REEM IBRAHIM: If the world’s biggest nanny state won’t ban smoking, how does Rishi Sunak hope to do so? New Zealand ditched Covid queen Jacinda Ardern’s bill before it even came into effect

Parliament voted last night to ban the sale of tobacco for anyone born on or after January 1, 2009, a milestone.

Rishi Sunak – the architect of Britain’s hotly contested policy – ​​said the aim was to prevent tomorrow’s children from consuming cigarettes, effectively creating a ‘smoke-free’ generation that will wipe out the tobacco industry for good.

But how on earth does he plan to enforce this? Even the world’s largest nanny state, New Zealand, had to throw out the same proposal.

The idea was first proposed by ex-Kiwi Prime Minister Jacinda Arden in the final days of her premiership.

It came shortly after she and her left-wing government passed some of the most draconian and damaging lockdowns in the world, turning New Zealand into a ‘hermit kingdom’ with borders completely closed in the false belief that such a tough stance would prevent Covid-19 to prevent. out.

The idea was first proposed by ex-Kiwi Prime Minister Jacinda Arden in the final days of her premiership. It came shortly after she and her left-wing government passed some of the world’s most draconian and damaging lockdowns, turning New Zealand into a ‘hermit kingdom’.

The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development’s 2023 health report shows that 12.7 percent of Britons over the age of 15 smoke cigarettes every day, far more than in the US and New Zealand, the latter of which recently introduced a similar phased smoking ban

After a recent change of heart, New Zealand scrapped the plans, meaning Britain will now go it alone.

The Kiwi reversal came just weeks after the Malaysian government abandoned a similar policy over their constitutional protections against age discrimination.

Christopher Luxon, New Zealand’s new Prime Minister, explained that the ban would have created an “opportunity for a black market to emerge,” fearing it would cost the government around $1 billion in lost revenue.

Ironically, many younger Britons are likely to continue smoking, but without having to pay the levies associated with covering costs for the NHS.

The generative tobacco ban is often intended to prevent children from using cigarettes.

But of course this is already illegal. In practice, it’s really about preventing future adults from making decisions about their own bodies.

The gradual introduction of the ban over time will create two classes of adults. In the not-too-distant future, we will find ourselves in an absurd position where it would be legal for a 31-year-old to purchase tobacco products, but illegal for a 30-year-old.

It is, of course, extremely naive to actually believe that the policy will actually create a ‘smoke-free generation’, as Mr Sunak has claimed.

It will start with the younger generations throwing away cigarettes from their older brothers and sisters.

It will continue by creating a huge new black market, which will enrich tobacco smugglers and criminal gangs, while doing little in fact to reduce the number of smokers.

As the US learned during the infamous Prohibition era, banning products with potential negative personal or social consequences is a double-edged sword. It expands the illegal black

market for these goods, unregulated and unsafe. Pumping money into organized criminal enterprises fuels corruption and even more crime.

It’s not like there isn’t already an emerging black market for tobacco.

Britain’s excessively high tobacco taxes and other restrictions have resulted in the development of a growing illicit market. HMRC estimates that one in nine manufactured cigarettes and one in three hand-rolled cigarettes were purchased illegally.

The black market currently serves consumers who simply do not want to pay high prices.

With the tobacco ban, these criminals gain a whole range of new customers that the government has banned from the legal market.

Christopher Luxon (pictured), New Zealand’s new Prime Minister, explained that the ban would have “created an opportunity for a black market to emerge,” fearing it would cost the government about $1 billion in lost revenue cost.

It is ironic that the government is banning tobacco just as society is skipping the habit and adopting safer alternatives like vaping.

The government’s 2022 Khan Report, which itself proposed a ban on tobacco, admitted that even without further intervention, smoking rates would fall to 2 percent by 2050.

In a bizarre contradiction, the baseline used by the government’s model for the new generation ban predicted that smoking rates would fall to 8 percent by 2050.

Where do these numbers come from? Was it plucked from nowhere?

Even the country that chose Ms. Arden, the country that for so long pursued a zero-Covid policy at the expense of all personal freedoms, could not bring itself to ban tobacco.

The fact that Britain, under the leadership of Winston Churchill’s party, is now banning tobacco tells us all we need to know about the dangerous slippery slope we seem to be heading down.

Reem Ibrahim is a communications officer at the Institute for Economic Affairs.