Anyone born in the 21st century will never be able to buy cigarettes or other tobacco products in the town of Brookline, Massachusetts. Photo credit: 27707, Pixabay.
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) ruled in favor of a town bylaw in Brookline that bans the sale of tobacco to anyone born after January 1, 2000.
The Tobacco-Free Generation bylaw was the first of its kind in the US and adopted by Brookline, a town of 60,000 near Boston, in November 2020. The law went into effect in 2021, but local store owners filed a lawsuit challenging the ban as unconstitutional, arguing that the local regulation preempted a state statute that established the minimum age for purchasing tobacco in Massachusetts at 21. The case was dismissed by the Massachusetts Superior Court in 2022.
In its ruling, SJC affirmed the lower court's decision in favor of the bylaw, stating that it does not violate equal protection guarantees. The court also expressed that the bylaw is "a rational alternative to an immediate and outright ban on sales of all tobacco products," providing stores with the opportunity to "adjust to revenue losses that stem from shrinking tobacco product sales."
Brookline’s generational ban, however, most likely will not have as much impact as its supporters believe as anyone 21 or older could simply buy their tobacco in neighboring towns where such sales remain legal. At the country level, New Zealand scrapped a similar generational ban, which was to have been a world-first, last month. Malaysia’s proposed generational endgame ban was dropped from its Control of Smoking Products for Public Health Bill late last year. UK prime minister Rishi Sunak proposed a generational ban late last year as well, but it remains to be seen if this will actually be passed into law.