Over there
Published yesterday at 9:51 p.m., updated yesterday at 9:52 p.m.
Rishi Sunak. POOL / Portal
The British Prime Minister would be willing to take similar measures to New Zealand, which would gradually increase the legal smoking age.
Towards a cigarette ban in the UK? Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is actually considering implementing measures similar to those in New Zealand last December, sources within the British government told The Guardian newspaper. Following the New Zealand model, the legal minimum smoking age could be gradually raised so that the sale of cigarettes to people born on or after January 1, 2009 would no longer be possible.
“Load”
Therefore, in December 2022, the New Zealand Parliament under former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern adopted a text to reduce the number of people using tobacco products. The legal smoking age is raised every year, barring people born after 2008 from buying cigarettes. Another measure is to reduce the nicotine content in products to such an extent that addiction no longer arises. The number of sellers authorized to sell these products will also be reduced to 600 from the current 6,000.
Also read:To put an end to smoking, New Zealand is introducing a gradual smoking ban
According to the Guardian, when asked about New Zealand’s anti-smoking policy, a British government spokesman claimed that “smoking” is a “deadly habit” that places “a huge burden on the health system and the economy.” The spokesman further assured that the government wanted to “encourage more people to quit smoking and achieve our goal of being smoke-free by 2030”. With this in mind, the British government has provided free e-cigarette kits to one million smokers in England. For its part, the Labor Party announced, again according to the British daily, that it was conducting “consultations on the phasing out of cigarette sales to young people.”