The government are looking into an independent review which would mean that anyone born after 1996 could be banned from purchasing cigarettes in England.
Javed Khan, former Chief Executive at Banardo’s has been appointed to look at ways to reduce smoking trends amongst young people and has been branded the anti-smoking tsar.
The independent review, brought to government by Khan and commissioned by Health and Social Care Secretary, Sajid Javid, would look to stop under 25’s from being able to purchase tobacco in the country in a hope to improve England’s efforts to be smoke-free by 2030.
There are around 6.9 million adult smokers in the UK and is thought to cost the NHS in excess of £2.9 billion a year.
According to The Times, the review could see a pilot take place to see the effects of the rule if imposed country wide.
Javed Khan found that smoking among 18–30-year-old’s rose by more than 25 percent during the first lockdown.
If proven successful, the decision would be similar to that imposed in New Zealand a couple of month ago.
New Zealand’s health ministry planned to stuv out smokking addition for the next generation by imposing a ban on sales of tobacco to anyone born after 2008.
The country’s Health Minister, Dr Ayesha Verall said: “"We want to make sure young people never start smoking, so we will make it an offence to sell or supply smoked tobacco products to new cohorts of youth.
“People aged 14 when the law comes into effect will never be able to legally purchase tobacco.”
Despite England’s smoking rates showing a gradual decline over the past 20 years, 64,000 people died from smoking related conditions in 2019.
At the end of October last year, the government released that vapes could potentially become available on the NHS in an attempt to reach their smoke free target.
