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In Our View: Raise Legal Smoking Age

Cigarette usage drops; Legislature should limit sales to those 21 and older

The Columbian
Published: June 1, 2016, 6:03am

When the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently revealed that fewer Americans are smoking cigarettes, the news could only be viewed as a positive.

It’s no secret that cigarette use causes myriad health problems for both smokers and bystanders, and that smoking increases health costs that are borne by all. In the past, medical officials have quantified that the risk of coronary disease and stroke are two to four times higher for smokers than for nonsmokers, and that the risk of bronchitis and emphysema are 10 times higher for smokers.

The new data showing that the percentage of adults who smoke fell to 15 percent in 2015 is a good sign for the nation’s health. And it also should serve as a notice for lawmakers in Washington to raise the legal smoking age from 18 to 21. If a reduction in smoking is unequivocally positive for public health, shouldn’t the Legislature take reasonable steps to further reduce the number of smokers?

That long has been the opinion of state Attorney General Bob Ferguson, who has pushed lawmakers to adopt such a change. “This is only going to go in one direction,” Ferguson told The Columbian’s editorial board earlier this year. “More and more states are going to move to 21. We can either be at the front of that or the back end. It’s up to the Legislature, but I think that movement is happening.”

Few public health efforts have been as successful as the fight against smoking. In 1964, the U.S. surgeon general issued a damning report about the health impact of cigarettes, eventually leading to the now ubiquitous warning label and a limit on cigarette advertising. Since then, the rate of smoking has declined, and The Washington Post reports that the average American adult now smokes 1,300 cigarettes a year, compared with 4,200 in 1963. “The dip has coincided with steep declines in the rate of lung cancer, the death rate associated with cardiovascular disease (it peaked in 1968) and a number of other negative health outcomes,” Roberto Ferdman wrote for the Post.

Giving those facts, it makes sense for Washington to raise the legal age for tobacco purchases to match the age for alcohol and marijuana. “If you raise the smoking age, fewer teenagers will be buying cigarettes, (which is a) good thing,” Ferguson said.

Perhaps the best argument comes from the tobacco industry itself. In a confidential memo in 1986, an executive for Philip Morris wrote, “Raising the legal minimum age for cigarette purchase to 21 could gut our key young-adult market (17-20).” And, as Micah Berman, a professor of public health at The Ohio State University, wrote in 2013: “We know that almost no one starts using tobacco after age 21. We know, too, that exposure to nicotine earlier in life — while the brain is still developing — results in stronger levels of addiction and more difficulty quitting.”

The argument against raising the age for tobacco often rests upon the fact that if an 18-year-old can go to war for his or her country, he or she should be able to smoke a cigarette. But society routinely sets age limits on activities, be it drinking alcohol or driving a car or getting married. Strong public policy can have a strong public impact, and the arguments in favor of legal tobacco use at age 18 are outweighed by the costs involved.

Fewer and fewer Americans are smoking cigarettes. That is a good thing. Now, Washington should take steps to see that fewer and fewer start smoking in the first place.

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