Can Governments Make This the Last Generation of Smokers?

Smoking is one of the unhealthiest activities you can engage in. It’s been proven to cause cancer, emphysema, heart attacks, and a myriad of other health issues. As if that’s not bad enough, smoking prematurely ages your skin, makes your teeth yellow, and ensures you’ll forever reek of smoke (not an attractive look for anyone). But despite the ever-increasing information on just how bad smoking is for you, teenagers continue to pick up the habit. Maybe they’re rebelling, maybe they think it makes them look cool and older. Whatever the reasoning, nobody has yet been able to bring about an end to smoking. But now cigarettes could one day be a thing of the past.

Governments are gearing up to bring an end to the age of smoking. Tired of the massive health costs that come about as a result of nicotine addiction, officials are working to legally prevent people from smoking. The idea has caught on in the United Kingdom, where doctors have voted in favor of a law that would prevent cigarettes being sold to anyone born after the year 2000.

The motion passed at the annual British Medical Association’s meeting, and now the union is preparing to present the ban to the government. And if this seems like an unlikely move, keep in mind that the U.K. doctors’ union has in the past successfully lobbied for the banning of both public smoking and smoking in cars with children. So preventing kids from smoking seems the next logical step...and actually doable.

“Smoking is not a rational, informed choice of adulthood,” special registrar in public health and advocate for the ban Tim Crocker-Buque recently told The Guardian. “Eighty percent of smokers start as teenagers as a result of intense peer pressure. Smokers who start smoking at age 15 are three times as likely to die of smoking-related cancer as someone who starts in their mid-20s.”

Should the ban pass, this could eventually lead to England being the first smoke-free country in the world – a concept that was virtually inconceivable even five years ago. And although opponents worry the ban could result in a cigarette black market free of regulations, the notion is rapidly gaining support.

Meanwhile, across the ocean, things are shaping up to bring an end to cigarettes in the United States as well. The Garden State might soon find a deficit of nicotine addicts, as the New Jersey Senate has passed a bill to raise the smoking age to 21. New Jersey already has one of the highest smoking ages in the country at 19, and if the ban passed it would be the first state to set the age at 21.

“By increasing the age in which someone can purchase and legally smoke, we could be making a real lifelong impact on these young people’s lives, hopefully preventing them from the ill effects of smoking such as emphysema or cancer,” Senate bill sponsor Joseph Vitale told NJ.com.

Already there has been some resistance to this ban; local businesses worry that the massive fines and reduction in sales would seriously impede the local economy of New Jersey. But the ban has already passed through the Senate, and now only needs to be approved by the New Jersey Assembly to become a reality. Should the ban prove a success in the Garden State, other states could soon follow suit.

So smoking could be seeing its final days as a fact of life in England and the United States. Maybe nicotine addicts should consider quitting now, and avoiding the rush later.

[Pic via Flickr - Roman Pavlyuk]