A new law in the United Kingdom banning the sale of tobacco products to future generations has been hailed as a landmark moment in the fight against nicotine addiction.
The ban by birth date has given heart to anti-smoking campaigners in Canada, who see it as the ultimate goal — and a plausible one — in making the country nicotine-free.
The U.K. tobacco and vapes bill, proposed almost 18 months ago, is set to receive royal assent this week and will come into effect on Jan. 1, 2027. The so-called generational smoking ban outlaws the sale of tobacco products in the country to anyone born on or after Jan. 1, 2009.
Ministers there say the law will create the U.K.’s first “smoke-free generation,” preventing young people now and in the future from becoming addicted to nicotine, and easing long-term pressure on the National Health Service.
The U.K. will be only the second country in the world with such a law, after the Maldives introduced similar legislation in late 2025. A similar one was passed in New Zealand in 2022, but was repealed in 2024 after a change in government.
“We are incredibly supportive and grateful for what’s happening in the U.K.,” said Christopher Lam, president and CEO of the B.C. Lung Foundation.
Approximately 46,000 people die from tobacco-related illnesses in Canada every year, the federal government says. Tobacco use costs society an estimated $11.2 billion each year, or $293 for every Canadian, it says, taking into account direct health-care costs and other factors like loss of productivity and loss of assets due to fires caused by cigarettes.
“If we did a smoke-free generation here in Canada, it would be the most significant public health win of the 21st century,” said Lam.
“That sounds grandiose and that sounds big, but that’s the truth.”
U.K. lawmakers approve lifetime tobacco ban for anyone born in 2009 or after
Ottawa has largely stayed quiet on the concept of a generational smoking ban, though Health Minister Marjorie Michel gave a brief response when asked about the U.K.’s move after a cabinet meeting on Tuesday morning.
“We saw what the U.K. did, but I am looking into it with all partners for now,” Michel said, without giving further details.
The projected effects of such legislation in Canada were made apparent in a study published in the Public Health Agency of Canada’s HPCDP Journal in January 2025.
It showed that after 50 years, a smoke-free generation policy would prevent tens of thousands of cases of diseases like lung cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and save $2.3 billion in health-care costs over that time.
The benefits would only partially be offset by reduced tax revenues from smoking and a decline in GDP, the peer-reviewed study concluded.
Similar modelling studies showing the same kinds of benefits have been conducted in New Zealand, Singapore, the Solomon Islands and the U.K., says Geoffrey Fong, a professor of psychology and public health sciences at the University of Waterloo.
Fong — who was vice-chair of a panel that studied future measures to regulate tobacco, including generational smoking bans, under the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control — also points to studies on the U.S. raising the national minimum smoking age from 18 to 21 in December 2019, effectively giving a three-year glimpse of what a generational ban could achieve.
One study by Yale University researchers, published in December 2024, projected the move would avert up to 526,000 premature deaths across the U.S. by 2100.
The tobacco industry raises concerns that banning its products will create a burgeoning black market, and says the government should focus on enforcement and not further regulation.
“History has shown that prohibition doesn’t work,” said Eric Gagnon, Imperial Tobacco Canada’s vice-president of corporate and regulatory affairs. The company says it agrees with preventing youth from accessing cigarettes and in helping adults quit smoking.
Campaigners say the black market is less of an issue with a generational smoking ban because access to the products isn’t being suddenly denied or restricted, thereby compelling consumers to find an alternative source.
The cutoff date for legally smoking also raises questions about individual liberty, says Andrew Fenton, a philosophy professor at Dalhousie University.
“Freedom of choice is really important,” Fenton said. “It’s important in ethics, has been for centuries. It’s enshrined in our Charter.”
But he said the matter is complicated because of nicotine’s addictive qualities and the fact that most people start smoking before they are legally allowed to.
Campaigners and researchers concede a generational ban won’t come soon to Canada — the measure had been discussed in the U.K. for many years — but incremental steps can and should be taken to get there.
“It’s a long road,” Lam said. “But I think here in Canada we’re ripe for this sort of policy to make a real difference, simply because … there’s a good understanding that we never want our kids to have the ability to purchase tobacco products.”
Canada is considered a world leader in its efforts to phase out smoking, having pioneered measures such as graphic images of tobacco’s health effects on cigarette packets, which first appeared in 2000.
Since 2018, the federal government has allocated $66 million annually to Canada’s Tobacco Strategy, which has a target of reducing nationwide tobacco use to less than five per cent of the population by 2035 — having hit an 11 per cent target for 2025.
For some, five per cent is an ambitious but achievable target, one the country is already on its way to hitting. That’s testament to nationwide efforts to reduce tobacco use, says Les Hagen, executive director of nonprofit tobacco-control organization ASH Canada — especially considering the rate was around 23 per cent in 2000.
“So we shouldn’t lose sight of the tremendous progress we have made — which definitely means that we can make substantial progress going forward,” Hagen said.
A significant next step would be following the U.S. in raising the nationwide smoking age to 21, Hagen says — something Prince Edward Island has already enacted.
Ottawa should also be looking to deal with the popularity of vaping, Lam says, in part because the tobacco-free products risk “renormalizing” the act of smoking.
Even more urgent, campaigners say, is the need to clamp down on flavoured vapes and their youth-targeted marketing.
“Generation Z is the nicotine generation,” said Hagen. “They may not be smoking as much, but the industry has certainly captured their attention when it comes to nicotine use and vaping.”
Fong agrees, but says the primary focus should be on eliminating the use of tobacco because it releases a cocktail of toxic chemicals when burned.
“There needs to be a continued emphasis on the need to do something about these incredibly deadly products.”
There’s now hope that further action by governments at all levels in Canada will create a domino effect that could set the country toward a generational smoking ban. Setting such a ban as an ultimate target would act as a “guiding principle,” Lam believes.
The U.K.’s act of precedence is important, too, Fong says, pointing to how many parts of the world followed Canada’s lead in cigarette packaging warnings.
In a statement emailed to CBC News, Health Canada highlighted its aim of reducing tobacco use to five per cent of the population by 2035, “a goal recognized internationally as a critical milestone for a smoke-free future.”
