BOSTON — A handful of Massachusetts lawmakers are hoping to steer their colleagues to help a proposal that may make the state the primary to undertake a ban meant to get rid of using tobacco merchandise over time.
Different areas have weighed comparable “generational tobacco bans,” which section out using tobacco merchandise based mostly not simply on an individual’s age however on start 12 months.
Beneath 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 broaden the hassle to curb smoking by regularly ending all gross sales of nicotine and tobacco merchandise. If the invoice is authorised, younger folks 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 will 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 will 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 court docket weighed in earlier this 12 months, upholding the ban.
Different Massachusetts cities and cities have already got authorised 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, stated the invoice would “save numerous lives and create a more healthy world for the following era.”
“Everyone knows the devastating well being results of nicotine and tobacco merchandise, particularly on our youth,” he stated.
Nicotine and tobacco merchandise are addictive and may improve the chance of lung most cancers, coronary heart illness, stroke and different diseases.
Almost 9 out of 10 adults who smoke cigarettes every day first tried smoking by age 18, based on 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 presently used them.
Peter Brennan, government director of the New England Comfort Retailer and Power Entrepreneurs Affiliation, stated 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 situated close to neighboring states that enable the sale of cigarettes to all adults at a aggressive drawback.
“It’s a horrible thought,” he stated. “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 stated, 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 current many years to curb smoking, together with elevating taxes on cigarettes. These taxes would presumably be lowered and finally eradicated by an incremental statewide smoking ban.
Any discount in cigarette tax income could be greater than offset by lowered healthcare prices and different financial savings, Lewis stated.
In 2022, 10.4% of adults in Massachusetts reported smoking cigarettes, based on 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 folks 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.Okay., Prime Minister Rishi Sunak proposed elevating the authorized age that folks in England should purchase cigarettes by one 12 months, yearly till it’s finally unlawful for the entire inhabitants. The proposal did not win approval earlier this 12 months.
