Smoking: California wants to ban the sale of cigarettes to anyone born after 2007

Going towards generations who no longer know about smoking, this is the ambition of the State of California which must, in a few days, debate an expected text: the “Assembly Bill 95” quite simply proposes a ban on the sale of cigarettes to citizens born after January 1, 2007. A proposal freely inspired by a New Zealand law of 2022, banning tobacco products there for all people born after 2009. Brookline, a town of 60,000 in Massachusetts also passed a similar law for anyone born after 2000.

Prohibited from cigarettes, even at the majority

If the law passes, it means that people who are now 16 years old, of course, will not be able to buy cigarettes (which is already the case since the majority in California is placed at 21 years old), but that they will not be able to access it at 21, 30 or 50 either. Their generations would simply not have official access to it.

People who buy tobacco anyway do not risk a fine or jail time. It is the sellers who would be financially sanctioned. This is not the first time that a law has directly targeted future generations with regard to smoking: since a referendum in 2020, no one can buy vaping cartridges with a flavor, a fruit taste for example, favored by younger people. Damon Connolly, the California Assembly attorney behind the bill, says the legislation would not take away any rights from anyone and will save a new generation from dying addicted to nicotine.

An effect on public health spending?

The 20,000 stores that sell tobacco in California do not intend to stop there, arguing that this law would put jobs at risk. They also underline a shortfall for the community, since the Californian state would no longer receive 1.5 billion dollars in tax, normally donated to health programs.

But for his part, Damon Connolly, the elected official behind the bill, rightly considers that fewer people who smoke means fewer sick people and therefore a positive impact on public health spending.

Cigarettes kill 480,000 Americans every year. But restrictions and laws seem to have an impact on tobacco consumption. According to the Centers for Disease Control, 11.5% of Americans smoked cigarettes in 2021, almost half the number in 2009.

Is this possible in France?

In France, since 2015 and the presidency of François Hollande, France has launched the objective of a tobacco-free generation by 2030, that is to say less than 5% of smokers in an age group. Launched by the Minister of Health at the time Marisol Touraine, the objective was taken up by Emmanuel Macron as part of the anti-cancer plan. But outright banning is not on the agenda for now.

The fight against tobacco is reflected in several measures:

• The ban on smoking in all public places;
• The ban on the sale of tobacco to those under 18;
• Placing illustrated health warnings on cigarette packets;
• The replacement of “branded” cigarette packets by the neutral packagein order to counter the marketing deployed around the pack of cigarettes;
• The establishment of a 65% reimbursement by Medicare of certain nicotine substitutes;
• The steady rise in the price of cigarette packs.

Measures that seem to be behind an unprecedented drop in smoking in France between 2014 and 2019. However, a latest estimate from Public Health France shows a slight increase in daily smoking among women and the least educated between 2019 and 2021.