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Banning tobacco sales to anyone born after a set year, as the UK is doing, could end smoking within a generation. Adopting countries should coordinate evaluation so the evidence is undeniable.
Banning tobacco sales to anyone born after a set year, as the UK Tobacco and Vapes Bill does with a rising age of sale, could end smoking within a generation, so this idea forms an international consortium of adopting countries to pre-register outcome measures and evaluate the policy together. New Zealand repealed its version in 2024, so the evidence needs to be undeniable; age-of-sale laws such as Tobacco 21 in the US already reduce initiation, and a generational ban progressively removes the peer-supply loophole. Measures include smoking initiation by birth cohort, illicit market share and retail compliance. The test is a pre-registered synthetic-control evaluation. Being tested at scale, it addresses the bottleneck Prevention we already have is not deployed.
Smoking is the single largest preventable cause of cancer death, and quitting at any age helps, with the greatest gain from quitting young. Cessation support belongs in every cancer service, including lung screening programmes.
Doll and Hill's 1950 study is where the evidence that smoking causes cancer begins. Everything from cigarette warnings and tax to smoke-free laws and lung screening eligibility descends from this study and the cohort that followed it.
Shares Doll and Hill 1950: the case-control study that tied smoking to lung cancer, Fifty years of the British Doctors Study: smokers lose ten years of life, quitting gives most of it back, Cancer prevention roadmap: tobacco control and vaccines → biomarker-guided chemoprevention → interception in carriers, Prevention we already have is not deployed.
Shares Doll and Hill 1950: the case-control study that tied smoking to lung cancer, Cancer prevention roadmap: tobacco control and vaccines → biomarker-guided chemoprevention → interception in carriers, Prevention we already have is not deployed, Non-small-cell lung cancer.
Shares Cancer prevention roadmap: tobacco control and vaccines → biomarker-guided chemoprevention → interception in carriers, Prevention we already have is not deployed, Non-small-cell lung cancer.
Shares Fifty years of the British Doctors Study: smokers lose ten years of life, quitting gives most of it back, Cancer prevention roadmap: tobacco control and vaccines → biomarker-guided chemoprevention → interception in carriers, Prevention we already have is not deployed, Non-small-cell lung cancer.
Shares Fifty years of the British Doctors Study: smokers lose ten years of life, quitting gives most of it back, Prevention we already have is not deployed, Non-small-cell lung cancer.
Shares Cancer prevention roadmap: tobacco control and vaccines → biomarker-guided chemoprevention → interception in carriers, Prevention we already have is not deployed, Non-small-cell lung cancer.
Shares Doll and Hill 1950: the case-control study that tied smoking to lung cancer, Fifty years of the British Doctors Study: smokers lose ten years of life, quitting gives most of it back, Non-small-cell lung cancer.
Shares Cancer prevention roadmap: tobacco control and vaccines → biomarker-guided chemoprevention → interception in carriers, Prevention we already have is not deployed.