Part of the debate – in the House of Lords am 4:45 pm ar 16 Mawrth 2015.
My Lords, I was not planning to speak today, but I have to rise to respond to the noble Viscount, Lord Falkland. If we were to have a logical system in this country for dealing with drugs, tobacco would indeed be illegal. We have lots of drugs that are illegal in this country that are infinitely safer than tobacco, and we all know that, if we were starting today, tobacco would be unlawful. So I simply do not accept the point that, simply because tobacco is lawful, we should allow the market to let rip—very far from it. We know that it is very difficult to make a product such as tobacco unlawful at this stage, but we need to do everything possible to protect the public from the most dangerous drug available in this country today.