Generational Tobacco Ban Bill To Be Introduced In Massachusetts
A trio of lawmakers in Massachusetts are set to introduce the Nicotine-Free Generation (NFG) bill to the state legislature, which, if ed, would ban the sale of tobacco products, including cigars, statewide for individuals born after a certain date. State Senator Jason Lewis, Representative Tommy Vitolo and Representative Kate Lipper-Garabedian announced a few weeks ago that they plan to bring the bill to the floor during the 2025 session, possibly as early as January. The move marks a dramatic escalation in a state that has seen several townships outside of Boston approve their own, local generational bans this year.
A generational ban is legislation crafted to eventually make a product entirely illegal. Rather than typical bans aimed at keeping products out of the hands of the underaged, such as raising the age minimums to buy controlled substances such as tobacco and alcohol, generational bans keep moving the goalpost. They would make a product illegal in perpetuity for anyone born after a designated date, January 1, 2001, for example. Theoretically with such legislation, anyone born after that date would never be allowed to legally buy the product, even if he or she was 100 years old.
“Those who are not old enough now to obtain nicotine products will never be old enough to buy them in Massachusetts,” said State Representative Tommy Vitolo in a press release. The trio of elected officials has signaled that the ban will not apply to anyone currently of legal age to buy tobacco goods. “Those who are old enough today will always be old enough,” said Vitolo. The ban would apply to all tobacco products, meaning handmade and machine-made cigars, cigarettes, pipe tobacco, vapes, chewing tobacco and snus. It would not include marijuana, which is recreationally legal in Massachusetts.
Given the language, it’s likely the lawmakers could target January 1, 2005 as the birthdate goal post. This would mean that anyone born after that date, people who are now 19 years old and soon to turn 20, would never be legally allowed to purchase tobacco products in the state of Massachusetts for their lifetimes.
In a sense, the writing was on the wall for the Bay State. For many years, Massachusetts has had some of the strictest tobacco laws in the United States and is often at the forefront of anti-tobacco regulation in America. The state ranks in the top ten for its tax rate on tobacco products and they were one of the first states to ban the sale of flavored tobacco goods. Though clear in their position, the commonwealth entered new territory earlier this year after the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) upheld a bylaw adopted by the Boston-area town of Brookline that banned the sale of tobacco products to anyone born in the 21st century. Following the ruling, numerous townships surrounding Boston began following suit, introducing, and approving, their own generational tobacco ban regulations.
What started with just a handful of towns has now become a conglomerate of 11 Massachusetts municipalities, most Boston-area suburbs in close proximity to one another, including Brookline, Concord, Malden, Manchester-by-the-Sea, Melrose, Reading, Stoneham, Wakefield, Winchester and Belchertown, which just adopted a generational tobacco ban this week. The better together-like approach these towns have taken mirrors what happened in 2018, when many Massachusetts municipalities ed legislation raising the legal age to purchase tobacco products from 18 to 21 before the state eventually hopped on board and did the same. It’s possible 2025 produces a nearly identical string of events in regards to generational tobacco bans.
Massachusetts allows for local jurisdictions to exercise authority with their own forms of tobacco control, which can differ from the state’s official position. It’s similar to the dynamic, in some contexts, seen between the U.S. federal government and state legislatures, for example, the present cannabis situation in America. At the state level, however, local authority is not necessarily the standard nationwide as it is Massachusetts, at least in regards to tobacco control. The issue has become a point of contention within many states concerning how tobacco is regulated.
Each of the three state legislators represent districts that include towns that have already instituted generational tobacco bans. State Senator Jason Lewis represents the Fifth Middlesex District of Massachusetts, which includes the towns of Malden, Melrose, Reading, Stoneham, Wakefield, and parts of Winchester. State Representative Kate Lipper-Garabedian’s constituency also includes Malden, Melrose and Wakefield, whereas Vitolo’s district includes Brookline, the town that set everything in motion. The Nicotine-Free movement has been a collaborative effort among these neighboring communities, although it remains to be seen if the domino effect will continue at the state level.
What started as floating the idea last year and the United Kingdom is currently inching closer and closer to ing their own generational tobacco ban, which is, so far, moving favorably through the House of Commons. The latter of which seems on track to go into law in 2025.
The Cigar Association (PCA) has a petition in opposition to the local and state generational ban proposals that you can sign here.
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