Tobacco age hike closer to approval

Law would prohibit sales to people younger than 21

A proposal to increase the minimum age for tobacco purchases in Ulster County from 18 to 21 has moved a step closer to reality with the county Legislature’s Public Health and Social Services Committee voting unanimously in favor of the measure.

The proposal, which would make it illegal to sell cigarettes and other tobacco products to anyone under the age of 21, will go to the Legislature’s Laws and Rules Committee on Monday. If approved there, the measure will go to the full Legislature on Tuesday.

The Public Health and Social Services Commit-

tee acted last week.

In April, more than a dozen anti-smoking advocates and others called on Ulster County lawmakers to raise the minimum purchase age, saying the move would help reduce the possibility that today’s youths will become tomorrow’s adult smokers.

The proposed local law has drawn opposition from convenience store owners, who say it would reduce the number of cigarettes they could legally sell. They also have questioned whether it would keep kids from smoking.

This is the second time in as many years Ulster County legislators have been called on to raise the minimum age for tobacco purchases.

Ulster County Executive Michael Hein called on lawmakers in 2017 and again this year to adopt the law, saying the move would reduce the number of tobacco-related deaths and move Ulster closer to becoming a healthier county.

In 2017, county lawmakers voted to ban the use of e-cigarettes anywhere on county property where the use of other tobacco products is banned, but it declined to advance a law to raise the minimum purchase age.

Also that year, then-Legislator TJ Briggs, D-Ellenville, introduced a resolution that would have made it illegal for people under the age of 18 to possess cigarettes. He withdrew the proposal, however, when it became clear it would not pass.

In Dutchess County, the Legislature’s Government Services Committee on April 5 defeated a proposed local law that would have raised the minimum age to purchase tobacco products in that county to 21.

According to the American Lung Association, a 2015 report from the National Academy of Medicine found that raising the minimum age of sale for tobacco products to at least 21 years old would reduce smoking by 25 percent among 15- to 17-yearolds and by 15 percent among people ages 18 to 20.