Is the UK’s smoking ban set to fail?

On 21st April, 2026, the UK Parliament voted to approve the Tobacco and Vapes Bill. A policy that prohibits tobacco sales to anyone born after 31st December 2008.

Under the bill, which comes into force on 1st January 2027, the legal age for purchasing tobacco will rise annually. This means someone born on 1st January 2009 will never legally buy cigarettes in the UK, whilst their friend born just a day earlier can, once they turn 18. As each year passes, the cohort unable to buy tobacco expands, eventually creating a situation where a 40-year-old cannot purchase cigarettes whilst a 41-year-old can. The bill also extends restrictions to vaping products, imposing controls on flavours, packaging, and where vapes can be used.

Tobacco kills 64,000 people per year in England, making it the single leading preventable cause of mortality, comparable to COVID-19 deaths throughout the pandemic. Up to two-thirds of smokers die from smoking-related causes, with those who start as young adults losing an average of 10 years of life expectancy.

83% of smokers start before age 20, and young people who begin smoking before 18 show higher levels of dependence, make fewer quit attempts, and have lower success rates when they do try to stop. From a public health perspective, preventing youth initiation seems like the obvious intervention point. The government claims the new law will create a smoke-free generation and save lives. However, other countries that have implemented radical approaches to banning or discouraging smoking have seen disappointing results.

50 years of public health

Following the work of Sir Richard Doll and Sir Austin Bradford Hill in the 1960s, the UK Government implemented a number of controls and measures to reduce the impact of smoking. In 1971, the first health warnings appeared on packaging. In the 1990s, the government banned advertising. In the early 2000s, comprehensive smoking bans and increases in legal age limits came into effect. These measures and others, along with education campaigns, drastically reduced the number of people who smoke over decades.

In 1974, 46% of all adults smoked cigarettes. By 2024, that figure had dropped to 10%. As well as focusing on the prevalence of smoking amongst the general population, great strides have been made in reducing teen consumption. Raising the smoking age to 18, teen anti-smoking campaigns, banning flavoured tobaccos such as menthol and regulations around displaying cigarettes and removing branding have all reduced youth use significantly.

These interventions worked because they reduced appeal, increased awareness, and provided healthier alternatives alongside cessation support. So surely a generational ban is the next logical step?

Anti-smoking approaches from overseas

While the UK’s previous tobacco control measures succeeded through education and targeted restrictions, countries experimenting with prohibition-style approaches have seen their policies fall short.

Australia has long favoured a heavily restrictive tobacco policy. Plain packaging laws and exceptionally high taxation have made it one of the hardest places in the world to smoke. While the UK has permitted other forms of nicotine, such as pouches and electronic vapes, Australia resisted, creating a flourishing illegal market for cigarettes and tobacco. Unregulated imports flooded in. Criminal networks took control, and, ironically, young people found it easier to buy cigarettes now they could purchase from unregulated sellers without the need to prove their age.

In 2022, New Zealand went further than its antipodean neighbours, becoming the first country to implement strict generational tobacco bans similar to the UK’s proposed policy. The scheme was lauded by international experts and public health advocates as an initiative that could serve as a worldwide model, but the results proved that prohibition didn’t work. Illicit tobacco consumption hit 27% of the total market in 2025, up from 23.6% in 2024. Before the ban, studies found illicit tobacco hovered around just 5.4% of total consumption in 2017. That’s roughly a fivefold increase in black market activity, precisely the opposite of the policy’s intended outcome.

The prohibition paradox

In the prohibition of tobacco, we hear echoes from the past. When governments prohibit substances rather than regulate them, they don’t eliminate demand; they push it underground.

There is a clear parallel with the failures of the war on drugs and the prohibition era in America in the 1920s. For decades, governments have insisted that spending billions on enforcing the prohibition of substances such as cannabis, cocaine and alcohol will simply stop people from using them. Yet they remain widely available. Supply chains fall under the control of criminals rather than regulated businesses, leading to violence, products of unknown purity and easier access for minors, all while failing to have any meaningful impact on consumption.

The harms from tobacco smoking are undeniable, but blanket prohibition simply does not work. In 2023, the Netherlands implemented a ban on flavoured nicotine vapes, expecting a decrease in underage use. Instead, it doubled, rising from 3.7% (2023) to 7.6% (2024). Young people continued to vape, turning instead to unregulated products from black market sources.

There is even an argument that prohibition makes substances more attractive to young people. Adolescents who use drugs respond to peer influence, curiosity and thrill-seeking. Some studies suggest the ‘forbidden fruit’ effect – where adolescents in particular may be enticed into experimenting with substances because they’re illegal – would actually increase the uptake of youth smoking. In simple terms, when you tell a teenager they can’t do something, they’re more likely to do it.

It’s here the UK’s plan to ban tobacco sales might fall short, as the Netherlands data shows, restricting availability doesn’t automatically reduce youth interest. Even the mechanics of the ban pose problems. Two friends days apart in age will be able to walk into a shop, one can buy cigarettes and one can’t, but both can walk out of the shop and spark up. Possession of cigarettes and tobacco will not be criminalised for those under the threshold, making it somewhat pointless for a generation at least.

What actually works

If prohibition isn’t the answer, then what is? The historical data shows that harm reduction and smart regulation work. This is precisely the approach that has driven smoking rates down since the 1970s.

Internationally, countries that have embraced this harm reduction model have outperformed those pursuing prohibition. Sweden, Czechia, and Greece, which pair smart regulation of smokeless products such as nicotine pouches with strict cigarette rules, have cut smoking rates far faster than the EU average. While the EU-wide smoking rate sits at 24%, having dropped only two percentage points since 2014, these countries have seen significantly steeper declines by providing safer alternatives rather than eliminating all options.

Some members of the public understand this distinction, even if policymakers don’t. A March 2025 poll found that 55% of UK adults support alternatives to a total generational ban. Among 18-24 year-olds – the cohort the policy claims to protect –support for alternatives was even stronger: 66% preferred options other than a generational ban, with only 28% supporting an outright prohibition. (Important caveat: this poll was run by a pro-smoking group.)

The UK’s previous successes came from combining education, cessation support, targeted product restrictions (like the menthol ban), and making less harmful alternatives available. When the government focused on reducing appeal whilst increasing knowledge about harms, smoking rates plummeted. A generational ban abandons this evidence-based approach in favour of prohibition – a strategy with a consistent track record of failure across drug policy.

The verdict

Tens of thousands of people in the UK die from smoking-related diseases each year, and treating the matter as a public health issue is sound thinking from the government.

Sadly, good intentions don’t always equal good policy. The evidence from prohibition-driven approaches – whether it’s the war on drugs or New Zealand’s short-lived tobacco ban – shows a consistent pattern of failure. When substances are prohibited rather than regulated, demand doesn’t disappear. It simply moves underground.

The UK already has a blueprint for what works. Robustly enforced restrictions, education programs, cessation support and access to less harmful alternatives to smoking have consistently reduced harm over decades. Countries across Europe have shown that smoking rates can be cut faster than neighbouring averages by applying smart regulation alongside strict cigarette rules. Most telling of all, two-thirds of young adults say they don’t want a generational ban; implementing an unwanted policy is surely setting it up for failure.

There is no doubt that smoking is harmful. It kills. The question is whether repeating the old, failed prohibition playbook will reduce harm or create new problems in its wake. The country has spent five decades building an evidence-based tobacco control approach that’s demonstrably worked. Abandoning it now for a policy that’s already failed elsewhere feels like a recipe for disaster. One that ignores history and the repeated failures of prohibition.