On Wednesday, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak advocated raising the legal age for people in England to buy cigarettes by one year each year until it is eventually banned for the entire population and smoking among young people is phased out.
Sunak explained his plan during the Conservative Party’s annual conference, saying he intended to “stop teenagers starting to smoke in the first place”.
It is now illegal in the UK to sell cigarettes or tobacco products to under 18s.
Sunak’s office stated that the phased reforms would prevent young people under 14 from being legally offered cigarettes in England.
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- In which country will the legal smoking age change?
- What was the legal smoking age in the UK before?
In which country will the legal smoking age change?
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If Parliament approves the plan, the legal changes will only apply in England, not Northern Ireland, Scotland or Wales.
“People start smoking when they are young. By age 20, four out of five smokers have started smoking,” he said. “The vast majority later try to quit smoking…if we could break that cycle, if we could stop it in the first place, then we would be on our way to ending the leading cause of preventable death and disease in our country.”
According to the government, smoking will not be a crime and progressive adjustments mean anyone who can legally buy cigarettes now will not be banned from doing so in the future.
The number of smokers in the UK has fallen by two-thirds since the 1970s, but 6.4 million people (about 13% of the population) still smoke, according to government estimates.
What was the legal smoking age in the UK before?
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In 2007, the British government changed the legal smoking age from 16 to 18. According to Sunak’s office, this reduced the prevalence of smoking among 16 and 17-year-olds by 30%.
Health experts praised the prime minister’s idea to gradually raise the smoking age. Last year, New Zealand enacted a similar law.
“This government’s plan to introduce ‘smoke-free’ legislation could become its defining legacy, righting a century-old wrong, with tobacco products being the only legally available product that, if used according to predicted, it will kill more than half of its lifetime users,” said Lion Shahab, an academic who co-leads the tobacco and alcohol research group at University College London.
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Sunak also said his government would take action to limit the provision of vapes or e-cigarettes to children. It is currently illegal in the UK to sell vapes to under-18s, however officials say vaping among teenagers has tripled in the last three years and more children now vape than smoke.
To make the products less appealing to young people, officials will investigate possibilities such as banning flavored vaporizers and regulating packaging and in-store displays.
Shares of tobacco companies plummeted following Wednesday’s announcement. British American Tobacco shares fell from roughly flat to 1% immediately after the news, while Imperial Brands shares fell 2.4% after Sunak’s statement.
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Source: vtt.edu.vn