The lifelong ban: Saving lives and stealing rights

The UK government has finalised the new Tobacco and Vapes Act 2026 to create a “smoke-free generation,” endeavouring to save lives and reduce strain on the struggling NHS. The new bill means that anyone born after 1 January 2009 cannot buy tobacco products, regardless of their age. That’s right – people will be getting ID-ed when they’re 70. Wes Streeting, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, called the motion’s approval a ‘historic moment for the nation’s health’, justifying the decision in five simple words – “Prevention is better than cure.”

Despite growing awareness surrounding its threats, smoking remains the leading preventable cause of death in the UK, responsible for approximately 80,000 deaths every year. With the introduction of electronic cigarettes (‘vapes’) – devices which do not contain tobacco and so, in theory, are safer than traditional cigarettes – the government had hoped that cigarette smoking would begin to fall. While this helped many adults to quit smoking, the popularisation of vaping has had adverse effects. There has been an apocalyptic rise in the number of young people who vape, 7.2% of 11–17-year-olds admitting to vaping in 2024 (compared to 5.1% who smoked), clearly suggesting further action is needed. The question is, is the 2026 Tobacco and Vapes Act the best attempt?

Teenagers, as much as they long for independence, are easily impressionable, and so it seems that the appeal of vaping doesn’t come from posters inside the local newsagents, but instead from the influence of friends and those around them

With the sheer number of smoking-related issues facing the entire population in the present, it is obvious something needs to be done. The NHS remains understaffed and underfunded, its annual budget not in line with the rising demand, the UK’s aging population, and increasing costs. Reducing the number of smokers in the UK should have an invariable impact on said demand, lung cancer being the biggest killer amongst cancer in the UK, responsible for ~20% of cancer deaths. The new bill is evidently well-intended and should see positive effects on public health, hopefully reducing the number of people who live with nicotine addictions, and the number of lives claimed annually by lung cancer and other smoking-related diseases (such as COPD, heart disease, and strokes).

More than just banning the sale of tobacco products to those born from 2009, the new laws will also restrict the promotion of vaping to reduce its appeal to teenagers and young adults. Unfortunately, there is scepticism about how much amended promotion will do in the face of our current youth smoking crisis. Teenagers, as much as they long for independence, are easily impressionable, and so it seems that the appeal of vaping doesn’t come from posters inside the local newsagents, but instead from the influence of friends and those around them. Be it that they want to be like someone they look up to, or that they like the smell of certain vape flavours, there are surely better ways to protect the younger population.

Ultimately, the main reason lots of young people use nicotine products in the first place is for a feeling of rebellion, it being seen as a ‘cool’ thing to do and so inherently desirable. It seems that such rebellion will only become more desirable with the new Tobacco and Vapes Act 2026, with teenagers viewing substance-abuse as something they did ‘so well’ that the government had to intervene. Lots of young people have found ways around ‘Check 25’ policies, getting their older peers to purchase products for them to then use. While it could be argued that the new legislation does nothing to stop these pursuits, a reduction in advertising and promotion of smoking and smoking-adjacent activities will inevitably ‘phase out’ smoking/vaping as a contemporary trend – it just might not be the immediate pivot that the government is hoping for.

If somebody wants to take the risk of smoking, perceiving its benefits to outweigh the negatives, shouldn’t they be allowed to?

Lord Naseby, a former Conservative MP, argued the bill “does upset a great many people in that industry”, yet surely – given the industry has corrupted public perception and health for nearly one hundred years – it shouldn’t be the industry to whom our attention is directed at: we should be focusing on the impacts on the new act for the public. Yes, it has the potential to save a great many lives if successful, however, there seems to be something bigger, and perhaps more concerning, going on behind the scenes of parliament. The Tobacco and Vapes Act 2026, as aforementioned, is centred around ‘prevention’, rather than cure, but – alarmingly – it is operating in an interventionist way.

Rather than releasing a greater amount of more compelling anti-smoking propaganda, the new bill directly bans people from purchasing tobacco, potentially restricting their fundamental right to autonomy. If somebody wants to take the risk of smoking, perceiving its benefits to outweigh the negatives, shouldn’t they be allowed to? The NHS is under stress, yet this new legislation perhaps sets an unjust precedent: if the government sees that something isn’t good for us, they will take away our autonomous decision to access it. The implications of this are both clear, and terrifying, especially with the way the next elections are heading…

Perhaps, rather than focusing on prevention, the government should be focusing on the protection of the new generation while simultaneously empowering them to make their own choices

If the government were to become saturated with traditional, ‘core’ British values (you know who I’m talking about) which manifest as anti-feminist and anti-equality, our number of autonomous decisions could be reduced further. Take Roe v. Wade in America, for example. The case in US court was initially introduced in 1973 to protect pregnant women’s rights to choose abortion up to the point of foetal viability, however, in 2022, leading up to the re-election of Donald Trump, the case was overturned in Mississippi. Were someone like Trump to lead the UK, following from the bypass of autonomy in the Tobacco and Vapes Act 2026, the government could easily deny autonomy in other facets of individuals private lives’ which they deem ‘unsuitable’, such as that of a woman’s rights to an abortion, to work, and more.

Perhaps, rather than focusing on prevention, the government should be focusing on the protection of the new generation while simultaneously empowering them to make their own choices. Providing teenagers with the resources to make an informed decision is the best gift we could offer them, not necessarily revealing every reason why they shouldn’t smoke, but maybe putting less of focus on it, showing them alternative recreational activities, and helping them stay safe whilst still having the autonomy to choose. This, to me, seems to be the best way to initiate change, whilst still protecting our fundamental human rights.