The proposal to stop the next generation of English children from being able to buy cigarettes is not only one of the toughest-ever crackdowns on the tobacco industry, but a brave reform that should be adopted worldwide.
UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has announced the age at which people can buy cigarettes and tobacco in England will rise from 18 every year, so that a child aged 14 today would never be allowed to legally buy tobacco. The idea was first put forward by a government-commissioned review in 2022 which it said, if adopted, could see some 1.7 million fewer people smoking by 2075. Sunak also promised to introduce measures to restrict the availability of vapes to children.
Such commonsense reforms will result in thousands living longer and save the National Health Service billions of pounds courtesy of not having to treat the illnesses caused by smoking, such as numerous types of cancer, heart attacks, strokes, amputations.
If passed, England would become the first country in Europe to join New Zealand, which announced a similar plan last year to ban people who were born after January 1, 2009, from purchasing cigarettes from 2027, as well as curbing the number of retailers authorised to sell tobacco and cutting nicotine levels in all products. Denmark is already considering a similar move, and a number of nations also have targets to reduce smoking to minimal levels in the relatively near future.
Just as the New Zealand ban caused howls of fury, Sunak’s proposals have seen libertarians and tobacco retailers claim they amounted to a “disproportionate attack” on adults’ rights, would devastate the industry and fuel the black market trade. Some of these same arguments have been around since the early 1960s when the UK Royal College of Physicians and the US surgeon general linked lung cancer to tobacco and demanded action from government.
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Only Bhutan and South Africa have banned smoking in the past, but New Zealand aside, the Sunak government move to protect the children of the future from smoking is truly significant because it is the first time that a major world player has attempted such a generational changing reform. That said, if the British parliament approves the proposal, the legal change would only apply in England – not in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, whose own assemblies have devolved powers to control their own health policies.
Australia had been a world leader in tackling Big Tobacco and the scourge of smoking. It was banned from Commonwealth buildings and then domestic flights in 1987; now plain paper wrapping and graphic health warnings on cigarette packs make cigarette brands less attractive. Australian tobacco taxes – thought to be a financial deterrent – are among the highest in the world, and there are bans on smoking in most public places.
But the Albanese government has no plans to follow the New Zealand and English attempts to phase out smoking for future generations
