Help to create a smokefree generation
■ With more than eight in ten smokers starting before the age of 20, new plans to create a smokefree generation will help our children and their children avoid a lifetime of addiction.
■ The proposals will see tobacco phased out over time to prevent future generations from ever starting to smoke in one of the most significant public health actions in recent times, saving thousands of lives and billions of pounds. Late last year, the Prime Minister announced ambitious plans to tackle the single bi gest preventable cause of ill-health, disability and death in the UK: smoking. The proposals include:
New legislation to make it an offence to sell tobacco products to anyone born on or a er 1 January 2009
This means that the age of sale of tobacco products will increase by one year every year, so that children turning 15 this year or younger will never be legally sold tobacco – a move supported by 71 per cent of adults in Great Britain
New funding to help current smokers quit by doubling cash for local ‘stop smoking services’ to nearly £140 million, as well as £30m to crack down on illicit tobacco and underage sale of tobacco and vapes
The new rules will not criminalise smoking or mean people who can be legally sold cigarees now will be prevented from doing so in the future.
But it will be a huge step to help the three-quarters of smokers who say they would never have started the addiction if they had the choice again.
“Smoking is based on addiction and most people wish they had never taken it up,” says Professor Chris Whiy, Chief Medical Officer for England. “They try to stop and they cannot.
“As a doctor I have seen many people in hospital desperate to stop smoking, but they cannot.”
Smoking puts a huge burden on the NHS and social care: one in four hospital beds is occupied by a smoker, costing the NHS and social care over £3 billion a year.