What if we were able to protect all those born in the world between 2006 and 2010 from the tobacco industry's interests so that they would never start smoking? A new study published in Lancet Public Health estimates the impact on lung cancer mortality of the generations born in that period, children and adolescents who will be 18 years old by 2029. From the models used, the authors conclude that such a scenario would lead to the avoidance of 1,186,500 premature lung cancer deaths, representing the number of today's adolescents who will die from lung cancer in the future if they continue to smoke at the current rate.

Although lung cancer is not the only disease caused by the use of tobacco and nicotine products, the results of this study help to understand why smoking remains one of the leading preventable causes of poverty, suffering and health loss worldwide, killing eight million people each year. Throughout the 21st century, the World Health Organisation and many states have begun to promote tobacco prevention and control policies that are bearing fruit in some countries, the most advanced of which are beginning to consider limiting access to tobacco to those born after a certain date.

Envisioning a new stage in public health policies to reach the first tobacco-free generations - known as the End Game- is not a pipe dream, nor can it rely solely on the effectiveness of a ban on tobacco sales to those born after a certain date, It requires continuing to promote other measures of proven effectiveness, such as increasing the price of tobacco products, the introduction of neutral packaging, the extension of places where smoking is prohibited, or the regulation of new tobacco and nicotine products with which the tobacco multinationals seek to attract new addicts in adolescence. In Spain, where tobacco causes more than 50,000 deaths a year, most of these measures are necessary and should be implemented urgently, as the scientific community has been calling for and public institutions have been announcing".