A bill, recently tabled by a Californian elected official, intends to prohibit the sale of cigarettes for all people born after January 1, 2007. A radical measure to reduce the risk of nicotine addiction among American adolescents.
Already very strict in its fight against smoking, California will perhaps reach a new level in the weeks to come. Indeed, Damon Connolly, lawyer and member of the House of Representatives of California, has submitted a text aimed at gradually banning tobacco in this state in the West of the United States.
Anyone born after 2006 can NEVER buy tobacco products in California under new state bill pic.twitter.com/5js4VsPcK5
— Daily Loud (@DailyLoud) March 13, 2023
While the sale of tobacco is currently prohibited to anyone under the age of 21, according to the official California government website, the proposal would “implement a phased tobacco ban by prohibiting a tobacco retailer from selling products to anyone born on or after January 1, 2007“. However, the text does not provide for any fine for buyers, which would not be the case for sellers who do not respect this possible new rule. According to the text, these fines would range between 400 and 6,000 dollars.
A strong challenge and a shortfall
Nearly 20,000 stores sell tobacco across California. And inevitably, this bill does not delight them. The associations insist on the fact that, in addition to jobs at risk, this text will deprive the Californian state of tax money. A sum estimated at around 1.5 billion dollars in 2021 and which is donated to health programs.
Damon Connolly does not have the same point of view. He estimates that these taxes, potentially lost, would be made up for by a drop in smokers, therefore fewer sick people and, consequently, less public health expenditure. On average, nearly 480,000 people die each year from tobacco in the United States.
A policy similar to New Zealand
The bill, known as ‘Assembly Bill 935’, is modeled after a 2022 New Zealand bill, banning tobacco products for anyone born after 2008. The local government wants to reduce the number of smokers by increasing the legal age every year. These provisions, according to Minister Ayesha Verrall, are steps towards a tobacco-free future.
New Zealand will ban the sale of tobacco to its next generation, in a bid to eventually phase out #smoking. Anyone born after 2008 will not be able to buy cigarettes or #tobacco products in their lifetime, under a law expected to be enacted next year. pic.twitter.com/MPAiG1nIoT
— Dr. Alexey Kulikov (@KulikovUNIATF) December 9, 2021
Although this law is ambitious in California, it is not the first in the United States. As of September 2021, the city of Brookline, Massachusetts has banned the sale of cigarettes to anyone born after January 1, 2000.
These new bans would ultimately reduce tobacco consumption even further across the country. According to the Centers for Disease Control, 11.5% of Americans smoked cigarettes in 2021, half the number in 2009.
