BOSTON — A handful of Massachusetts lawmakers are hoping to influence their colleagues to help a proposal that may make the state the primary to undertake a ban meant to get rid of the usage of tobacco merchandise over time.
Different areas have weighed comparable “generational tobacco bans,” which part out the usage of tobacco merchandise based mostly not simply on an individual’s age however on start 12 months.
Underneath a Massachusetts regulation signed in 2018, the age to purchase any tobacco product—together with cigarettes, cigars and e-cigarettes—was raised to 21. Massachusetts additionally has banned the sale of all flavored tobacco merchandise in an effort to cut back youth curiosity in nicotine.
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The brand new proposal, which lawmakers plan to file subsequent 12 months, would increase the hassle to curb smoking by regularly ending all gross sales of nicotine and tobacco merchandise. If the invoice is permitted, younger individuals not sufficiently old to legally buy nicotine and tobacco would by no means be lawfully capable of buy them in Massachusetts, thereby creating no extra new customers.
It might not apply to marijuana, and the cutoff date could be adjusted when handed to make sure everybody age 21 and above at the moment wouldn’t be affected.
First city to undertake a generational smoking ban
Brookline, a city of about 63,000 neighboring Boston, was the primary municipality within the nation to undertake such a ban in 2020. As a substitute of elevating the age for buying cigarettes, the bylaw blocks the sale of tobacco to anybody born on or after Jan. 1, 2000. The rule went into impact in 2021.
That may imply sooner or later sooner or later nobody could be allowed to purchase any tobacco merchandise within the city. The measure was challenged, however the state’s highest courtroom weighed in earlier this 12 months, upholding the ban.
Different Massachusetts cities and cities have already got permitted comparable tobacco bans, together with Malden, Melrose, Studying, Stoneham, Wakefield, and Winchester.
Unclear ranges of help
Democratic state Sen. Jason Lewis, one of many backers of the statewide proposal, mentioned the invoice would “save numerous lives and create a more healthy world for the subsequent technology.”
“Everyone knows the devastating well being results of nicotine and tobacco merchandise, particularly on our youth,” he mentioned.
Nicotine and tobacco merchandise are addictive and might improve the danger of lung most cancers, coronary heart illness, stroke and different diseases.
Practically 9 out of 10 adults who smoke cigarettes every day first tried smoking by age 18, in response to the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention, which additionally discovered that in 2024 about 2 in 5 college students who had ever used a tobacco product at present used them.
Peter Brennan, government director of the New England Comfort Retailer and Vitality Entrepreneurs Affiliation, mentioned the proposal would undercut small mother and pop retailers that depend on cigarettes for a good portion of their gross sales.
It additionally would put shops positioned close to neighboring states that permit the sale of cigarettes to all adults at a aggressive drawback.
“It’s a horrible concept,” he mentioned. “You’re actually simply taking away adults’ proper to buy a authorized, age-restricted product.”
Taking sure rights away from some adults and never others is probably going unconstitutional, he mentioned, including that different prohibition efforts haven’t labored, like previous bans on alcohol, marijuana and playing.
It’s unclear how a lot help the proposal has within the Legislature.
Massachusetts has taken different steps in latest many years to curb smoking, together with elevating taxes on cigarettes. These taxes would presumably be decreased and in the end eradicated by an incremental statewide smoking ban.
Any discount in cigarette tax income could be greater than offset by decreased healthcare prices and different financial savings, Lewis mentioned.
In 2022, 10.4% of adults in Massachusetts reported smoking cigarettes, in response to the state Division of Public Well being.
Different locations weighing comparable bans
Some California lawmakers have pushed to ban all tobacco gross sales, submitting laws final 12 months to make it unlawful to promote cigarettes and different merchandise to anybody born after Jan. 1, 2007.
In 2022, New Zealand grew to become the primary nation to move a regulation meant to impose a lifetime ban on younger individuals shopping for cigarettes by mandating that tobacco can’t ever be offered to anyone born on or after Jan. 1, 2009. The regulation was later axed.
Within the U.Ok., Prime Minister Rishi Sunak proposed elevating the authorized age that individuals in England can purchase cigarettes by one 12 months, yearly till it’s finally unlawful for the entire inhabitants. The proposal didn’t win approval earlier this 12 months.
