12/10/2023

NI Public Urged To Participate In Smoking Policy Consultation

The Department of Health has called on the public in NI to get involved in a UK-wide consultation on future government policy on smoking and vaping.

The DoH has a long-standing strategic aim for a tobacco-free Northern Ireland and adult smoking rates have fallen from 24% to 17% over the last 11 years. However, a recent review of NI's tobacco control strategy highlighted several remaining challenges, not least the continued preventable premature death and ill-health caused by smoking. Approximately 2,200 people die each year in NI from smoking related conditions.

To help inform future decision-making on tobacco policy and legislation, the Department has agreed that NI will be included in the public consultation launched by the Prime Minister.

This eight-week UK-wide consultation will cover proposals to make it illegal for anyone born on or after 1 January 2009 to ever be sold tobacco products at any point in their lives. The consultation will also include a series of proposals to clamp down on the sale and use of vapes by children and young people including restrictions on flavours, display, packaging and disposable vapes.

Comments in response to the public consultation are welcome from anyone, of any age, in NI.

The outcome of this consultation will help inform decisions of incoming NI Ministers and the Executive, or in the absence of Ministers, those decisions that can be taken under the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Act 2022.


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