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USA Today Editorial Board: Raise cigarette sales age and see: Our view

The Editorial Board

When California lawmakers voted this month to raise the legal age to buy cigarettes from 18 to 21, they joined Hawaii and more than 100 localities in seeking a new way to prevent vulnerable teenagers from getting hooked.

Almost everyone who smokes started by age 18, research shows. The tobacco industry, among the world’s slickest marketers, has known and used that fact to its benefit for decades. “Raising the legal minimum age for cigarette purchaser to 21 could gut our key young adult market (17-20) where we sell about 25 billion cigarettes,” a Phillip Morris report noted in 1986.

This suggests that raising the age is worth a try. Gov. Jerry Brown, D-Calif., ought to sign the measure, and careful study is warranted to find out to what degree the change  affects teen smoking.

Parents and public health advocates shouldn’t get their hopes too high. Teenage behavior is unpredictable and resourceful; many teens use fake IDs to buy alcohol and no doubt would do the same for tobacco. But unless a few states make the change, the value can’t be calculated. Right now, all but five states set the legal purchase age at 18. In Alabama, Alaska, New Jersey and Utah, it is 19. Hawaii went to 21 on Jan. 1.

Although smoking rates among high school seniors have fallen drastically, from 33.5% in 1995 to 11.4% last year, that still leaves millions of adolescents addicted and vulnerable in later years to cancer, heart disease and premature death. Raising taxes, running anti-smoking ad campaigns, and making smoking less cool  have worked, but more is needed.

Last year, the respected Institute of Medicine projected that if the legal age were raised to 21, by the time today’s teenagers became adults smoking prevalence would be cut by 12%. The greatest impact, the IOM found, would likely be among teens 15 to 17. Meanwhile, other avenues of getting cigarettes are drying up: Vending machines have all but vanished, and less than 10% of stores sell illegally to minors.

Plenty of reasons exist to try to cut further into youth smoking. Nicotine exposure during adolescence is likely to adversely affect cognitive function and development. Adolescents are more prone to addiction than adults because parts of the brain most responsible for decision-making, impulse control and susceptibility to peer pressure are still developing. As for the health effects, the risks for smoking-related illness rise not only with the number of cigarettes smoked per day but also with the number of years a person smokes.

The most persistent argument against raising the age is that at 18, people have the right to marry, to vote and to serve in the military, so they should be able to choose to smoke. But society does set 21 as the age for another dangerous activity, drinking alcohol — a change that has prevented about 900 drunken driving deaths per year. Smoking is the public’s business, too: Everyone helps pick up the tab for the enormous health care costs of tobacco-related illnesses.

In Finland, daily smoking dropped significantly among 14- to 16-year-olds after the legal age was raised from 16 to 18 and enforcement was bolstered. There’s no comparable research in the United States, which is precisely the point. Given the tobacco industry’s success in getting young people hooked, teenagers deserve to find out whether the U.S. has been missing a powerful tool to save their lives.

USA TODAY’s editorial opinions are decided by its Editorial Board, separate from the news staff. Most editorials are coupled with an opposing view — a unique USA TODAY feature.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2016/03/21/cigarettes-21-sales-age-california-hawaii-editorials-debates/81730332/

HealthlineNews: Is 18 Too Young to Buy Tobacco Products? Some States Think So.

California is on the verge of joining other states in raising the minimum age to purchase tobacco, sparking more debate about what privileges and responsibilities fall on young adults.

How old should you be to purchase tobacco?

Some legislative leaders in the United States apparently think 18 is too young.

On Friday, Hawaii’s governor signed a bill raising the minimum age to buy tobacco to 21. The law takes effect next year.

Four states — Alabama, Alaska, New Jersey, and Utah — have raised the minimum age to buy tobacco to 19, while some local municipalities have raised it to 21.

And, earlier this month, the California State Senate overwhelmingly voted to increase the age at which a person can buy tobacco products from 18 to 21. The bill still needs Assembly approval and the governor’s signature.

The goal is to further limit access to tobacco products to young smokers. The move is backed by several health groups, including the American Cancer Society and the California Medical Association.

Dr. Jack Jacoub, an oncologist and director of thoracic oncology at the Memorial Care Cancer Institute at Orange Coast Memorial Medical Center in Fountain Valley, California, says with decades of data available, it’s clear the age increase is a sound move to prevent people from starting lifelong habits.

“It’s still a risk factor for a host of different cancers, not just lung cancer,” he said. “If you separate the legal aspect of it, it makes the most sense to raise the minimum age to 21.”

A Measure Aimed at Delaying the Start

A study by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) published in March found that increasing the minimum legal age to 21 would likely prevent or delay when people would begin smoking, specifically children aged 15 to 17.

About 90 percent of smokers now start before 19 years old, so the argument is the 21-year minimum would reduce teens’ access to tobacco because it’s unlikely they would be in the same social circle as people old enough to purchase tobacco.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) doesn’t have the authority to raise the legal smoking age to 21, so it’s an issue that must be dealt with at the state level. The federal government, however, does have a law that withholds federal highway funds to states that don’t have their minimum drinking age at 21.

The town of Needham, Massachusetts, raised its smoking age to 21 in 2005. Over the next decade, teenage rates of smoking dropped from 13 to 7 percent, according to the Education Development Center, which conducted the study.

In California, smoking has been banned in enclosed workspaces since 1995, and smoking in a vehicle with a minor has been illegal since 2008. This was done to prevent exposure to secondhand smoke, but the new proposed law would affect young smokers directly.

“The group where smokers usually start is the highest impact group,” Jacoub said. “I don’t know of anyone who would be against it.”

A handful of trade groups, such as the Cigar Association of America and the California Retailers Association, oppose the change on the grounds that Americans are considered adults under the eyes of the law, so that’s also when they should have the right to make their own decisions.

Personal choice is the crux of the argument the tobacco industry uses when opposing stricter legislation.

This new legislation has lit up an ongoing debate over when a person is considered a legal adult and what that entails.

When Are Americans Adults?

When the federal drinking age was pushed back from 18 to 21 in 1984, it was backed by health concerns, mainly the high rate at which minors were being killed in traffic accidents while under the influence.

Research shows the parts of the brain most responsible for decision-making, impulse control, sensation seeking, and susceptibility to peer pressure are still developing and changing between the ages of 18 and 21. The IOM study notes, “Adolescent brains are uniquely vulnerable to the effects of nicotine.”

Jamie Miller, a political consultant and e-cigarette lobbyist from Florida, likened the California legislation to the change in voting age in 1971 when young men were being drafted to serve in Vietnam.

The thought was that men and women old enough to serve in the armed forces should be able to vote for the people who decide to go to war.

“We’re looking at the unintended consequences of passing laws under public pressure at the moment. I personally believe we, as a society, made a mistake when we changed the Constitution to allow those who are 18 to vote just so we could draft those who are 18,” he said.

Saying he believes the fewer people who have access to addictive substances the better, Miller also says there needs to be some kind of uniformity to when young people are considered adults.

“If the age to drink and smoke is 21, we should change the draft and voting age to 21 as well,” he said. “In other words, full, legal adulthood would be 21.”

http://www.healthline.com/health-news/some-states-think-18-is-too-young-to-buy-tobacco-products-062015#5

Reuters: California Senate votes to raise smoking age to 21 from 18

LOS ANGELES | BY ALEX DOBUZINSKIS
The California Senate voted on Tuesday to raise the legal smoking age in the most populous U.S. state to 21 from 18, in a move that could make California one of the states with the highest smoking age.
The measure was approved by the Senate 26-8 and must now be approved by the state Assembly.
“We will not sit on the sidelines while big tobacco markets to our kids and gets another generation of young people hooked on a product that will ultimately kill them,” Senator Ed Hernandez, a Democrat and the bill’s author, said.
“Tobacco companies know that people are more likely to become addicted to smoking if they start at a young age,” Hernandez added in a statement.
The Institute of Medicine, the health arm of the National Academy of Sciences, has said that increasing the smoking age to 21 would result in more than 200,000 fewer premature deaths nationally for those born between 2000 and 2019.
The Cigar Association of America opposed the bill, contending that 18-year-olds can serve in the military, vote and sign contracts and should thus enjoy the right to smoke, according to the Los Angeles Times.
David Sutton, a spokesman for Altria Group Inc, the parent of Philip Morris USA, said in an emailed statement that Altria believed states should defer to the federal government and “allow FDA and Congress the opportunity to think through this issue further before enacting different minimum age laws.”
Representatives for R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, a unit of Reynolds American Inc, did not return calls seeking comment.
Hawaii lawmakers approved a measure in April to raise the smoking age to 21, and that is awaiting the state governor’s signature. Democratic Governor David Ige has not indicated whether he will sign the measure, and has until June 29 to decide whether to veto it, a spokeswoman for his office said.
Since 2013, New York City has required tobacco purchasers to be 21 or older, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. No state has a smoking age that high, but Alabama, Alaska, Utah and New Jersey set it at 19.
(Reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis and Cynthia Johnston; Editing by Sandra Maler)
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/06/02/us-usa-smoking-california-idUSKBN0OI2EI20150602