will be illegally made by this SCAM, with Citizenship going to anyone willing to pay. It will be, by far, the number one way of becoming a citizen, and then the entire family will be allowed to follow. Not sustainable.

NOBODY SAW THIS COMING!!! AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP IS NOT FOR SALE! In fact, that is a crime, and therefore, the Supreme Court’s ruling is wrong. I will be asking for a Rehearing by the United States Supreme Court, IMMEDIATELY. This miscarriage of justice will destroy America if they don’t change their absolutely insane decision. Thank you for your attention to this matter!

Even by Trump standards, this one’s a doozy.

The New York Times reported“The president appeared to be referring to a Fox News report that identified a hospital in Texas that had advertised paying for ‘Birth Packages in South Texas’ on billboards in Mexico. The outlet reported that Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas, a Republican, had ordered an investigation into the hospital, which told Fox News that “marketing materials regarding maternity services are no longer in use due to any unintended misunderstanding.”

Trump apparently took this report and ran with it, inventing various other details, including the amusing idea that cross-border birth tourism will somehow become “the number one way of becoming a citizen” (“by far,” the president added), as opposed to simply being born on U.S. soil to American parents.

But even if such an advertising campaign existed, it wouldn’t generate a rehearing from the Supreme Court. There is no scenario in which justices would say, “Sure, we ruled last week that the unambiguous language of the 14th Amendment means what it says, but if there are billboards going up, that changes everything.”

For good measure, let’s not forget that, according to Trump, his administration has effectively ended illegal border crossings, so as a practical matter, he really shouldn’t be that concerned.

The president’s online rant said he intends to ask for an immediate rehearing. If he orders administration lawyers to go through with such a pointless exercise and they bother to do the paperwork, they should keep their collective expectations low.

Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”

The Dictatorship

Democrats’ scramble to replace Graham Platner ramps up in Maine

Published

15 hours ago

July 9, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Democrats’ scramble to replace Graham Platner ramps up in Maine

Christmas. 9, 2026, 9:46 AM EDT

Maine Democrats are scrambling to replace Graham Platner a day after their nominee for U.S. Senate ended his bid following an allegation of sexual assault.

There’s a July 27 deadline set by state law for the party faithful to pick a new standard bearer in a race that is expected to be instrumental when it comes to whether Republicans can keep control of the Senate in this fall’s midterms.

Incumbent Republican Sen. Susan Collins may be vulnerable, but she has won five straight races for the seat dating back to 1996, and trying to defeat her was likely to carry challenges for Democrats even in the best case scenario.

Their new candidate will have to essentially start from nothing in the race, mend the divisions sown by Platner, introduce (or reintroduce) themselves to the broader electorate and corral support from the ex-candidate’s outsider-minded current and former followers, all in less than four months.

That amounts to a daunting task with massive implications not only for Maine Democrats, but potentially for the final two years of President Donald Trump’s time in the White House. Democrats need to flip at least four GOP-held Senate seats, and maintain all their current ones from several competitive states, to vault themselves into the majority in the midterms. A loss in Maine would be a significant setback.

Maine Democratic Party leaders announced plans “to hold a nominating convention to choose a new nominee,” while stating that “transparency is of the utmost importance.”

Already, several major voices are in the race, including unsuccessful candidate for governor and past Platner supporter Troy Jackson. The former state senate president made his bid clear less than an hour after Platner left the race. One major Bernie Sanders-aligned group, Our Revolution, has quickly rallied around Jackson.

Dan Kleban, co-founder of Maine Beer Company,”https://x.com/mainebeerbrewer/status/2075028234962677872?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet”>is also in the fray, along with former governor candidate Nirav Shah, who worked as Director of the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention during the pandemic. Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows who also ran for governor this summer is among other potential contenders.

Platner’s exit also brings difficulty for Collins and Republicans as well, however. Instead of facing a Democratic rival with a string of alarming controversies even before the sexual assault allegationan accustation Platner has denied, Collins instead will have to try to keep her seat in a blue state against someone far less defined, and potentially with far fewer vulnerabilities, in November.

Across the country this year, Democrats have navigated a political environment rife with divisions over how to sway voters in these strange times, with tension between more entrenched party leaders and an energetic and angered left wing often spilling out into the open.

What happens in Maine over the coming weeks may prove to be no different.

Hunter Woodall covers politics for MS NOW. He’s reported on politics and presidential campaigns for The Associated Press and CBS News and reported on Congress for The Minnesota Star Tribune.

The Dictatorship

Platner’s exit amplifies a key difference between Democrats and Republicans

Published

15 hours ago

July 9, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Platner’s exit amplifies a key difference between Democrats and Republicans

It’s been almost three years since Kevin McCarthy became the first sitting House speaker to be ousted in the middle of a congressional sessionbut the California Republican has nevertheless tried to maintain a public profile and has routinely appeared on conservative media to push partisan talking points.

So it wasn’t too surprising to see McCarthy on Fox News on Monday night, responding to the latest sexual assault allegations against Graham Platner, still a candidate for Senate at the time.

As part of an apparent effort to contextualize the scandals surrounding the Maine Democrat, the former GOP leader said, “One thing I know about Republicans is when we had a very bad candidate and found out, we didn’t vote for that person. We walked away.”

Moments later, McCarthy added, “When Matt Gaetz came forward, we got rid of him.”

As is too often the case, the failed former House speaker not only had it backward, but his mistake also offered a timely reminder of details that made him and his party look worse, not better.

Indeed, Gaetz offers a rather extraordinary example. The Justice Department investigated the Florida Republican over allegations of alleged sex trafficking, and while Gaetz repeatedly denied any wrongdoing and the prosecutors’ probe ended without charges, his House GOP colleagues made no effort to “get rid of him” as the scandal intensified.

What’s more, the House Ethics Committee found “substantial evidence” that Gaetz “regularly” paid women for sex, had sex with a 17-year-old during his tenure on Capitol Hill and possessed illegal drugs. Nevertheless, as that evidence came together, he remained a GOP member in good standing; he won re-election in 2024 with the Republican Party’s backing; and President Donald Trump thought it would be a good idea to nominate Gaetz to serve as the U.S. attorney general — a nomination endorsed by Republican senators such as South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham and Alabama’s Tommy Tubervilleeven after they had seen the House Ethics Committee’s findings.

This is what McCarthy cited as an example of the GOP maintaining the highest standards and throwing “very bad candidates” to the curb. That’s ridiculous.

But there’s no reason to stop with Gaetz. Indeed, the list of scandal-plagued Republicans who continued to enjoy the party’s backing long after ugly allegations had reached the public is not short. Trump is obviously the most glaring example, but the list includes other contemporary figures, including Rep. Cory Mills of Florida and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.

There’s no reason to limit the list to electoral candidates, either: Former Fox News host Pete Hegseth faced an avalanche of scandals during his confirmation fight early last year, but Senate Republicans decided to ignore the allegations and make him defense secretary anyway.

As the Hegseth fight unfolded, political scientist Jonathan Bernstein published a smart piece that remains relevant: “I do not believe that Republicans or conservatives are any more prone to [scandals] than Democrats. What has changed, however, is the incentive structure. Once upon a time both parties were equally likely to rid themselves of bad actors; now Republicans are far more likely to tolerate, and in some cases even celebrate, behavior they once would have shunned.”

When Democrats learned of serious allegations against then-Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, the party abandoned him. When then-New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez faced serious criminal charges for which he was later convicted, the party abandoned him, too.

In Maine, the Platner example followed the same path, as evidenced by his decision to withdraw from the Maine race after Democratic officials left him with no other choice.

Former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance, an MS NOW legal analyst, explained this week“The contrast here is hard to ignore. Democrats have shown that when credible allegations of sexual misconduct emerge against one of their own, the conversation turns quickly to accountability. Republicans have made a different choice. That’s not a partisan talking point, it’s a difference in how the two parties have approached questions of character and fitness for office over the last 10 years.”

That’s true, whether McCarthy wants to acknowledge it or not.