Let's ban smoking

Earlier this month the British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced proposals to ban anyone born on or after 1 January 2009 from ever legally buying a cigarette in England. The proposal mirrors a similar law passed in New Zealand by then-Prime Minister Jacinda Arden’s government. And you know a policy is special when two politicians as different as Jacinda Arden and Rishi Sunak agree on it.

In fact, Britain’s Labour party has signalled that it would “lend” the government votes to back the bill, meaning that even though the Conservatives have announced that the vote will be unwhipped, it is likely to pass into law.

But forget about British politics. Let’s implement a Korean version of this law.

The benefits of a smoke-free society are pretty evident. It’s not really disputed that smoking leads to loads of deaths every year. We can get really technical and reel off lists of facts and statistics, but doing so risks depersonalising the whole thing. So let’s stick with the key takeaway: smoking leads to loads of deaths every year.

And a successful smoking ban would save lives. It’s true that since no ban like this has yet come into force, no empirical data indicates exactly how many lives it would save. Yet by stopping children and teenagers from taking up smoking in the first place, we can change society for the better.

The long-term benefits are almost innumerable. The air will be cleaner, our lungs fresher and our lives longer. No longer will we be forced to hear the hacking rasp of a smoker’s cough or see the emetic spectacle of tarry spit on the ground. Individuals will save fortunes over their lifetimes simply by not buying cigarettes. And that’s not to mention the wider benefits of a healthier society. Untold billions will be saved in health expenses; doctors and nurses and researchers can focus on other diseases; families won’t be torn apart early by preventable deaths.

Again I repeat: the benefits are clear and they are numerous. On the other side, the objections to such a law are so few and most are so weak that it’s worth going through each one.

The first complaint would be the economic impact such a move would have. I’m sure that vested interests will lobby loudly against this idea, saying how much it would hurt the economy – a claim to which I politely reply: nonsense. The gradual implementation of the law will mitigate the economic impact on the country, giving tobacco companies time to wind down their operations.

And even if this did cause real economic damage (a claim I reject), who cares? Polluting the air and causing all kinds of physical harms to the population is not worth whatever price the tobacco companies put on it.

While we can ignore the spurious economic arguments, the problem of personal freedoms and rights deserves more consideration. It is entirely reasonable to fear an overbearing state infringing on the personal rights of an individual. And this is the most powerful argument against the smoking ban. Yet the Korean government already imposes strict penalties on all kinds of drug use. If we want to push the personal freedoms argument, we would need to broaden it to include many more drugs than just nicotine.

In fact, the case for banning smoking is actually stronger than the one against some mild intravenous drugs (with a strong emphasis on some), since the impacts of smoking are not limited to the individual consuming the nicotine. Just read some John Stuart Mill. The detrimental impacts of passive smoking are well documented: it makes no sense to ban drugs which cause no direct physical harm to others while allowing smokers not only to suck tar and nicotine into their own lungs but also to blow into everyone else’s too.

The third potential complaint is that the ban might not work. Desperate would-be smokers would resort to illicit means of procuring a fag. Again this logic could also apply to every drug: why ban heroin or cocaine if people might smuggle them in? But it’s a weak point in any case. The vast majority of smokers pick up the habit in their youth and remain hooked for life, so if the next generation of Korea has no opportunity to become addicted in the first place then we’ll have no nicotine-craving citizens desperate to smuggle in cigarettes.

One final complaint coming from the other direction would be that the ban is too slow. Why not just ban it straight away? The answer to that is of course obvious. While people who can never access cigarettes are not going to be addicted and therefore won’t seek out illegal means of purchasing them, we cannot suddenly force all the people who are currently addicted to smoking to suddenly stop. That really would lead to a huge surge in illicit cigarette sales.

I hate to be dramatic about it, but this is the best law that any government could pass to make a straightforward and positive impact on future generations. There may be details to iron out (How does vaping fit? What’s the right cutoff date?) but this is a practical law that promises untold benefits.

And this isn’t about attacking smokers, nor is it about blaming them. Under the law, everyone who can already buy cigarettes today will have the right to puff away merrily for the rest of their lives. This is about stopping the next generation from becoming addicted to smoking. Not even the most avid smokers could hope for their children to pick up the habit.

Even if the current government misses this opportunity, I am convinced that their successors or their successors’ successors will enact this law. In the same way that we look back in bemusement at our ancestors who took pinches of snuff with dinner or who merrily emptied chamber pots into the street below, our grandchildren will one day ask in wonder whether it’s true that we really permitted people to smoke cigarettes.

It’s disappointing that New Zealand has beaten Korea to this legislation. It’s also probably too late to get the law properly written and legislated here before the British parliament passes its own version. But third in the world is not bad when it comes to saving so many lives.

Korea has shown great capacity for innovation, and Yoon Suk Yeol in particular has been willing to shake up society with his reforms. This idea is a simple one which would protect countless lives in the future. Yoon, his government, and all of today’s members of the National Assembly have the opportunity to enter history as the leaders who protected Korea’s children and grandchildren before they were even born. What a legacy it would be. Of course, this policy will take a long time to have an impact ― so let’s act now.

Dr. Scott Shepherd (scottshepherd@chongshin.ac.kr) is a British-American academic. He has taught in universities in the U.K. and Korea, and is currently an assistant professor of English at Chongshin University in Seoul. The views expressed in the article are the author's own and do not reflect the editorial direction of The Korea Times.