Tobacco and nicotine products eventually would become banned in Massachusetts if three Democratic lawmakers have anything to say about it.

State Sen. Jason Lewis and Reps. Tommy Vitolo and Kate Lipper-Garabedian announced Monday they plan to file legislation in January that would prevent residents not yet old enough to legally buy tobacco and nicotine products from ever doing so.

At a press conference, the lawmakers acknowledged they expect to encounter opposition from the tobacco industry, and referenced local and state policies that have made inroads in reducing tobacco and nicotine addiction.

Vitolo represents Brookline, which in 2021 became the first municipality in the country to ban the sale of nicotine products to individuals born after Jan. 1, 2000.

The Supreme Judicial Court upheld Brookline’s ordinance despite pushback from some retailers, including convenience store owners. Similar policies have since been adopted in Concord, Malden, Manchester-by-the-Sea, Reading, Stoneham, Wakefield and Winchester, according to the lawmakers.

The “Nicotine-Free Generation” (NFG) bill aims to prevent future generations from becoming addicted to the substances, while allowing anyone already 21 — the legal age — or older at the time of the law’s passage to continue purchasing nicotine and tobacco products.

Should it win approval, the proposal would gradually eliminate “all sales of nicotine and tobacco products,” the lawmakers said.

Citizens for Adult Choice described the overarching policy — or overreaching in their opinion — as the “next step in an authoritarian movement that seeks to dictate many life choices of adults.”

The group’s website, paid for by the New England Convenience Store & Energy Marketers Association, claims the measure creates a slippery slope that could pave the way for public health bans on alcohol, marijuana, sugary beverages, fast food and “placing a wager.”

The bill would replace the existing age-based eligibility system by instituting a birth cutoff date for which Massachusetts residents could still lawfully buy nicotine and tobacco products.

Vitolo said nicotine products are “so addictive that it would be unfair to take them away from longtime users.”

The bill’s authors say they expect to encounter legal challenges should their bill become law.

“Presumably, there are a lot of special interests and profit motivations that may lead to judicial action,” Lipper-Garabedian said.

Lewis remarked that Massachusetts would be the first state in the country to enact such a restriction on tobacco and nicotine products.

Obviously, many advocates and like-minded lawmakers believe the health benefits derived from such a law supersedes an individual’s right to choose their own lifestyle path.

The potential health complications associated with tobacco use have been known for 60 years, even since the Surgeon General warned the nation that smoking cigarettes could cause lung cancer, chronic bronchitis, and was a probable cause of coronary heart disease.

Along with philosophical differences, there’s some practical questions this bill must answer.

Being the only state to unilaterally enact such a restriction on tobacco and nicotine products reduces its probability of success.

In June of 2020 the commonwealth became the first state to implement a ban on the sale of menthol-flavored tobacco products and vaping devices.

However, the first signs of this measure’s limitations occurred just a few months after the passage of this legislation.

A report from the New England Convenience Store & Energy Marketers Association published in January 2021 suggested that Massachusetts residents seeking a menthol smoke simply took their business across the border to New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and New York, along with other convenience-store related business with them.

NECSEMA said the menthol ban had already cost Massachusetts more than $62 million in lost tax revenue.

Meanwhile, New Hampshire had gained more than $28 million in tobacco excise taxes since the ban took effect on June 1.

And no matter the regulatory limitations, they haven’t stopped unscrupulous individuals from circumventing those restrictions.

By August 2022, retail marijuana sales had become a cash crop in this state, but that didn’t halt a flourishing black market.

Evidence of that came from then Attorney General Maura Healey, who announced that a probe into an illegal, large scale Woburn-based distribution network netted four suspects, and a cache of cash, illegal drugs and drug-related apparatus.

Authorities claimed that this multilevel organization trafficked illegal marijuana and THC-infused products, black-market tobacco and electronic nicotine delivery system products.

The majority of this contraband was flavored — in violation of the state’s ban on flavored tobacco products — and funneled into commercial businesses across the region.

And we’ll leave it to the American Cancer Society to underscore the flawed reasoning that underage tobacco users will simply give up smoking and not cross state lines to satisfy their habit.

According to the ACS, nearly 9 out of 10 adults that use tobacco started before age 18, and that 8 in 10 people who started using tobacco as a youth or young adults will continue smoking in adulthood.

So, human nature, combined with historical data, would indicate that go-it-alone state bans don’t work. All they do is deprive the treasury of millions in tax revenue.

We’d advise just letting individual communities decide what course of action to take, and not impose a blanket ban that won’t meet its objective.