Toward a Tobacco-free Generation — A Birth Date–Based Phaseout Approach
Abstract
This article presents a legal and public health analysis of Brookline, Massachusetts’s pioneering bylaw prohibiting the sale of nicotine products to anyone born on or after January 1, 2000 effectively phasing out tobacco sales over time. Despite legal challenges from tobacco retailers, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court upheld the policy, deeming it rationally related to public health goals and not in violation of equal protection principles. The authors contextualize this approach within broader tobacco regulation trends and note its international resonance similar policies have been enacted or proposed in New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and other countries. The Brookline model includes e-cigarettes and aims to disrupt generational patterns of nicotine initiation, especially among adolescents. The article calls for broader legislative adoption of birth date–based tobacco phaseouts and argues that they could form a humane, forward-looking cornerstone of tobacco control policy.