Hawaii aims to stamp out cigarettes
Bipartisan bill would raise minimum age until it’s banned altogether
Lawmakers in Hawaii have proposed legislation that would begin phasing out cigarettes in the state, banning them altogether within the next several years.
At least, for people younger than 100.
The bipartisan bill, HB1509, aims to raise the legal minimum age to use cigarettes to exclude everyone but centenarians by 2024 to “keep people healthy and alive in the Aloha State,” state Rep. Cynthia Thielen, one of the sponsors of the bill, said Tuesday afternoon.
“I know it may be a hard road,” Thielen added, “but you have to take that first, strong step — and that’s what we’re doing.”
In recent years, Hawaii has been at the forefront of the tobacco debate, increasing taxes and regulations and becoming the first state in the U.S. to ban smoking for people younger than 21.
But Thielen said previous legislation has simply “poked at different portions of the problem.”
The proposed bill, introduced late last month, “hits at the centre of it and prohibits smoking in our state,” she said.
According to HB1509, cigarettes are “considered the deadliest artifact in human history,” causing “more preventable disease, death, and disability than any other health issue” in the state.
The bill aims to raise the legal minimum age to purchase or possess cigarettes to 30 by next year; 40 by 2021; 50 by 2022; 60 by 2023 and 100 by 2024. The timetable would allow the state to plan for a loss in cigarette-tax revenue, according to reports. The bill does not apply to cigars, chewing tobacco or e-cigarettes.
State Rep. Richard Creagan, the bill’s co-sponsor, said he does not think the state is overreaching. “Basically, we essentially have a group who are heavily addicted — in my view, enslaved by a ridiculously bad industry — which has enslaved them by designing a cigarette that is highly addictive, knowing that it is highly lethal. And, it is,” he told the outlet.
Creagan, a physician, added that the state “is obliged to protect the public’s health.”
“This is more lethal, more dangerous than any prescription drug, and it is more addicting,” Creagan said, referring to cigarettes. “We, as legislators, have a duty to do things to save people’s lives.”