According to the Guardian Newspaper, the motion was passed at the annual British Medical Association meeting and will soon lead to lobbying by the government to introduce this ban to kids over the age of 13.
The British Medical Association have in the past enforced bans on smoking in public areas as well as within cars carrying children so the motion mentioned above could carry some real weight.
According to Tim Crocker-Buque, a specialist in public health medicine, the ban could stop children being attracted to smoking their teens which is when 80% of people develop the initial addictions.
Crocker-Buque said,
Smoking is not a rational, informed choice of adulthood. Eighty percent of smokers start as teenagers as a result of intense peer pressure.
Smokers who start smoking at age 15 are three times as likely to die of smoking-related cancer as someone who starts in their mid-20s.
Crocker-Buque also said that smokers who started at the age of 15 are three times more likely to die from smoking related disease compared to people that started 5 years later. He also said that 9/10 smokers wished they had never started.
He also was quoted as saying,
It is not expected that this policy will instantly prevent all people from smoking, but [rather it will] de-normalize cigarette smoking. The level of harm caused by smoking is unconscionable.
The report also pointed out the fact that as people often don’t stop even with the risk of cancer looming over them, smoking addiction can not be underestimated.
If the motion is passed, Britain will be the first country to eradicate cigarettes by the year 2035.
There are those that say the ban could lead to an underground black market selling cigarettes that are actually more dangerous than the legitimate ones sold today. There are also theories that say when something is totally banned, kids may be even more attracted towards it. The forbidden fruit theory.
The BMA believes the opposite, that smoking should never have been viewed as “normal” and that even the smartest teens aren’t wise enough to use tobacco safely and in moderation at such young ages.
Crocker-Buque said,
It is time to play the tobacco end game.
In the 21st century alone 1 BILLION people are thought to have died from smoking related diseases.