Neil Malik
The U.K. is banning an entire generation from smoking
The U.K. is banning an entire generation from smoking
Photo: Unsplash
The Topline
- Starting next year, the U.K. has made it illegal to sell tobacco products to anyone born in 2009 and later
- The legal age for buying tobacco products in the U.K. will rise by one year, every year, so people aged 17 or under now can never legally buy cigarettes or other tobacco products
- Current adult smokers can continue buying cigarettes indefinitely
- Canada’s health minister said she is “looking into” the idea
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A smoking ban is for the common good
Smoking is bad for you. But you probably already knew that, right?
For decades, Ottawa has tried various tactics to get people to quit smoking, and also never start in the first place.
They’ve made it more expensive. As of 2024, taxes make up roughly 64 per cent of the purchase price of cigarettes, compared to 34 per cent in the U.S.
The large, graphic health warnings that cover tobacco packaging are impossible to miss.
There’s a total ban on all forms of tobacco advertising. Retailers must hide cigarette packaging and brand names from customer view, as if the products don’t exist.
And yet, people still take up the habit.
Which is why the U.K. is going one step further by making it illegal to sell cigarettes to anyone born after 2008 — for life.
Following the bill’s approval, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care Wes Streeting said : “Children in the U.K. will be part of the first smoke-free generation, protected from a lifetime of addiction and harm.
“Prevention is better than cure — this reform will save lives, ease pressure on the NHS, and build a healthier Britain.”
Similar to Canada, the NHS is the U.K.’s version of universal public health care funded by taxpayers. Treating preventable smoking-related illnesses places an extra burden on it.
There’s also evidence that suggests quitting smoking is far more difficult than never starting to begin with. If you’ve ever wondered how hard quitting is, the American Heart Association says nicotine is as addictive as cocaine or heroin.
So the logic here makes complete sense. If you stop people from smoking to begin with, they never become addicted, and taxpayers won’t need to treat their diseases later in life.
The U.K. public is largely on board. An opinion poll carried out by YouGov in 2024 suggested that 78 per cent supported the idea of creating a smoke-free generation in the U.K.
It’s illegal to ride a motorcycle without a helmet because helmets help prevent injury and there’s a high cost to society when severe injuries occur.
So, the government took away the freedom to choose whether or not to wear one.
Smoking’s no different.
Yes, this takes away personal freedom of choice. But like helmet laws, sometimes that’s just what the government needs to do for the common good of society.
The Charter protects personal choice
Imagine it’s the year 2046.
A 37-year-old walks into a corner store with a friend, 38, who buys a pack of cigarettes. He plans on smoking a couple that night after a few pints at the local pub.
The 37-year-old asks for the same. But the clerk turns him down.
Does that seem right to you?
The U.K.’s new law, while well-intentioned, takes liberty away from people who’ve done nothing wrong except happen to be born in a certain year.
“Freedom of choice is really important,” Dalhousie University applied ethics professor Andrew Fenton told CBC News. “It’s important in ethics, has been for centuries, it’s enshrined in our Charter.”
Sentinel Legal, a British law firm, is challenging the law for similar reasons. “This is not a campaign to promote smoking. This is a legal challenge to defend a principle that has defined Britain for centuries: that the state does not get to decide what a free adult does with their own body.”
There’s also the argument that prohibition just doesn’t work.
Tobacco products are already illegal for people under the legal age. Has that ever stopped Canadian teens from getting their hands on some smokes?
Take the 37-year-old I mentioned earlier. His friend simply bought two packs and gave him one. Prohibition, defeated.
Nobody is suggesting the goal of getting people to quit — or never start — smoking isn’t important. But the government still has other levers it could pull harder.
For example, the sky’s the limit on the amount of tax that can be charged to make tobacco so expensive that it becomes financially out of reach for most people.
Here’s another thought: youth vaping has surged in recent years. Isn’t now the time to be cracking down on that instead?
To do that, the authors of a University of Toronto study suggest policymakers could consider limiting vapes to tobacco‑only flavours, keeping nicotine levels low or zero, making vapes prescription‑only, and setting higher prices (around $40 per pod).
None of that involves taking away personal freedoms.
A society with fewer smokers is the right way to think. But there are smarter, more consistent ways to get there without drawing a line that makes one adult free and another not.
