BOSTON – A handful of Massachusetts lawmakers are hoping to persuade their colleagues to support a proposal that would make the state the first to adopt a ban meant to eliminate the use of tobacco products over time.
Other locations have weighed similar “generational tobacco bans,” which phase out the use of tobacco products based not just on a person's age but on birth year.
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Under a Massachusetts law signed in 2018, the age to buy any tobacco product — including cigarettes, cigars and e-cigarettes — was raised to 21. Massachusetts also has banned the sale of all flavored tobacco products in an effort to reduce youth interest in nicotine.
The new proposal, which lawmakers plan to file next year, would expand the effort to curb smoking by gradually ending all sales of nicotine and tobacco products. If the bill is approved, young people not old enough to legally purchase nicotine and tobacco would never be lawfully able to purchase them in Massachusetts, thereby creating no more new users.
It would not apply to marijuana, and the cutoff date would be adjusted when passed to ensure everyone age 21 and above at that time would not be affected.
First town to adopt a generational smoking ban
Brookline, a town of about 63,000 neighboring Boston, was the first municipality in the country to adopt such a ban in 2020. Instead of raising the age for purchasing cigarettes, the bylaw blocks the sale of tobacco to anyone born on or after Jan. 1, 2000. The rule went into effect in 2021.
That would mean at some point in the future no one would be allowed to buy any tobacco products in the town. The measure was challenged, but the state's highest court weighed in earlier this year, upholding the ban.
Other Massachusetts cities and towns already have approved similar tobacco bans, including Malden, Melrose, Reading, Stoneham, Wakefield, and Winchester.
Unclear levels of support
Democratic state Sen. Jason Lewis, one of the backers of the statewide proposal, said the bill would "save countless lives and create a healthier world for the next generation.”
“We all know the devastating health effects of nicotine and tobacco products, especially on our youth," he said.
Nicotine and tobacco products are addictive and can increase the risk of lung cancer, heart disease, stroke and other illnesses.
Nearly 9 out of 10 adults who smoke cigarettes daily first tried smoking by age 18, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which also found that in 2024 about 2 in 5 students who had ever used a tobacco product currently used them.
Peter Brennan, executive director of the New England Convenience Store and Energy Marketers Association, said the proposal would undercut small mom and pop shops that rely on cigarettes for a significant portion of their sales.
It also would put stores located near neighboring states that allow the sale of cigarettes to all adults at a competitive disadvantage.
“It’s a terrible idea,” he said. “You’re really just taking away adults’ right to purchase a legal, age-restricted product.”
Taking certain rights away from some adults and not others is likely unconstitutional, he said, adding that other prohibition efforts haven’t worked, like past bans on alcohol, marijuana and gambling.
It's unclear how much support the proposal has in the Legislature.
Massachusetts has taken other steps in recent decades to curb smoking, including raising taxes on cigarettes. Those taxes would presumably be reduced and ultimately eliminated by an incremental statewide smoking ban.
Any reduction in cigarette tax revenue would be more than offset by reduced healthcare costs and other savings, Lewis said.
In 2022, 10.4% of adults in Massachusetts reported smoking cigarettes, according to the state Department of Public Health.
Other places weighing similar bans
Some California lawmakers have pushed to ban all tobacco sales, filing legislation last year to make it illegal to sell cigarettes and other products to anyone born after Jan. 1, 2007.
In 2022, New Zealand became the first nation to pass a law intended to impose a lifetime ban on young people buying cigarettes by mandating that tobacco can’t ever be sold to anybody born on or after Jan. 1, 2009. The law was later axed.
In the U.K., Prime Minister Rishi Sunak proposed raising the legal age that people in England can buy cigarettes by one year, every year until it is eventually illegal for the whole population. The proposal failed to win approval earlier this year.