Cigarette law blows smoke
The Massachusetts House of Representatives voted 146-4 to raise the minimum age for purchasing cigarettes from 18 to 21. The measure is meant to prevent teens from getting hooked on smoking.
Many cities and towns already have such policies in place, but in typical Beacon Hill fashion, blanket legislation is foisted upon everybody, regardless of the disparate realities on the ground.
Democratic Rep. Claire Hogan of Stow told The Associated Press that “smoking simply is killing our kids. If young people start smoking before 21, they often become smokers for life.”
In fact, smoking is not killing our kids.
The deleterious effects of smoking take their toll much later in life. Drugs are killing our kids. According to the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, “In 2015, 4,235 youth aged 15 to 24 died from a drug related overdose; over half of these were attributable to opioids. The health consequences of opioid misuse affect a much larger number of people. For example, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that for every young adult overdose death, there are 119 emergency room visits and 22 treatment admissions.”
Lawmakers are sending mixed signals: on one hand looking to snuff out smoking by restricting the availability and affordability of tobacco products in the name of good health, and on the other, embarking on a massive initiative to facilitate the distribution of marijuana throughout the Bay State (marijuana legalization was opposed by many Massachusetts politicians including Gov. Charlie Baker, Speaker Bob DeLeo and Boston Mayor Marty Walsh).
According to the CDC, “People who are addicted to marijuana are three times more likely to become addicted to heroin.”
Another provision of the bill moved by lawmakers includes a prohibition on the sale of tobacco products by pharmacies or stores within health care facilities. Anti-tobacco activists have suggested that selling cigarettes in drug stores legitimizes smoking. Others suggest that selling tobacco products next to smoking-cessation products sends mixed messages.
Private retail establishments have every right to send mixed messages and the practice is commonplace. Auto dealerships sell hybrids and gas guzzlers, restaurants sell salads and sundaes, and drug stores sell potato chips and weightloss medicine. In fact, there are easily thousands of causes of/preventions for death pairings that can be made in most big pharmacies.
No one is suggesting that cigarette smoking is healthy. It is not. It is an ugly habit that carries an ugly odor (though not as bad as marijuana). Most of us have had friends or acquaintances succumb to smokingrelated illnesses and it is not a pleasant way to die.
We must be wary, though, as laws raising the smoking age to 21 will very possibly do nothing to ameliorate the problem. According to the Surgeon General, “Nearly 9 out of 10 smokers started smoking by age 18,” and most teenagers first experiment with cigarettes years earlier. So the current age restriction is already ineffective.
A good marker to go by is underage drinking. Alcohol is not legal for purchase by anyone under 21, yet “people aged 12 to 20 years drink 11 percent of all alcohol consumed in the United States,” according to the CDC.
Young people are going to get their hands on tobacco products one way or another, just as they do with alcohol and marijuana. Moving the legal cigarette purchasing age to 21 may or may not prevent young people from smoking, but it is guaranteed to hurt small businesses, reduce tax revenues and waste police resources, at the very least.
Before lawmakers moralize on the issue, we should remember that hundreds of millions of dollars of cigarette tax revenues have made their way into the general fund over the past few years. Our state government, like drug stores as we’re told, is sending “mixed messages.”