LONDON: Britain’s plans to ban future generations from buying cigarettes will become law this week, ushering in a policy still overshadowed by questions over how effective it will be in stopping smoking.
Lawmakers last week approved the Tobacco and Vapes Bill, which introduces a rolling age restriction permanently barring anyone born on or after January 1, 2009 from buying cigarettes.
Due to receive royal assent - the final stage of the legislative process - this week, the laws also tighten rules on vaping and other nicotine products, particularly around marketing and display.
In London, people were split on whether it would work. “I think it’s important to ban it for teenagers and young kids,” 21-year-old student Minola Slaveschi said on Monday. “There’s just way too many at the moment vaping and smoking on the streets.”
Harry Jordan, a 23-year-old tennis player, said people would find another way to access the products and that it would not solve the issues. “People are going to smoke regardless,” Mehmet, a shopkeeper in east London, told Reuters, standing in front of a row of brightly coloured vapes. The bill raises the legal age for buying tobacco by one year, every year, starting with people born in and after 2009, meaning affected age groups face a lifetime ban.
