The British Parliament passed the "Smoke Free Generation" law last April. The core of the law is to ban tobacco sales to anyone born after January 1, 2009, even after they become adults. Adults who already smoke cannot be helped, but the aim is to ensure that growing teenagers and children never feel the temptation to smoke in the first place. The law is set to take effect in January 2027, and sellers and proxy buyers who sell tobacco to those born after 2009 will face fines of up to 200 pounds (about 390,000 won). The regulation covers conventional cigarettes, cigars, and other tobacco products.
By contrast, Korea must reflect on whether it is properly protecting teenagers from smoking and preventing them from falling into nicotine addiction. According to a survey by the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency, the tobacco product use rate among teenagers stood at 4.4% for male students and 2.1% for female students as of 2025, on a declining trend since 2019, but the use rate of liquid e-cigarettes is instead rising, at 3.8% for male students and 2% for female students. At first glance, teen smoking rates appear to have fallen, but in reality only the "behavior" of switching from cigarettes to new types of tobacco has changed.
In particular, liquid e-cigarettes can be considered even more dangerous, as their reduced smell and smoke make them easy to hide from adults, and their various flavors such as fruit, menthol, and chocolate lower the aversion to smoking. On top of this, compared to cigarettes, they are harder to self-regulate in terms of usage and are more addictive. Above all, the key is nicotine. When the brain of a developing teenager is exposed to nicotine, addiction sets in faster and quitting becomes harder over the long term.
The problem is that policies and systems fail to keep up with the technological and trend changes in new tobacco products. The existing Tobacco Business Act has long defined tobacco around products made from "tobacco leaves" as their raw material. In the meantime, synthetic nicotine liquid products have been in a regulatory blind spot for taxation, points of sale, and advertising on the grounds that they are "not tobacco." Businesses selling new tobacco products such as nicotine-analog products quickly exploited that gap to lure teenagers.
Recently, the government too has recognized the seriousness of the issue and decided to simultaneously pursue pricing policies, such as raising cigarette prices, and non-pricing policies targeting nicotine-analog products to lower the smoking rate. Jeong Eun-kyeong, Minister of Health and Welfare, said at a press briefing on the 11th, "There is a need to respond closely to e-cigarettes, various flavored tobacco, and synthetic nicotine," adding, "This is a situation where both pricing policy (such as raising cigarette prices) and non-pricing policy must be mobilized." This appears to signal an intention to review raising the price of cigarettes, frozen for 11 years, while also seeking broad regulatory measures for tobacco other than cigarettes. Although synthetic nicotine has been included as tobacco since this year, making liquid e-cigarettes subject to regulation, the point is that this alone is not enough.
Although there is social controversy, it has already been proven that raising cigarette prices produces a stronger anti-smoking effect than any other measure. When the price was raised from 2,500 won to 4,500 won per pack in 2015, it clearly demonstrated an anti-smoking effect among teenagers. According to raw data from the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency's Youth Health Behavior Survey, the teen smoking rate fell by 15.2% within just one year right after the 2015 price hike. Compared to the same period, when adult rates fell by 8.8% for men and 3.5% for women, the policy effect was clearly evident among teenagers. This means that to prevent smoking among teenagers with limited allowances, raising cigarette prices should be the first choice.
However, as Minister Jeong also pointed out, there is a point of caution in the process of raising cigarette prices. If only the price of cigarettes is raised, teenagers may switch to other cheap products outside of regulation. So the key is clear. The prices of all tobacco products must be raised together. If only one product becomes expensive, teenagers will simply move to a cheaper product. Closing off the very escape route to cheap substitutes is the most direct means of preventing nicotine addiction among teenagers.
Korea's cigarette prices have been frozen since 2015, and considering the inflation and income levels that have risen in the meantime, they can be seen as having actually fallen. Furthermore, the cigarette price itself is far too cheap, ranking 34th among the 38 OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) member countries. Compared to the OECD average cigarette price of about 9,900 won, it is less than half. Only four countries — Costa Rica, Mexico, Turkey, and Colombia — have cheaper cigarettes than Korea. In effect, while the state advocates the protection of teenagers, it has left the most basic entry barrier against smoking, which erodes teenagers' health, neglected for over 10 years.
Whenever talk of raising cigarette prices comes up, there is much social controversy. There is concern that opposition parties and smokers may grumble that it is another form of "tax increase" and an "added burden on the public." In addition, various government ministries related to tobacco must reach a consensus — namely the Ministry of Health and Welfare, related to health; the Ministry of the Interior and Safety, which handles local taxes; and the Ministry of Economy and Finance, which manages the Tobacco Business Act. Advance coordination is needed regarding how the taxes and funds attached to tobacco are used. Currently, the share of taxes in cigarette prices reaches 73.74%, including the National Health Promotion Charge, the tobacco consumption tax, the local education tax, the individual consumption tax, and the waste disposal charge.
But the protection of teenagers can no longer be put off on the grounds that policy implementation is difficult. The solution is clear.
First, the prices of all tobacco products, including cigarettes, must be raised to heighten the entry barrier for teenagers.
Second, to this end, regulatory blind spots such as liquid e-cigarettes, synthetic nicotine, and nicotine-free products must first be closed to bring all tobacco products within the fence of the law.
Third, online and unmanned sales, as well as advertising, packaging, and flavor marketing targeting teenagers, must be managed more strictly.
Finally, the revenue generated from price hikes must not be buried in the general budget. It must be institutionally tied to teen prevention education, school-based counseling, smoking cessation clinics, and addiction treatment support.
From the standpoint of the government and political circles, raising cigarette prices will by no means be an easy policy decision-making process. But it must be kept in mind that continuing to neglect teen smoking will incur greater social costs at the national level. Former U.S. President Bill Clinton, during his term in August 1996, declared that "tobacco is a drug" and ordered a strong crackdown on tobacco sales and advertising aimed at teenagers. At the time, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recommended that President Clinton classify tobacco as a drug, noting that the nicotine in tobacco was already classified as a drug. Thirty years later, Britain is now passing the "Smoke-Free Generation Law," vowing to protect the health of its teenagers and children. Now is the time for social discussion and bold decisions on how to build protective barriers so that teenagers and children, the future of our nation, do not fall into nicotine addiction.
He is...
A graduate of the Department of Sociology at Sungkyunkwan University, he earned a doctorate in public health from Seoul National University and trained at Harvard University in the U.S. and Oxford University in the U.K., among others. He served as a senior research fellow at the Health Promotion Development Center of the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs and as president of the Korean Society for Health Education and Promotion. He oversaw the establishment of the First National Health Promotion Comprehensive Plan in 2001, established smoking cessation clinics at public health centers nationwide from 2005, and designed the national certification system for health educators in 2007.
