From the archive: BMA supports ban on sale of cigarettes to those born after 2000

New Zealand may be the first country to pass a law banning the sale of cigarettes to people born after 2008, but the concept is far from new.

In fact, I was reminded this morning that it's exactly nine years since the British Medical Association voted in favour of outlawing cigarette sales to anyone born after 2000.

That vote, and Forest's response, was reported by, among others, the following:

Ban new smokers, call from BMA conference (BBC News)
‘Ban cigarette sales to anyone born after 2000’ (Scotsman)
Doctors vote for ban on UK cigarette sales to those born after 2000 (Guardian)

Our full response read:

“Prohibition doesn’t work. It will create a huge black market in cigarettes and drive generations of adult smokers into the hands of illicit traders.

“Criminalising adults for buying tobacco is illiberal and impractical.

“Tobacco is still a legal product and you can’t permit some adults to buy cigarettes but deny that right to others.

“In 2035, for example, it could be legal for a 36-year-old to buy cigarettes but a 35-year-old might be committing an offence.

“Once again the BMA is indulging in gesture politics for the sake of a cheap headline.”

A few days later, the BMA's Vivienne Nathanson and I were interviewed on Sunday Politics by Andrew Neil. To say I was nervous is an understatement but it went OK. See:

Smoking ban for anyone born after 2000: BMA and Forest (BBC News)

The reason I mention this is to show there are currently very few new ideas in tobacco control. Whether it's a generational ban on the sale of cigarettes, a tobacco levy, or even health warnings on individual cigarettes, the same ideas go round and round like a stuck record.

Eventually one or two may be adopted but it can take an awful long time which is why it's important to challenge them at every stage and in every market.

(Infamously, as I have mentioned many times, the threat of a workplace smoking ban in Ireland was initially dismissed as unimportant by some people because the country was considered too small to have much influence on other nations, including the UK. How wrong, and complacent, they were.)

Anyway, it's interesting to note that despite voting for a ban on the sale of cigarettes to millennials, the BMA failed to persuade government, or any major political party, that the policy was worth adopting.

Thanks however to New Zealand and Javed Khan's 2022 review, which recommended a similar policy, the idea hasn't gone away and is being touted almost a decade later.

As it happens that week in June 2014 was quite busy because apart from reacting to the BMA vote, we also had to respond to the announcement by the Cameron government of yet another consultation on plain packaging, this time concerning the regulations.

And on Tuesday June 24 we hosted what I think was our fourth Smoke On The Water event:

Over 230 people attended the annual Forest boat party on the Thames which took place in typical British weather – a mixture of sun, showers and overcast sky.

The aim of the evening, apart from having fun, was to promote Forest's No, Prime Minister campaign. We had a small team that spent the evening inviting guests to sign a letter to David Cameron. And many did.

Eventually, and within just four weeks, we were able to submit over 50,000 letters to Number 10, which was in addition to the 260,000+ signatories who signed an earlier Forest petition opposing plain packaging.

Despite that the Government still went ahead with it. C'est la vie.

Below: Channel 5 News report on the BMA vote with a soundbite from me

Comments

[Pat Nurse]

All it would take for law abiding good citizens to be criminalised for not agreeing with the anti smoker industry's stupid and illiberal ideas is a Labour Government.

Sadly that looks like being a reality soon. For all the talk of equality and progressive policies, there is nothing more regressive than targeting specific identifiable groups of people for punishment and exclusion from society. First smokers who next?