By Jessie Yeung

The Maldives has become the first country to impose a generational smoking ban – making smoking, buying and selling tobacco illegal for anyone born after January 1, 2007.

The ban took effect on Saturday in the South Asian archipelago, “marking a historic milestone in the nation’s efforts to protect public health and promote a tobacco-free generation,” said the country’s Ministry of Health.

This measure “makes the Maldives the first country in the world to enforce a nationwide generational tobacco ban,” it added.

Smoking causes more than seven million deaths globally each year, according to the World Health Organization. As of 2021, more than a quarter of the Maldives’ adult population (aged 15 to 69) used tobacco, according to a national survey. That rate was almost double for young teens aged 13 to 15.

By comparison, close to 20% of adults in the United States used tobacco in 2022, and almost 12% of adults in the United Kingdom were smokers in 2023.

Though the Maldives is the first country to enact such a ban, similar proposals have been debated – and nearly imposed – in other parts of the world.

New Zealand came close to imposing something similar in 2022, when the government passed a world-leading smoking ban that would have prohibited the sale of tobacco to anyone born after January 1, 2009.

But the ban, which was supposed to go into effect in 2024, never came to fruition. Just a year after the bill was passed, it was rolled back to help pay for tax cuts – infuriating public health officials and anti-tobacco groups.

Credit: CNN