High Time BC Raises Age for Tobacco Purchase to 21
As of November 1st the minimum legal age for purchasing cigarettes in the state of New Jersey has been raised to 21. Hawaii and California already have "Tobacco 21" laws in effect, while Oregon and Maine have recently passed laws that will come in to force next year. The Tobacco 21 movement has been sweeping across the USA (see tobacco21.org)- several other states have proposals under way in their legislatures, while many progressive cities including New York, Boston, Chicago and (until it became state-wide) San Francisco have passed it municipally. While mostly Democratic- led, Republicans are beginning to also see it as wise public policy, with even Governor Chris Christie, after vetoing it twice, recently changing his mind stating he was swayed by studies that showed people won’t develop a smoking addiction if they don’t use it in their teens or early 20s.
Very nice- but will it work? Yes, this has been proven in a controlled study of municipalities in Massachusetts, and the strategy has been called "An idea whose time has come" by the New England Journal of Medicine. Paradoxically maybe the most trustworthy piece of evidence comes from an internal Philip Morris report warning "raising the legal minimum age for cigarette purchase to 21 could gut our key young adult market". The USA's Institute of Medicine produced a major scientific report backing a nation-wide Tobacco 21 law, which it calculated would reduce smoking initiation by 25%, reduce overall tobacco consumption by 12%, and save 4.2 million years of life in kids alive today.