The U.K. is one step away from implementing a law that would effectively institute a lifetime ban on tobacco and vape products for anyone born after 2008.
The Tobacco and Vapes Bill, which makes it illegal to sell "tobacco, vapes and other products" to those born on or after Jan. 1, 2009, cleared both houses of Parliament earlier this week and is expected to receive royal assent -- King Charles III's approval -- in the coming days.
In a statement back in February, the U.K. Department of Health and Social Care explained that under the new law, "the age of sale for tobacco products will gradually rise over time, breaking the cycle of addiction and disadvantage."
The current legal age to buy tobacco in the U.K. is 18. Under the newly passed legislation, retailers found in violation of the law could face fines of at least 200 pounds, or approximately $270.
The legislation also increases the number of public "smoke-free places, vape-free places and heated tobacco-free places" to include hospitals, adult care homes, playgrounds, and schools, and bans vaping in vehicles with minors under the age of 18.
It gives lawmakers more power to impose "product and information" requirements on tobacco, vape, and other related products and inhibit "advertising and promotion" of such products.
The bill was introduced to parliament in 2024 and has since passed through the House of Commons and House of Lords, reaching the final stage of approval this week.
"This is a landmark bill that will create a smoke-free generation, and it will be the biggest public health intervention in a generation," health minister Baroness Gillian Merron said in remarks from the House of Commons on Monday.
One of the figures opposing the bill was former Prime Minister Liz Truss, who debated the bill in the Health and Social Care Committee in February 2024, saying at the time that she was "very concerned that the policy that has been put forward is emblematic of a technocratic establishment in this county that wants to limit people's freedom -- that is a problem."
According to the National Health Service, smoking causes 1 in 4 cancer deaths in the U.K. and is responsible for approximately 7 out of 10 cases of lung cancer.
"Data over the last 5 years shows most smokers want to quit, but cannot due to an addiction to nicotine that started in their teenage years," the Department of Health and Social Care wrote in an October 2023 policy paper. "Over 80% of smokers started before they turned 20, many as children. They have had their choices taken away by addiction, and their lives will be harmed and cut short by an addiction they do not want."
The U.K. legislation closely mirrors a New Zealand law passed in 2022 that took similar aim at outlawing smoking for younger generations and sought to "make smoked tobacco products less appealing and addictive."
That law was scrapped less than two years after passage under a new government.
