On July 14, 2025, I had the pleasure of becoming a member of native advocates on the listening to of the Joint Committee on Public Well being on the Massachusetts Statehouse. On the docket: a state Nicotine-Free Era regulation (Home model; Senate model). The invoice would prohibit the sale of [certain – House version] tobacco merchandise to individuals born on or after January 1, 2006. The room was packed; individuals not simply standing however sitting within the aisles. Just a few retailers had proven as much as argue in opposition to, however they had been far outnumbered by supporters, together with medical doctors, youth, most cancers survivors and individuals who had misplaced family members to most cancers.
I can’t predict with accuracy the way forward for the payments (Home and Senate). If the Public Well being Committee approves, they are going to be despatched to the Methods and Means committee, after which hopefully to the complete chambers. Innovative payments like this typically fail of their first 12 months, but when they do, we are going to construct on the momentum subsequent 12 months, and in the meantime encourage extra cities to move their very own NFG legal guidelines (17 and counting).
Watch the listening to testimonies and skim my testimony under.
Testimony from Chris Bostic, Coverage Director for ASH
Good afternoon, and plenty of due to the Joint Committee for this time. I’m testifying in assist of H2562/S1568, An Act to create a nicotine free era.
My identify is Chris Bostic. I’m the coverage director for Motion on Smoking and Well being, or ASH, based mostly in Washington DC however working globally to finish the tobacco epidemic. I additionally chair the U.S. and international steering committees for Mission Sundown, a marketing campaign to section out the sale of business tobacco merchandise.
My foremost objective in being right here is to reassure the Joint Committee that the nicotine-free era idea is neither new nor radical. Because it has been a number of instances prior to now, Massachusetts is on the forefront of an essential public well being development, however it isn’t alone.
The birthdate-based tobacco gross sales phaseout is an affordable resolution to a world conundrum. We have now a product that must be faraway from the market, however on the identical time there are over a billion people who find themselves already hooked on that product.
Nicotine-Free Era insurance policies are half of a bigger motion referred to as tobacco endgame. Whereas cities in Massachusetts are main the cost, six different U.S. jurisdictions have additionally carried out endgame measures, together with two cities in California which have banned tobacco gross sales outright, and three cities in Minnesota and one in New York which have legal guidelines phasing out tobacco retail licensing. The California Division of Public Well being has made tobacco endgame a precedence.
Outdoors the U.S., tobacco-free era insurance policies have been launched or handed within the Philippines, Malaysia, New Zealand, South Australia and the UK. On July 1st, the nation of Maldives carried out TFG, and it’s anticipated to move this 12 months in the UK and South Australia. Three weeks in the past, the European Fee introduced funding for tobacco endgame insurance policies all through the European Union.
Endgame has additionally arrived on the worldwide treaty stage. The final Convention of the Events of the Framework Conference on Tobacco Management established an Knowledgeable Group to take a look at Ahead-Trying Measures, together with endgame insurance policies. The report of that skilled group shall be revealed in September and regarded on the subsequent COP in November.
The worldwide public well being group embraced tobacco endgame on the World Convention on Tobacco or Well being in 2018 by adopting the Cape City Declaration on Human Rights and a Tobacco-Free World. The declaration made clear that the advertising and marketing of tobacco merchandise is a violation of primary human rights, and that governments have an obligation, not only a proper, to finish the tobacco epidemic.
When my group started pushing tobacco endgame greater than 10 years in the past, it was thought-about a fringe challenge. That’s not the case. Endgame is right here, each globally and on this room. All of us envision a world free from the illness and loss of life brought on by tobacco. Massachusetts has been a world chief on public well being points, and it has the chance to be so once more.
Thanks.
