New York City Proposes Raising Minimum Age To Buy Cigarettes To 21

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Young adults in New York would no longer be able to buy cigarettes under a proposal issued today by the city’s health commissioner and city council speaker. Dr. Thomas Farley and Christine Quinn announced the proposal, which would raise the age limit to purchase tobacco products from 18 to 21, giving New York the highest smoking age in the country among major cities. The change is supported by Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who has ushered many anti-smoking efforts into the city in the past decade, including bans in restaurants and bars, which recently expanded to parks, beaches, plazas and other public places.

Just last month, Bloomberg proposed legislation that would place a price floor of $10.50 on packs of cigarettes, and require New York retailers to keep tobacco products hidden out of customer sight, an effort that would not only shield children from tobacco marketing but deter adults from buying cigarettes on impulse. Another Bloomberg proposal, requiring graphic anti-smoking advertisements where cigarettes are sold, was recently defeated in court.

While the proposal would make the age to buy cigarettes the same as it is to buy alcohol, it is not yet clear if it would also make it illegal for those younger than 21 to merely possess cigarettes. The national smoking age is 18, but four states—Alabama, Alaska, New Jersey and Utah—as well as Nassau and Suffolk counties on Long Island, require buyers to be 19 in order to purchase tobacco. Boston suburb Needham, Mass. has raised its smoking age to 21.

Ironically, Bloomberg—who has spent more than $600 million of his own money on anti-smoking efforts worldwide—shot down a city council proposal to increase New York’s smoking age back in 2006, astonishing council members at the time. At the time, Bloomberg said similar restrictions in Nassau and Suffolk counties were ineffective. His health advisors also expressed concern for 18-, 19- and 20-year-olds who were already addicted and would no longer be able to legally get their nic fixes. And assistant health commissioner for tobacco control Sarah Perl said increasing the minimum age would simply increase cigarettes’ appeal to young people, marking them as a “forbidden fruit.

Sending the message that ‘smoking is an adult choice’ may paradoxically play into the hands of the tobacco industry and attract more children to tobacco,” Perl said in 2006.

Bloomberg told the council at the time that the best way to reduce smoking rates among young people was to raise cigarette taxes.

So why the change of heart, Bloomberg? According to the New York Daily News, youth smoking rates are no longer declining.

We’ve cut youth smoking in half, but recently the decline has plateaued,” Bloomberg spokesman Marc LaVorgna said. “You may have seen we recently proposed some other measures we had not supported before – requiring stores to remove cigarettes from public view and setting a minimum price – try to address this. So we revisited this proposal and found new data from the UK that shows it can have an impact.”

And it’s true, there is evidence that supports the new measure. Back in 2011, CNN published a report from Temple University psychology professor Laurence Steinberg in which Steinberg stated overall declines in teen smoking rates have stalled, but rates among younger teens may be rising. How is this possible? Well, there’s a lot of 18-year-olds in high school. And they buy cigarettes for their friends. In fact, according to Steinberg, more than 40 percent of high school students have tried smoking. Upping the smoking age to 21 will remove the buyers from the schools, for the most part.

Getting cigarettes out of high schools has huge ramifications, as well. According to Steinberg, smoking during early and mid-adolescence is far more likely to lead to addiction than the same amount of smoking after the age of 21. Why? “Because the brain systems that are active when we experience pleasure are highly malleable during adolescence, and far more easily modified—sometimes permanently—by exposure to all sorts of drugs.

After 21, the same brain systems are much harder to change, which is good news for those who haven’t tried smoking, drinking, or illicit drugs, but bad news for those who by that age are already hooked.

Steinberg says that many adolescents think they can smoke occasionally and not become addicted—even though more than one-third of those who start smoking as teenagers become daily smokers by the time they’re 18. And warning teenagers about the addictive qualities of cigarettes is only mildly affective, because at least one study shows that adolescents perceive something described as addictive as pleasurable.

Instead, Steinberg suggests the best strategy is to limit teens’ access to cigarettes by raising the minimum age to purchase tobacco to 21—exactly what New York hopes to do.

Restricting sales of cigarettes to individuals 21 and older will both limit their legal sale to individuals who are less likely to become addicted, and will keep more cigarettes out of the hands of younger individuals who are far more vulnerable,” Steinberg wrote. “According to one estimate, raising the purchase age to 21 would cut the proportion of high school students who smoke to less than 10 percent within seven years.