Nicotine-Free Generation (NFG) laws deny sales of nicotine products to people born after a certain year.
Roughly two dozen Massachusetts municipalities — including South Hadley, Amherst, Yarmouth, and Leverett — have already passed variations of NFG laws. Similar bills have been introduced in California, Hawaii, Indiana, and Nevada.
Katharine Silbaugh, a Boston University law professor and a resident of Brookline, Massachusetts, supports these laws, as seen in an interview published in The Nation's Health.
"We think this product should be viewed as if it were asbestos and lead paint," said Silbaugh. "It's a completely unique product that would never be approved for sale now. The question is, why is it still for sale? And the answer is because people are dependent on it."
Silbaugh co-sponsored Brookline's ordinance which bans the sale of tobacco/nicotine products to anyone born on or after January 1, 2000.
Dr. Jeff Willett of Project to End Smoking at the Progressive Policy Institute, however, calls this the “gradual implementation of adult prohibition,” claiming that the age-based ban doesn’t help those who are already addicted to smoking, reports DC Journal.
Meanwhile, NFG laws are virtually non-existent in the American south.
States such as Texas, Florida, North Carolina, Tennessee and Oklahoma rely on strong state-level preemption statutes, which legally block cities from enacting regulations stricter than state law.
DC Journal also reports that Kevin West, an Oklahoma state representative for District 54, does not favor NFG policies in his state. He calls it a slippery slope.
"Nobody wants kids using nicotine and tobacco and all of that, so you get a little bit broader support. Then you start seeing what they really want to do once they get their foot in the door," said West. "And that can easily go into things like guns and oil and gas and, you know, anything else that you can think of."
That, said West, is un-American.
"Big picture when it comes to things like this... you can easily get into areas that start restricting how people can work, how they live and have fun with their family," said West.
