Readers Split On Best Age For Legal Tobacco Sales
The Sunday Poll got more votes than usual, but the voting pattern stayed consistent for the 12 hours the poll was open. This indicates to me the subject was controversial & interesting — but the poll was not the target of a campaign to influence the final outcome. Here are the results:
Q: What’s the right age for legal tobacco sales?
- 12: 1 [1.69%]
- 15: 2 [3.39%]
- 18: 25 [42.37%]
- 21: 25 [42.37%]
- 24: 0 [0%]
- Ban cigarettes: 6 [10.17%]
- Unsure/No Answer: 0 [0%]
Ten percent were unrealistic — picking the option to ban legal sales. I abhor tobacco, but a ban on sales isn’t a good idea. So why this topic?
A measure to raise the age to buy tobacco from 18 to 21 in Illinois got initial approval Tuesday, with the lawmaker behind the proposal telling colleagues he wants to make it harder for youth to pick up a lifelong habit.
“Smoking will kill you and before it kills you it will harm your lungs, your heart and other various organs,” said Chicago Democratic Sen. John Mulroe, the bill sponsor, before reading the surgeon general’s warning on a box of cigarettes during a committee hearing.
The bill comes as California Gov. Jerry Brown considers whether to sign legislation that would raise the tobacco-buying age to 21 in his state. Last year, Hawaii became the first state in the country to do so.
The Senate advanced Mulroe’s bill to the full chamber on a 6-3 vote. (Post-Dispatch)
I’ll be watching to see if SB3011 passes the Illinois General Assembly. We know that many kids start smoking well before their 18th birthday, would increasing the legal age to 21 make any difference? I can’t speak to that, but the Tobacco 21 movement thinks it can help reduce teens from smoking:
After a decade of consistent decreases in tobacco use by teenagers, The National Youth Tobacco Survey reports that in 2014 overall use of tobacco among youth rose, exposing dangerous new trends. Clever marketing by the tobacco industry, pushing small cigars, hookahs, e-cigarettes, and flavored vaping products, has put millions of young people at risk of lifelong lethal nicotine addiction.
There is no one magic bullet for preventing youth tobacco use. Increased taxes, counter-marketing and school programs all play a role. However, funding has shriveled and tax increases face mounting opposition causing fewer and fewer to be enacted. There is now growing interest in another tool: access restriction to age 21.
Last month the California legislature voted to raise the age to 21, Gov Brown hasn’t yet signed the measure.
— Steve Patterson