Debate contribution: Tobacco and Vapes Bill: Legislative Consent Motion

Debate contribution by Mr Gerry Carroll on 10 February 2025.

MLA

Mr Gerry Carroll

Party at the time

People Before Profit Alliance

Date

10 February 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Executive Committee Business

Heading

Tobacco and Vapes Bill: Legislative Consent Motion

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4790354

Read the official Assembly record

Text

The Bill features a few welcome provisions, including those aimed at tackling the unacceptable marketing of vapes and other nicotine products to children. However, the Bill's key proposal of a progressive smoking ban is, essentially, a prohibitionist approach to a public health issue, and that is a recipe for disaster. The most glaring example of the failure of a prohibitionist approach is the ban of alcohol in the US at the start of the 20th century. From the outset, there was no widespread acceptance of that policy. People wanted alcohol for various reasons and found ways to get it. Criminal organisations thrived in the black market. The things that the state was trying to prevent — organised crime and corruption —.

I thank the Member for his intervention. I do not think that it is like for like. The comparison to alcohol is quite apt.

I will make some progress and then, hopefully, will give way. The things that the state was tying to prevent — organised crime and corruption — ended up thriving during the Prohibition era. I am concerned that the same will be the case with vapes and other products when it comes to the people who will be affected by the LCM. The lesson is clear: prohibition does not work. It is a draconian policy that forces the sale of products underground, where there is no regulation whatsoever. There is no doubt that smoking causes serious harm to human health. As we have heard, smoking is the leading cause of preventable death. It is responsible for one in four deaths from cancer. As the Health Committee member — I will give way to him in a second — stated, the Bill does not ban anyone from smoking; it only bans shops from selling cigarettes to an ever-expanding group of people. I will give way to Mr Donnelly.

Exactly. The point that I am making is that, although smoking is regulated, to ban it would force it underground where there will be no regulation whatsoever, as happened with alcohol in America in the 1920s and 1930s. That is the point that I am making. It is worth looking at the data. I do not believe that this has been said in the debate, but I may have just missed it: 50 years ago, 45% of the population smoked; today, around 12% of the population smokes. That is a huge drop. Unusually for the House, the current approach is working, leading to a dramatic fall in smoking. That has been achieved by adopting a public health approach to tobacco, including banning smoking indoors, which has been mentioned, and smoking around children as well as banning advertising and vending machine products. I commend those in the PHA, the trusts and the various organisations who advocate a public health approach to this very serious and important issue. The age at which a person can legally smoke was raised from 16 to 18, which saw a 30% reduction in smoking in that age group. Many would suggest that the next logical step in an effective public health approach would be to increase the minimum age from 18 to 21 — there is data that shows that that could work — and to further develop prevention and education programmes. Instead, the Labour Government and now, seemingly, the Assembly are barrelling blindly ahead with a new, untested approach that was originally proposed by the Tories. The Bill is a regrettable move away from treating smoking as a public health challenge towards treating it as a new chapter in the war on drugs. The global war on drugs has totally failed, largely because efforts are focused on a hard-line, law and order approach to reducing the supply of drugs. In the North, attempts to curb the supply of drugs via criminalisation have actually seen paramilitaries thrive and grow, jails filled and families absolutely destroyed. A public health approach would, instead, focus on the demand for a drug such as tobacco — the demands and the pressures of everyday life. A focus on demand, rather than supply, would involve measures such as licensing, taxation, product and advertising regulation and education. That is what has been proven to work. That is a public health approach. The Bill represents a dangerous move away from what has worked — a public health approach to tackling smoking — towards a prohibitionist approach with untold negative consequences. Whilst I may be in a minority of one, I do not give my consent to it.

754 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 11:55 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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