Willing to ban smoking cigarettes for everyone born after 2004

CODACONS: A very strong position that absolutely must be shared: In Italy alone more than 93 thousand deaths annually (25% between 35 and 65 years of age) from smoking The association proposes to the Ministry of Health a lockdown on cigarette smoking with similar measures

Lombardy and the National Chronicle: A very strong position by the New Zealand government led by Jacinda Ardern, which wants to free youth from smoking cigarettes by 2025.

The project aims to gradually increase the legal age for smoking, thus prohibiting the sale of cigarettes and tobacco products to those born after 2004.

Smoking kills 4,500 people annually in New Zealand alone, most of them Maori, where cancer is the leading cause of death among indigenous women and the second largest cause of death among men.

Codacons: “An ambitious project that must be pursued and repeated also in our country, thus eliminating the ancestral vice that causes suffering and death among many Italian families. The data is enormous – more than 93 thousand people die every year in our country; more than 25% of these deaths are aged. Between 35 and 65 years old.

Regarding minors, in all Italian regions, they show that in 2018, the year the last survey was conducted, the proportion of children claiming to have smoked cigarettes at least one day in the last 30 days significantly increases with age, both among boys. Of girls, with a noticeable difference between the sexes of 15 (24.8% among boys and 31.9% among girls).

But not only. Tobacco use is responsible for 25% of all cancer deaths globally. Nicotine and tobacco products also increase the risk of developing cardiovascular and lung diseases. More than a million people die every year from exposure to secondhand smoke; Time to say enough – concludes Codacons’ national president, Marco Donzelli – we will ask the Ministry of Health for a strong and courageous intervention, with a similar provision that would increase the legal smoking age by discouraging thousands of young people. From doing a fatal vice. “

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