Hawaii ponders raising the legal age for cigarettes to 100

Hawaii might once again be at the world’s forefront when it comes to setting smoking policy.

The first U.S. state to raise the minimum age for purchasing tobacco products to 21 is now considering a measure that would effectively forbid cigarettes in five years. Except for centenarians. State Rep. Richard Creagan, a medical doctor, has sponsored legislation that aims to phase in a ban, raising the age requirement to 30 in 2020, 40 in 2021, 50 in 2022 and 100 in 2024. The bill, expected to be debated in committee this week, would exempt electronic cigarettes, cigars and smokeless tobacco.

“In my view, you are taking people who are enslaved from a horrific addiction and freeing people from horrific enslavement,” Creagan told the Hawaii TribuneHerald. “We, as legislators, have a duty to do things to save people’s lives. If we don’t ban cigarettes, we are killing people.”

Should the measure become law, it could mark the first step toward a more comprehensive prohibition down the road. Five other states — California, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Oregon and Maine — followed Hawaii’s lead in raising the legal smoking age to 21, implemented in 2016.

Cigarette-smoking rates have been tumbling across the U.S. for years. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the figure sank from 20.9 per cent of American adults in 2005 to 15.5 per cent in 2016, the latest year for which national figures are available. For those younger than 18, the rate is below seven per cent.

“Because smoking rates are getting so low, we can actually start thinking about what I call end-game strategy, meaning we’re at the point where we can feasibly just make smoking history,” said Michael Siegel, a professor at Boston University’s School of Public Health. “We couldn’t even talk about it when there was a large percentage of people smoking because there were too many people affected.”

Siegel said the five-year target for banishing cigarettes is likely optimistic. Creagan’s ambitious bill might get watered down in the legislature, and it will likely face opposition from the tobacco industry.