Tag: Generational Tobacco Ban

Lawmakers Urged to Reject Generational Ban

Image: magicbones
Campaigners are urging British lawmakers to reject plans to ban the sale of cigarettes and other tobacco products to future generations of adults.
Ahead of the second reading of the Tobacco and Vapes Bill on Nov. 26, the smokers’ rights group Forest says the proposal is “unnecessarily divisive” and is not supported by the majority of the public.
According to a recent poll commissioned by Forest and conducted by Yonder Consulting, 60 percent of respondents said that if people are allowed to drive a car, join the army, purchase alcohol, and vote at 18, they should also be allowed to buy cigarettes and other tobacco products.
Fewer than a third (31 percent) said they should not be allowed to purchase tobacco when legally an adult, while 9 percent said, “don’t know.”

MPs need to think very carefully about the unintended consequences of raising the legal age of sale of tobacco.
Simon Clark, director, Forest
“A generational ban on the sale of tobacco is unnecessarily divisive because it will create a two-tier society in which some adults have different rights to others,” said Forest Director Simon Clark.
“Eventually it will create the absurd situation whereby a 40-year-old can purchase cigarettes and other tobacco products, but someone born a few days later could be denied the same right.
“MPs need to think very carefully about the unintended consequences of raising the legal age of sale of tobacco.
“Denying future generations of adults the right to buy cigarettes and other tobacco products legally won’t stop people smoking.
“Creeping prohibition will simply drive the sale of tobacco underground and into the hands of criminal gangs and illicit traders.”

November 25, 2024
U.K. Tobacco and Vapes Bill Introduced

Image: valdisskudre
The U.K. government will introduce its Tobacco and Vapes Bill in Parliament today. The legislation involves some of the world’s strictest anti-smoking rules, including a measure banning younger people from smoking. However, the government abandoned plans for a ban on smoking outside pubs and cafes after concerns were raised about the impact on the hospitality industry.
The proposed legislation gives the government power to ban smoking outside specific outdoor spaces such as children’s playgrounds, schools and hospitals. But the plans will be subject to consultation.
The previous government had announced similar measures to create the first smoke-free generation. However, those plans failed to become law before the general election in the summer when the party lost power.
The new legislation ensures that anyone aged 15 this year, or younger, will be banned from buying cigarettes and aims to make vapes less appealing to children.
“This government is taking bold action to create the first smoke-free generation, clamp down on kids getting hooked on nicotine through vapes, and protect children and vulnerable people from the harms of secondhand smoke,” said Health and Social Care Secretary Wes Streeting in a statement.
Britain banned smoking in almost all enclosed public spaces, including bars and workplaces, in 2007.
Cancer Research U.K. said this led to an estimated 1.9 million fewer smokers, and research in the British Medical Journal estimated there were 1,200 fewer hospital admissions for heart attacks the following year.

Creating a two-tier society in which some adults are permitted to buy tobacco and others aren’t discriminates against younger adults.
Simon Clark, director, Forest
While welcoming the decision to drop a proposed ban on smoking outside pubs and other other hospitality venues, smokers’ lobby group Forest said it was concerned by other measures in the bill.
“Banning smoking outside hospitals is heartless and cruel,” said Forest Director Simon Clark. “Smoking in the open air poses no risk to nonsmokers, including children, but it can be a comfort to patients, visitors and staff who smoke and want a quiet stress-free moment.”
Meanwhile, increasing the age of sale by one year every year, as proposed on the generational tobacco ban part of the bill, would infantilize future generations of adults, according to Forest.
“If you can buy alcohol, drive a car, join the army and vote at 18, you should also be allowed to purchase tobacco,” said Clark.
“Creating a two-tier society in which some adults are permitted to buy tobacco and others aren’t discriminates against younger adults.
“It will cause huge confusion in shops and could lead to even more retail crime.
“It will also drive younger adults to the black market and into the arms of criminal gangs.”
November 5, 2024
Generation Ban Could Save Million-Plus Lives: Study

Photo: shock
Creating a generation of people who never smoke could prevent 1.2 million deaths from lung cancer globally, according to a study led by researchers from the University of Santiago de Compostela, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), and global collaborators published in The Lancet Public Health journal.
The simulation study—the first of its kind—suggests that banning the purchase of cigarettes and other tobacco products among people born between 2006 and 2010 could prevent 1.2 million lung cancer deaths in 185 countries by 2095.
The findings indicate that creating a so-called tobacco-free generation could reduce the impact of smoking on lung cancer deaths in future generations.
“Lung cancer is a major killer worldwide, and a staggering two-thirds of deaths are linked to one preventable risk factor—tobacco smoking,” said author Julia Rey Brandariz, University of Santiago de Compostela, in a statement.
“Our modeling highlights how much there is to gain for governments considering the implementation of ambitious plans toward creating a tobacco-free generation. Not only could this save huge numbers of lives; it could massively reduce the strain on health systems of treating and caring for people in ill health as a result of smoking.”
No countries have laws currently making it illegal to sell tobacco to young people. New Zealand’s groundbreaking legislation to ban the sale of tobacco products to anyone born in or after 2009 was recently repealed.
To date, few studies have analyzed the impact of banning the sale of tobacco products among specific age groups or generation, with most focusing on potential health benefits rather than deaths.
The new study is the first to evaluate the effect that implementing a tobacco-free generation would have on future lung cancer deaths. It focused on people born between 2006 and 2010 because the legal age for buying tobacco products is 18 years in most of the countries included in the analysis.
Future lung cancer death rates were predicted based on historical data on 82 countries recorded in the WHO Mortality Database. These estimated rates were applied to data in the GLOBOCAN 2022 database—an IARC global cancer statistics platform—to predict lung rates among people born between 2006 and 2010 for 185 countries. The number of avoidable smoking-related lung cancer deaths was calculated using data on lung cancer deaths among people who had never smoked from a previous study.
The analysis indicates an estimated 1.2 million lung cancer deaths could be prevented in 185 countries if smoking was eliminated among people born between 2006 and 2010. This could prevent 40.2 percent (1.2 of 2.9 million) of the total lung cancer deaths expected to occur in this birth cohort by 2095.
Almost half of expected lung cancer deaths among men could be prevented (45.8 percent, 844,200 of 1.8 million deaths), and close to one-third of expected deaths in women (30.9 percent, 342,400 of 1.1 million deaths).
Among men, the greatest number of potential lung cancer deaths avoided would be in upper-middle-income countries (64.1 percent or 541,100 of 844,200 deaths). The impact would be greatest in Central and Eastern Europe, where 74.3 percent of potential deaths (48,900 of 65,800 deaths) could be averted. In women, the most potential deaths averted would be in high-income countries (62.0 percent or 212,300 of 342,400 deaths). The greatest impact would be in Western Europe, where 77.7 percent of deaths (56,200 of 72,300 deaths) could be avoided.
Overall, most of the potential prevented deaths would occur in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), with estimates suggesting almost two-thirds of the potential deaths avoided (65.1 percent or 772,400 of 1.2 million) would be in these countries. The other potential deaths avoided would be in high-income countries, where close to two-thirds of all potential lung cancer deaths (61.1 percent, 414,100 of 677,600) would be prevented.
“While rates of smoking in high-income countries have fallen in recent years, lung cancer remains a leading cause of death and disease. In low- and middle-income countries, which have rapidly growing populations of young people, the impact of banning tobacco sales could be even greater,” said author Isabelle Soerjomataram of the International Agency for Research on Cancer,
“Part of the reason why eliminating smoking could save so many lives in low- and middle-income countries is because they tend to have younger populations than high-income countries. Smoking also remains very common in many of these countries, while rates have fallen in many high-income countries. While we must redouble our efforts to eliminate smoking in all parts of the world, this is especially important in low- and middle-income countries.”
The authors acknowledge some limitations to their study. It was not possible to take into account all the factors affecting implementation, such as the black market or poor compliance, but the authors conducted further analyses to estimate the reduction in health impacts if the ban was not completely effective. Lack of data in some regions meant lung cancer predictions could only be carried out for 82 countries. Predictions for other countries—mostly low-income countries—may be over- or underestimated as these were produced by extrapolating data based on location and lung cancer burden. There was limited data on lung cancer rates among people who have never smoked—some from before the 2000s—which could affect the estimates as rates may have changed due to improvements in healthcare. Predictions did not account for the use of e-cigarettes.
October 6, 2024
Out of Proportion

A fine cigar is a basic product that is probably as “natural” as any consumer product can be. | Photo: Laurenx
The inclusion of fine cigars in the UK generational ban proposal makes no sense.
By George Gay
On May 22, the then U.K. prime minister, Rishi Sunak, announced that Parliament was to be dissolved on May 30 and a general election held on July 4.¹ The announcement caught even political commentators by surprise because the election could have been held any time during 2024 or January 2025. Clearly, Sunak had decided that his policies were not going to improve the circumstances of most voters, at least in the short term.
There was certainly a note of desperation in the timing of the announcement because it meant Sunak was abandoning many of what had been referred to as his flagship policies, a move that led The Guardian newspaper to report that his legacy was looking “increasingly threadbare.”
But it’s an ill wind and, from the point of view of certain sections of the tobacco industry, the announcement came as a relief because it meant the tobacco and vapes bill, which was being pushed through Parliament with cross-party support, was holed below the waterline. The bill contained a provision for banning tobacco sales in the U.K. to anybody born from Jan. 1, 2009, onward, a so-called generational ban.
It seemed to say something about Sunak that he chose to scupper this policy while it had the wind in its sails, especially since, notwithstanding the timing of events, it could have been pushed through in the last days of Parliament, and given he had so emphasized his commitment to the health of the next generation. In fact, a BBC interviewer on May 24, apparently incredulous that the policy had been abandoned, asked a minister how this could have been the case, only to be told that Sunak had at least won the argument.
But this was not true because there had been no argument, if “argument” is used to mean a debate during which different ideas are put forward and resolved in a rational manner. Speaking at a Beat the Ban lunch held in London on May 21, Simon Clark, the director of the Freedom Organization for the Right to Enjoy Smoking Tobacco (Forest), had been scathing about the way the bill was being “steamrollered” through Parliament. Following a short public consultation before Christmas, he said, the government had announced that it would not consider any submissions from groups with links to the tobacco industry, which, for instance, included Forest and even retailers. “To the best of my knowledge, that has never happened before,” he added.
But, once again, this speaks to the makeup of Sunak, who apparently does not like to hear counter arguments and becomes tetchy when he does. So it is hardly surprising that, after the bill’s second reading, when it entered its committee stage, 16 of the 17 Members of Parliament appointed to the committee had voted for the bill, and the other was known to support it. And when it came to inviting people to give oral evidence to the committee, witnesses were almost exclusively supporters of the bill.
The August court ruling put the FDA in a position where it could regulate as tobacco products vaping articles that contain no tobacco but not premium cigars that contain only tobacco.
Misplaced Priorities
Sunak’s scuppering of the bill is unlikely to be the end of the matter because it had near-universal parliamentary approval. This means that a tobacco and vapes bill is likely to be refloated in some form, so it is worthwhile looking at some of the thinking behind this initiative. Any number of stories have been written about proposed generational tobacco bans, but here I would like to consider one aspect of it that I think makes no sense: the fact that the proposed U.K. ban, in encompassing all tobacco products, seems to lack any sense of proportion, something that can be demonstrated by citing the case of fine cigars.
At a time when, belatedly, serious health concerns are being raised in public about the consumption of alcohol, processed foods, caffeine and social media, and even about gambling and lack of sleep, why would the government’s attention be focused on something as benign as fine cigars, defined here as those cigars comprising only tobacco, water and vegetable-based gum?
As here defined, a fine cigar is a basic product that is probably as “natural” as any consumer product can be. Fine cigars are not implicated in concerns about flavors, and they cause no problems in relation to filters, batteries and all the other tobacco/nicotine product parts implicated in environmental issues. I would guess that only a tiny minority of the U.K. population smokes fine cigars, that the proportion of such smokers is relatively stable, that fine cigar consumption raises no ethnic or gender issues and that where these products are smoked is already restricted, meaning that certain aspects of concerns about population-level harm must be minimal.
Including an Outlier
To examine this issue a little closer, it is instructive to look across the Atlantic at what happened in relation to fine cigars in the U.S., where they are usually referred to as premium cigars. On August 9, 2023, in response to a lawsuit filed by the Cigar Association of America, the Cigar Rights of America (CRA) and the Premium Cigar Association, Judge Amit P. Mehta, sitting in the District Court for the District of Columbia, vacated the Food and Drug Administration’s 2016-imposed deeming regulations² in so far that they applied to premium cigars. This meant that from that date, the FDA no longer had regulatory authority over premium cigars.
Ironically, this ruling put the FDA in a position where it could regulate as tobacco products vaping articles that contain no tobacco but not premium cigars that contain only tobacco.
Mehta apparently decided that the FDA’s decision to regulate premium cigars was arbitrary and capricious, a damning decision given the FDA claims always to act on scientific evidence. According to Drew Perraut, the CRA’s regulatory affairs expert, speaking during a post-court-decision video conference posted on the CRA’s website, the science the CRA provided and its comment on the deeming rule were instrumental in bringing about the court ruling. The CRA, he said, presented evidence to the FDA that there was no detectable evidence of youth usage of premium cigars, along with scientific evidence from the National Institutes of Health showing there was no appreciable rise in morbidity or mortality associated with smoking premium cigars. Judge Mehta found that the FDA had not considered those scientific issues and had not responded adequately.
It seems to me that even if the FDA does not fully accept the CRA’s evidence that smoking premium cigars does not significantly increase morbidity and mortality levels, that these products do not appeal to young people and that there is no evidence of their addictiveness, it must concede that premium cigars comprise an outlier in these areas. You can work that out on the back of an envelope.
The danger posed by fine cigar smoking is a planetary system away from that caused by cigarette smoking.
The Scent of Spite
But the FDA immediately appealed Mehta’s decision, so the question arises as to why. What is the problem here? Would it not have been more efficient not to prioritize premium cigars but spend the resources of the FDA on dealing with what seems to be an already burdensome workload created by more troublesome products? Would it not have been better to allow an industry that does little harm, creates pleasure and employs a lot of people relative to its size to get on with what it does without undue interference?
The pursuit of premium cigars looks like vindictiveness, as does the pursuit of fine cigars in the U.K. There must be a sense that the people who seek to regulate unduly and ultimately do away with premium/fine cigars cannot understand the pleasure that these products provide and for this “reason” want to get rid of them.
Sailing back across the Atlantic, one might wonder what the U.K. Parliament’s beef with fine cigars is. Surely, even given that many parliamentarians seem in recent times to have become culturally impaired to the point of boorishness, those in government must realize that the appeal of fine cigars is a world away from that of cigarettes. They must realize that the danger posed by fine cigar smoking is a planetary system away from that caused by cigarette smoking. In fact, the world of fine cigars is close to that of fine wines because the consumption of each is not about addiction or even habit but about pleasure, fulfilment and, often, enjoying the company of like-minded people.
A generational ban will have no immediate effect on sales of fine cigars in the U.K. because of the age profile of those who smoke them. But it will mean that, in the future, when those born after the end of 2008 are in their mid-thirties and want to consume a sophisticated product that does not addle their brains, make them fat or deprive them of sleep, they will have the devil of a job finding somebody who is willing to sell them fine cigars.
A ban on the sales of fine cigars makes no sense. And, for similar reasons, it makes no sense when it is applied to pipe tobacco and snus. It is to be hoped that if in the U.K. the prospect of a generational tobacco sales ban is raised again, it is considered carefully and not made the subject of sledgehammer policies.

¹The Conservative government led by Sunak was defeated at the July 4 election and replaced by a Labour government led by Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer.
²The FDA was granted regulatory authority over the manufacture, distribution and marketing of tobacco products under the Tobacco Control Act of 2009, but, initially, such authority was applied only to cigarettes, roll-your-own tobacco and smokeless tobacco. In 2014, as was its right, the FDA started the process of bringing other “tobacco” products under its authority. At first, urged by the premium cigar industry, it considered exempting premium cigars but later decided not to, and all other products were the subject of its 2016 “deeming” regulations.
George Gay is Tobacco Reporter’s European editor, but his territory spans the globe. Based in London, George has covered the tobacco industry since 1982, initially for a U.K.-based publication and since 2004 for Tobacco Reporter. George’s understanding of industry issues, combined with his keen sense of observation and dry wit, have earned him a loyal following among Tobacco Reporter’s readers.

August 1, 2024
Critics Blast U.K.’s Commitment to Generational Ban

Image: Benjaminet
The new U.K. government’s intention to progressively increase the age at which people can buy cigarettes will not achieve its objectives, according to the smoker’s group Forest.
Responding to an announcement in today’s King’s Speech, the annual ceremony in which the British monarch sets out the policies of and proposed legislation that the government plans to introduce, Forest Director Simon Clark said the measure would fail to stop people smoking. Instead, he warned, it would drive more people to the black market and make smoking cool again.
SImon Clark
Originally proposed by former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, the generational tobacco ban would make it illegal for anyone born on or after Jan. 1, 2009, to ever legally buy cigarettes, effectively raising the legal age of purchase by one year, every year.
The measure passed its first parliamentary hurdle in April but was put on hold after Sunak, a conservative, called a national election, which was won by the Labour party.
While vowing to ditch many Tory policies, Labour reiterated its commitment to the generational tobacco ban, prompting criticism from smoker rights activists.
“Labour, like the previous Conservative government, is addicted to the nanny state,” said Clark.
“It’s ironic that Labour wants to reduce the voting age to 16 whilst denying adults the freedom to legally purchase cigarettes.
“If you are old enough to drive a car, join the army and buy alcohol, you are old enough to buy cigarettes and other tobacco products.”
The World Vapers Alliance (WVA) echoed the concern about illicit sales.
“It is already clear that the generational smoking ban won’t work, because prohibitions never work,” said WVA Director Michael Landl in a statement. “What makes the plan even worse is the crackdown on less harmful alternatives. Less harmful alternatives like vaping must be key elements of an anti-smoking strategy. Science and real-life examples like Sweden are proof. Harm reduction works, prohibition fails. The U.K. must not go down this path.”
July 17, 2024
Labour Committed to Generational Ban

Photo: sezerozger
Britain’s opposition Labour Party, which is favored to win the July 4 national elections, has reiterated its commitment to the generational tobacco ban proposed by Tory Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, reports Reuters.
The plan would make it illegal to sell tobacco products to anyone born on or after Jan. 1, 2009, after they turn 18. It would also provide powers to address vaping among young people.
The generational tobacco ban passed its first parliamentary hurdle in April but was put on hold after Sunak called a national election.
Labour leader Keir Starmer, whose party is far ahead in opinion polls ahead of the vote, published its planned policies on June 13, vowing to provide political and economic stability, and to improve health outcomes.
“We must take preventative public health measures to tackle the biggest killers and support people to live longer, healthier lives. That starts with smoking,” the manifesto document said.
“Labour will ensure the next generation can never legally buy cigarettes … Labour will ban vapes from being branded and advertised to appeal to children to stop the next generation from becoming hooked on nicotine.”
June 14, 2024
Sunak’s Ban on Hold

Image: Mark
Britain’s proposed generational tobacco ban will not become law before the July 4 election announced by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak this week, reports Reuters.
The U.K. Tobacco and Vapes Bill aims to phase out the sale of cigarettes. It would make it illegal to sell tobacco products to anyone born on or after Jan. 1, 2009, after they turn 18. It would also provide powers to address vaping among young people.
The bill had passed its first parliamentary hurdle in April despite dozens of lawmakers in Sunak’s Conservative party voting against it.
However, the government failed to put forward the tobacco and vapes bill as part of the legislation to be passed in the “wash-up” period before parliament dissolves.
Unless ministers resuscitate the bill at the last minute with an emergency statement today, it will be up to the next government to re-introduce the smoking ban in a fresh bill. The Labour party is committed to the policy and could include it in its manifesto. “Our position hasn’t changed so if it doesn’t come through, then we will look at putting it in the manifesto and introducing a bill,” a Labour representative told The Guardian.
The U.K. Vaping Industry Association (UKVIA) welcomed the news that the bill would not be rushed through the legislative process. Earlier, the group had complained that the Department of Health and Social Care had failed to carry out any risk assessments into the health impacts of fewer people using vapes to quit smoking as a result of potential changes to flavor offerings, point of sale displays or packaging and product presentation.
“It is wrong to rush any legislation through parliament without proper scrutiny but with a bill like this, where lives are quite literally at stake, it is even more important that the correct checks and balances are in place when considering what new powers to introduce,” said UKVIA Director General John Dunne in a statement.
“We believe that properly drafted new measures to ban child-friendly designs and flavor names and ensure that products, backed up by a powerful and effective enforcement regime will continue to see smoking rates fall while ensuring that youth uptake rapidly comes down.”
Anti-smoking activists took the news in stride. “While the tobacco and vapes bill appears to be a victim of a snap election, all is not lost,” said Deborah Arnott, chief executive of Action on Smoking and Health. “This bill has the strong support of the chief medical officers of all four nations in the U.K. as well as the overwhelming majority of the public.”
May 24, 2024
Food for Thought

(Photos: Stuart Mitchell)
“You couldn’t make it up.” That was how Simon Clark, the director of the Freedom Organization for the Right to Enjoy Smoking Tobacco (Forest), summed up the way in which the U.K. government had, in October last year, renegued on earlier assurances and announced a generational ban on tobacco sales.
Clark was speaking as co-host of a Beat the Ban lunch held at the Boisdale Restaurant in London on May 21. The proposed ban, currently being pushed through parliament, would make it illegal in the U.K. to sell tobacco products to anyone born on or after Jan. 1, 2009.
Clark pointed out that this would mean a person of a certain age would be able to buy tobacco while another person, one year, or, in some cases, just one day younger, would not be able to do so legally. Eventually, a person 70 years of age would not be able to buy tobacco legally.
Forest is opposed to the proposed ban for several reasons, but mainly because it believes the ban would infantilize young adults and increasingly older adults, driving some of them towards the black market and criminal gangs, while doing nothing to stop sales of tobacco products to children, which are already illegal.
What was extraordinary, Clark said, was that while, in April 2023, the government had made it clear it did not intend to raise the minimum age for the sale of tobacco, in October, the prime minister, Rishi Sunak, announced plans for the generational ban.
“In our view, the Tobacco and Vapes Bill is a desperate attempt by a desperate prime minister to leave a legacy—any legacy—however unconservative, before the next general election [due to be held this year or, at the latest, January 2025],” said Clark.
Clark was scathing, too, about the way the bill is being “steamrollered” through parliament. Following a short public consultation before Christmas, the government had announced it would not consider any submissions from groups with links to the tobacco industry, which, for instance, included Forest and even retailers. “To the best of my knowledge, that has never happened before,” he added.
After its second reading, the bill entered its committee stage, when 17 MPs were appointed to the Committee, 16 of whom had voted for the bill and the other of whom was known to support it. And when it came to inviting people to give oral evidence to the Committee, witnesses were almost exclusively supporters of the bill.
“Not only has the process been absolutely scandalous, the bill as it stands is illiberal, unenforceable, and has significant unintended consequences,” said Clark. “It will drive the legitimate sale of cigarettes and tobacco underground,” he added, before calling on those so minded to write to their MPs in protest,
Clark’s co-host, Ranald Macdonald, the founder and MD of the Boisdale restaurants, was unable to attend the lunch but sent a message of support along with a special pleading for the smokers of fine cigars.
And the 60 lunch guests, who included MPs, parliamentary researchers, think tank staff, retailers, tobacco industry representatives and journalists, heard from a string of speakers representing or simply speaking up for retailers, young adults and a variety of tobacco products, including pipe tobacco and snuff that will also be covered by the bill should it go through. —George Gay
Editors’s note:
Hours after this story had been submitted, U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced that a general election would be held on July 4, meaning that parliament was due to be dissolved on May 30 and leaving too little time for the tobacco and vapes bill to complete its passage through parliament. This is unlikely to be the end of the matter, however, because the policy underpinning the bill had cross-party support and could well arise like the phoenix in the future.
George Gay is Tobacco Reporter’s European editor, but his territory spans the globe. Based in London, George has covered the tobacco industry since 1982, initially for a U.K.-based publication and since 2004 for Tobacco Reporter. George’s understanding of industry issues, combined with his keen sense of observation and dry wit, have earned him a loyal following among Tobacco Reporter’s readers.

May 22, 2024
Britain’s Generation Ban Passes First Vote

Photo: sezerozger
Lawmakers approved British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s plan to ban anyone aged 15 and under from ever buying cigarettes despite opposition from some prominent members of his Conservative party, reports Reuters.
The bill passed a vote in Britain’s parliament with 383 in favor and 67 against.
Fifty-seven Conservatives, including Business and Trade Secretary Kemi Badenoch, voted against the plan. Earlier, two former prime ministers, Liz Truss and Boris Johnson, had come out against the legislation, with Truss describing the draft legislation as “unconservative” and Johnson calling it “nuts.”
The ban enjoys strong support among healthcare professionals, who say that smoking causes 80,000 premature deaths every year, along with many more smoking-related illnesses.
In a recent YouGov poll, a third of voters supported the phased approach and 30 percent supported a ban for everyone at the same time. Only a quarter said there should be no ban.
Badenoch said that while she agreed with Sunak’s intentions, she opposed the bill as she was concerned about its impact on people’s rights and difficulty in enforcing the policy.
Earlier this year, New Zealand scrapped a similar law after a new coalition government took power in late 2023. The government said it favored a harm-reduction approach to discourage smoking, but critics accused it of succumbing to tobacco lobbying.
Britain’s generational tobacco ban will now progress to the next stage in parliament, where it can be subject to amendment.
April 16, 2024
Criticism Mounts as U.K. Debates Generation Ban

Photo: Mistervlad
Criticism has been mounting ahead of a debate in the U.K. House of Commons on the government’s proposed generational tobacco ban.
Boris Johnson labeled the plans as “nuts,” according to the Daily Mail. During an appearance at a Canadian conference, the former British prime minister questioned why the party of cigar-chomping Winston Churchill wants to ban cigars.
On April 16, lawmakers are scheduled to debate a plan that would prevent anyone who is turning 15 this year or is younger from ever being able to legally buy tobacco products.
“We are, on the whole, in favor of freedom, and it is that single Anglo-Saxon idea of freedom that I think unites conservatives, or should unite conservatives,” said Johnson.
“And when I look at some of the things that we are doing now, or that are being done in the name of conservatism, I think they are absolutely nuts.”
Liz Truss, another former conservative prime minister, branded the proposal as “profoundly unconservative.”
Smokers’ rights group Forest called the legislation “ageist.”
“Given all the problems facing the country at home and abroad, it beggars belief that the prime minister has chosen to prioritize raising the age of sale of tobacco,” said Forest Director Simon Clark.
“If you are legally an adult, it’s ageist if you are denied the same rights as adults who may be only a year or two older than you are.”
Clark also cited a poll revealing that almost two-thirds (64 percent) of the public believe that if people are allowed to drive a car, join the army, possess a credit card, purchase alcohol and vote at 18, they should also be allowed to buy cigarettes and other tobacco products.
Despite such criticism, the law is likely to pass with support from opposition parties. The legislation is backed by a high proportion of the population, with another recent poll showing that almost three-quarters of Tory voters (71 percent) support it.
April 15, 2024