Sign up for the Today newsletter
Get everything you need to know to start your day, delivered right to your inbox every morning.
Another Mass. town has passed a ‘generational ban’ on tobacco products
Newton City Council voted 19-4 to prohibit the sale of tobacco to anyone born after March 1, 2004.
Newton joined several other Massachusetts towns when its City Council approved a “generational ban” on tobacco products.
Generational Bans:
These laws prohibit the sale of tobacco products to people born after a certain year, essentially aiming to phase out tobacco altogether. Brookline was the first municipality in the country to adopt one of these bans, which blocked the sale of tobacco to anyone born on or after Jan. 1, 2000, when it did so in 2020.
Initially, Newton’s proposed law would have prevented the sale of tobacco to anyone born on or after Jan. 1, 2000, said City Councilor-at-Large Joshua Krintzman in a council meeting Tuesday, but that changed.
Advertisement:
“Programs and Services voted to amend the proposed item so that it now reads that anyone born after March 1, 2004, would be prohibited from purchasing tobacco in the city of Newton,” Krintzman said.
He described the ban, which the council approved 19-4, as a “lifetime prohibition” for anyone born after that date.
“It essentially phases out tobacco sales in the city of Newton,” Krintzman said.
Councilor at Large Alison Leary, who was part of the 2018 effort to raise the minimum age to purchase tobacco products from 18 to 21, called tobacco “one of the few things that, when used as directed, will kill you.”
Advertisement:
“Smoking kills more people than alcohol, car accidents, illegal drugs, murders, suicides, AIDS combined,” she said
Leary listed the “costs” of tobacco use: “The amount of people it kills, the amount of loved ones people lose, the amount of health insurance costs that go to this, loss of productivity, it goes on and on and on.”
In addition to Brookline, Newton joins a growing collection of Massachusetts towns that include Stoneham, Wakefield, Winchester, Reading, Malden, Melrose, Concord, Chelsea, Belchertown, Needham, and Manchester-by-the-Sea.
The proposed ban was announced to the public earlier this month in a newsletter to Newton residents. Mayor Ruthanne Fuller called it an “important step” toward a “nicotine free generation.”
“Commissioner Lao and I believe this proposed ordinance is an important tool in reducing the harm caused by tobacco products such as cigarettes and vapes,” Fuller said in the newsletter.
It will not impact anyone who is currently 21 or older and able to buy tobacco products in Newton.
To comment, please create a screen name in your profile
To comment, please verify your email address
Conversation
This discussion has ended. Please join elsewhere on Boston.com