EDITORIAL – Plan to raise the smoking age year by year is brilliant
(Image: Pixabay.com)
An editorial by Mel Rothenburger.
WHAT IF we could ban all sales of tobacco? Think what it would do for the health of our country.
Impossible, you say? Well, the UK is moving in exactly that direction. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak revealed a plan a few weeks ago to do it, and now even King Charles says it could result in a “smoke-free generation.”
Here’s how it works. The government will raise the smoking age by one year every year. The result will be that a kid who’s 14 today will never legally be able to purchase a cigarette.
The current legal age for buying tobacco products in the UK is 18, up from 16 in 2007. It’s the same in Canada — 18, although some provinces including B.C. have gone one better with an age-19 threshold.
Gradually raising the minimum age is brilliant, really. It wouldn’t affect current legal nicotine addicts but, over time, as the smokers die out, ciggies would become a thing of the past.
Sure, there will be skeptics who insist a black market would spring up, along with bootlegging, and maybe that’s a reason to outlaw the smoking itself as well as the selling.
Which would, of course, bring a whole new set of challenges.
And what about vaping? Certainly, vaping should be included.
Some will also point out that, while smoking is under fire, so to speak, the rules on illicit drugs are being relaxed. But let’s not get too hung up on the tobacco-and-alcohol vs. illicit drugs issue.
Tobacco takes a huge toll on lives and on our healthcare system. If there’s a way to eradicate it or, at least, reduce it to insignificance, it should be taken seriously. A number of other countries are thinking along the same lines as the UK.
Canada has done much to discourage smoking, including putting warning labels on packaging and now on the cigarettes themselves. Time to look at the next step.
I’m Mel Rothenburger, the Armchair Mayor.
Mel Rothenburger is a regular contributor to CFJC Today, publishes the ArmchairMayor.ca opinion website, and is a recipient of the Jack Webster Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award. He has served as mayor of Kamloops, school board chair and TNRD director, and is a retired daily newspaper editor. He can be reached at mrothenburger@armchairmayor.ca.
ArmchairMayor.ca 
History has proven prohibition has never worked. History has proven it will drive things into the underground black markets. Its a great idea from a public health perspective. But not in reality. I have recently read in the international news that is has been walked back in New Zealand. As an Island Nation it would have had a higher likelihood of working as it had greater control on what got on and off the islands.
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Yes, raising the age of smoking is a good idea. Cancer is deadly, heartbreaking and costly.
Reducing public pesticide use is another. The Canadian Cancer Society recommends phasing out pesticide use entirely at “sports facilities, especially where children often are, or if they are located next to residential and public areas.”
Due to cancer risk, Ontario and Nova Scotia have banned 2,4-D and glyphosate (Roundup) and Quebec has banned 2,4-D.
Yet the City of Kamloops uses these two pesticides in abundance in parks, playgrounds, playing fields, boulevards, bus stops, roadsides, swimming areas and other public areas throughout the city.
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Good Luck on that one although it’s a wonderful idea. You’re almost old enough to remember the results of prohibition. It is commonly called the Mafia. A better idea would be to jack up the cost of health insurance premiums on proven smokers by 10 times or so . Involuntary depletion of the contents of a wallet always works.
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Smoking is amongst quite a list of revolting habits costing the treasury too much money in remediation costs. We need to focus in recouping at least some of those costs.
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