Stopping the next generation from smoking could start with a ban for post 2000 kids

I took up smoking as a teenager, at the humble age of 15 when I would sneak away with a neighbourhood friend to “try” cigarettes in a deserted park down the street.  Many others “smoked behind the toilets” at schools all around Australia and learned the addictive habit from their peers in a highly influential environment of peer pressure.  I smoked on and off until I had my first child.  Those early years formed a habit that I couldn’t or didn’t want to break.  But all that could change if UK Doctors get their way tonight starting the ball rolling on a ban on the purchase of cigarettes for those born after the year 2000.  Could this be the beginning of the end for the tobacco industry and a sign of cleaner air for all to come?

The Doctors Union in the UK will table policy tonight proposing that people born after 2000 should be unable to buy cigarettes in a shameless attempt to stop the next generation of youths from becoming addicted to cigarettes and dying of lung cancer at older ages.  If the British Medical Association agrees, they will then lobby the UK Government to roll out legislation that bans the sale of cigarettes to those currently aged under 15 years of age.

The theory behind the push is that most people started smoking in their youth, first trying the products in peer environments at a very young age.  And if Doctors and the Government can avoid this happening by blocking their access to cigarettes then this will potentially save the next generation from suffering the widespread epidemic of lung cancer being seen rolling across the world.

The Guardian UK reports this morning that Tim Crocker-Buque, the proposer of the motion, also a specialist registrar in public health medicine said, “the 21st-century generation don’t need to suffer the hundreds of millions of deaths that the 20th-century generation did”.

“Cigarette smoking is specifically a choice made by children that results in addiction in adulthood, that is extremely difficult to give up,” he said. “80% of people who smoke start as teenagers. It’s very rare for people to make an informed decision in adulthood. The idea of this proposal is to prevent those children who are not smoking from taking up smoking.”

Smoking is recognised as the largest single preventable cause of death and disease in Australia. It is associated with an increased risk of heart disease, stroke, cancer, emphysema, bronchitis, asthma, renal disease and eye disease. This recognised widely to be because of the stimulant nicotine, which can make smoking a regular and long-term habit that is not easy to quit. 

In 2011-12, the Australian Health Survey reported that approximately 8 million Australian adults aged 18 years and over had smoked at some time in their lives.  3.1 million were current smokers, with the vast majority (90%) of these people smoking daily.  I ask you how many of these were influenced to try cigarettes in their earlier years, and might have been prevented by such legislation?

In 2011-12, 5% of males and 9% of females aged 15-17 years were current smokers despite the legal age for purchasing tobacco products coming in at 18 years old.  Once people turn 18, it appears the smoking rates rise dramatically in our country, reaching 22% for men and 17% for women aged 18-24 in 2011-12.

Rates of smoking have fallen dramatically in the ten years prior to 2012, with the Government in each State attacking it as a large health concern, and the Federal Government supporting them with the implementation of plain packaging legislation that rolled out nationwide in 2010. But could banning cigarette sales to younger people help even more? Women under 18 still seem to be a growing target for cigarette brands, and their uptake of smoking is rising.

Between 2007-08 and 2011-12, the rate of smoking among males aged 15-17 decreased from 9% to 5%, while the rate for females increased from 5% to 9%.

So tell us today, how old were you when you first tried smoking, and do you think a ban on buying cigarettes for all those born after 2000 is sensible, logical and perhaps worthwhile?  Should Australia follow suit?  Is this the beginning of the end of the tobacco industry?