As long-standing leaders in the area of tobacco control, Everyone Health are welcoming the moves to phase out the sale of cigarettes in England, dubbed the ‘biggest public health intervention in a generation’.
Rishi Sunak’s plans to create a smoke-free generation. The policy will see the age at which people can buy tobacco products increase by a year each year, meaning today’s 14-year-olds would never be able to legally purchase a cigarette.
Youth smoking is an issue that we have been committed to tackling through our close work with young people in primary and secondary schools across Cambridgeshire and Peterborough. The ‘Catch Your Breath’ school-based programme focuses on prevention and targeted cessation interventions to discourage smoking and vaping behaviour in young people.
As we continuously work to shed light on the ongoing youth vaping epidemic, we have recently launched bespoke vaping toolkits to spotlight the risks of vape misuse for parents, teachers, children and youth groups, created by our in-house National Tobacco Control Lead, Caroline Kenny.
We have also joined Trading Standards officials cracking down on the surge of illegal counterfeit vapes on the market which currently poses the biggest threat to our nation’s youth.
Head of Everyone Health Services, Emma Croghan-Cox, is welcoming the proposed ban as she says: “Preventing people from taking up smoking is one of the single most important things we can do. It is fantastic to see the government’s commitment to tackling the harms of tobacco and reducing health inequalities. Everyone Health will continue to support people to lead a happy, healthy and smoke-free life.”
To find your nearest free Stop Smoking service, please visit our services page here.