Advocates fear age-21 smoking law won’t work

Legislators and public-health officials are celebrating a recent rise in Ohio’s smoking age as a triumph in the battle against teenage smoking.

Anti-smoking advocates, on the other hand, worry that the new age limit will discourage cities and towns from adopting the strict regulatory approach that they argue is more effective in the fight against teen tobacco use.

This state’s two-year budget, which Gov. Mike DeWine signed into law this month, makes buying tobacco products a misdemeanor for anyone younger than 21. Cashiers who sell tobacco to underage customers also can be charged with a misdemeanor. The provision was included with an eye toward e-cigarette use, which has spiked among young people in recent years.

Columbus raised its smoking age to 21 two years ago, and the city’s Health Department also collects fees from tobacco sellers and uses the revenue to pay 19- and 20-year-old “secret shoppers” who are sent into stores to see whether retailers refuse to sell to underage customers.

Stores are fined $500 the first time they fail a compliance check, and $1,000 for each subsequent violation. Retailers are not allowed to renew their licenses if they have unpaid fines.

Secret shoppers have tried to buy tobacco products at 1,981 retailers in the past two years, and stores have sold to them 675 times, health department records show.

Advocates worry that police, with bigger problems to handle than smoking among youths, will leave age limits on tobacco purchases unenforced.

Jeff Stephens, government relations director in Ohio for the American Cancer Society’s Cancer Action Network, approved of the state raising its tobacco age, but he said the risk of a retailer losing its license is the best way to keep stores from selling to young people.

There is research to support both approaches.

Yale University health policy professor Abigail Friedman conducted research that found underage smokers often acquire tobacco and vaping products from adult friends.

Friendman described a “social multiplier effect” of “tobacco 21” laws. “If a policy is passed, and it affects how you behave, the effect is bigger if it also changes the way your friends behave,” she said.

Other studies came to similar conclusions, said Wayne State University School of Medicine professor Daniel Ouellette, who has reviewed research on teen smoking. That suggests that raising the age limit is a good way to deter smoking by minors, he said.

Although a 17-year-old is likely to know an 18-, 19- or 20-year-old, they are less likely to know anyone older, said Amy Acton, director of the Ohio Department of Public Health. “We’re disrupting those social networks. That’s why (raising the smoking age) has been so successful.”

State Sen. Stephanie Kunze, R-Hilliard, said the state budget creates consistency across Ohio.

“Lots of the suburbs have started to prohibit the sale of tobacco to anyone under 21,” Kunze said. “This levels the playing field for all municipalities.”

However, a 2018 University of Southern California study found that strictly regulating retailers is the most effective way to reduce tobacco use. The study involved 14 Southern California cities with various levels of enforcement, and it found that cities that didn’t license retailers or had weak enforcement had the highest smoking rates.

Ohio’s new budget includes about $12 million for compliance checks on tobacco sellers, which is on par with previous years, said John Fortney, a spokesman for Ohio Senate Republicans.

But Rob Crane, a professor of family medicine at Ohio State University and the president of Tobacco 21, said he thinks the budget fell short by making police responsible for enforcement. Tobacco 21 lobbies cities to make smoking a public-health issue rather than a criminal issue.

“Health departments are a logical, much less expensive, much more effective choice,” Crane said.

Crane considers the state budget a giveaway to retailers and tobacco companies, who lobbied in favor of raising the smoking age. The change will discourage Ohio cities from adopting Columbus’ approach, he said.

Dayton and Portsmouth are among the cities considering tobacco rules, but officials in both cities said that those efforts are on hold because of the state budget.