Puppet Masters

The Netherlands to ban cigarette sales in supermarkets from 2024, vending machines from 2022

Bart Meijer
Reuters
Fri, 20 Nov 2020 02:07 UTC

The Netherlands will ban the sale of cigarettes and other tobacco products in supermarkets from 2024 in a drive to get more people to give up smoking, the government said on Friday.

Together with a ban on cigarette vending machines from 2022, the supermarket ban will remove around 11,000 of the current 16,000 tobacco vending points in the country, the government said.

Supermarkets currently make up 55% of all tobacco sales in the Netherlands.

"This will prevent a lot of unnecessary deaths and medical suffering," deputy health minister Paul Blokhuis said of the supermarket move in a statement.

Around 22% of all Dutch aged 18 and above smoked on a regular basis last year, according to health research institute Trimbos, down from 26% in 2014.

Since 2008, smoking has been prohibited in bars and restaurants. Earlier this year, all smoking areas at train stations were removed, while office buildings need to follow suit by 2022.

Since last month, cigarettes can only be sold in uniform grey packages with large, explicit health warnings plastered all over them, while supermarkets already have had to put tobacco products in closed cabinets, out of sight of potential customers.

Editing by Nick Macfie

Comment: See also: Smoke, Lies And The Nanny State

Reader Comments

Rowan Cocoan · 2020-11-24T02:26:47Z

The ultimate despotism:

All that is not prohibited . . . is mandatory.

Coming soon to your bedroom.

R.C.

Tiu · 2020-11-24T02:27:03Z

Oh well, it's a totalitarian, and very boring country that isn't worth visiting anyway. At least the Dutch smokers will still be able to go to Luxembourg and load up on relatively cheap "duty free" cigarettes - although not as cheap and "duty free" as Andorra.

Chester Goode · 2020-11-24T13:07:03Z

Tiu Whoa! I've never smoked--tobacco, that is--but I think the Netherlands is knocked out. They have great food, excellent beer and fantastic music concerts, for example at the Milkweg in Amsterdam. They have good, cheap public transit, and if you want to walk on the wild side, they have their red light districts. Or you can pick up some heavy-duty green leafy material almost everywhere, just about every strain and source you can think of--Lebanon, Mexico, Albania, Panama, et al. And if you get "bored" with it all, they have euthanasia clinics scattered about here and there, like in Soylent Green. Another great thing is that 80 per cent of them speak English. I've never gone wrong there.

Tiu · 2020-11-24T19:37:38Z

Chester Goode Wow, the euthanasia clinics as a draw-card - never thought of that one! Their red-light district (at least the one in Amsterdam) is just a seething mass of tourists looking at the girls in the windows who range from good looking to ugly - you get better porn at an average biker event. The food is average, especially compared to France or Belgium, and it's cheaper to buy weed in the UK - admittedly you don't always get the selection available at Dutch cafes. If you don't use their public transport (e.g. you want to go to somewhere off the beaten track, like looking at their dolmens) and rent a car, you will get fined for going 2km over the speed limit. It's a totalitarian, controlled country with a thin veneer of liberalism. People speaking English are very common going north and east from the French border all the way up to and including Scandinavia... most of them speak better English than many people in England!

Chester Goode · 2020-11-24T20:53:05Z

Tiu To each his own, I guess. Last time I was in UK weed was illegal. Might not be a problem for someone who lives there, but as a traveler, not the easiest thing to run across anywhere it is illegal, and yes, as in the US, your friendly neighborhood "Mr. X" will likely have only one selection. No problem with that either, but the great variety in Netherlands is interesting. I never had a problem with their "brootjies" either, I think that is the way you spell it, those big sandwiches they have and I have even flipped out a time or two and eaten French fries with mayonnaise like they do. I agree with you totally, however, that no country on earth has food as delicious as that available in France, but gustatory delights have long been among France's claims to fame, no? I never rented a car there, too easy to take their trains and trams and cheaper than a car rental, and no parking problems, but we have cops where I live--real revenue collectors--who will take you down in an instant if you slip a notch or two above the limit, many of them arrogant martinets, too.

I never found the use of English very widespread in Scandinavia. Those folks are friendly enough and yes, a few of them do speak English, but not like in Netherlands. Many of them speak some French, however, and I found I could use my bits of school French to communicate with them, ask directions, order drinks, etc. sometimes.

Not all the gals in the red light district are so bad looking the way I remember it. I stumbled across what I figured was a small red light area in Vienna too, but it isn't necessary to seek out that sort of thing. All over places like Paris and Berlin, there are great-looking women "working" the streets, particularly, I found, in Berlin, but the way I remember it, the best-looking ladies were in Paris, around St. Denis--not that I ever fooled around with them to be sure, my fear of diseases and/or crime keeping me out of that sort of trouble. But it is still fun to look. I guess I am an "unusual" traveler. We have no euthanasia clinics where I live, so coming across one struck me as most interesting. I would sit in a nearby bar or cafe and just watch the folks passing in and out of one of them and think about what brought them to that point in their (soon to end) lives. Maybe I am a little morbid. I don't know how it works now, but when I was there, the "customers" would go in for an interview and lay out their case as to why they wanted the services of the clinic. Then they had ten days to think things over. If they came back after the ten days, it was curtains. I just find that remarkable.

Rowan Cocoan · 2020-11-24T20:58:02Z

Chester Goode Interesting. Morbid euthanasia humor omitted. RC

Joyly · 2020-11-24T03:39:08Z

Don’t they know prohibition (of anything) just drives trade underground then the people suffer whilst the mobs profit (just a different mob)?

Rowan Cocoan · 2020-11-24T03:39:43Z

Joyly They know; they do what they can get away with. RC

Joyly · 2020-11-24T03:46:11Z

Rowan Cocoan Testing the waters to see how much the peeps will take? So the sooner people start demonstrating the better.

Joyly · 2020-11-24T10:36:04Z

Joyly Isn’t Amsterdam like the drug capital of the world. I was on a round the world ticket once and to take a side trip I had to fly from Athens to Amsterdam for one night, then back to Heathrow the next morning.

All I remember is: When you do an overnight in Amsterdam you get asked a lot of questions.

Awordinyourear · 2020-11-24T10:12:13Z

The way the Dutch have expressed this means that the ones who give up smoking will attain immortality.

Cant have death as an event that is not under their control. They cannot face the fact that death of oneself is preferable to a life in their rules based kindergarten. Anti smokers, not non smokers, are pathetic.

US considers 'mobile bases' for Pacific war Another imbecile idea of the usual armchair chicken hawks. For details, see here : [Link]

codis

Looting, buggery, rape, torture, fighting, stabbing, its the 1600's all over again. Cultural enrichment comes in many forms.

3.1415926535

Of course they did. When AmeriKa says its time to stop the war, then you have the axis blessing. Till then, more military aid for killing, and a...

3.1415926535

I have a better idea. Go home and look after your own country. Stop making people's lives miserable.

ReRan

Is this just another case of the US wanting to own the world?

ReRan

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The Netherlands to ban cigarette sales in supermarkets from 2024, vending machines from 2022

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