Democratic State Senator Ed Hernandez of West Covina, who chairs the chamber’s health committee, introduced a bill to legislation on Thursday that would bump up the legal smoking age from 18 to 21 in California.
Of course The American Cancer Society is on board, as well as the American Lung Association, but the tobacco industry would be losing a key demographic to fuel profits. For some, money is clearly more important than saving lives as long as you don’t have blood on your hands.
“Tobacco companies know that people are more likely to become addicted to smoking if they start at a young age,” Hernandez said in a statement. “We can no longer afford to sit on the sidelines while Big Tobacco markets to our kids and gets another generation of young people hooked on a product that will ultimately kill them.”
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According to the American Lung Association:
Among adults who smoke, 68 percent began smoking regularly at age 18 or younger, and 85 percent started when they were 21 or younger. The average age of daily smoking initiation for new smokers in 2008 was 20.1 years among those 12-49 years old.
People who begin smoking at an early age are more likely to develop a severe addiction to nicotine than those who start at a later age. Of adolescents who have smoked at least 100 cigarettes in their lifetime, most of them report that they would like to quit, but are not able to do so.
Of course, not everybody agrees with this plan of action, either for financial reasons or personal freedom reasons. Like Robert Best, western regional representative of The Smoker’s Club, a smokers’ rights group. A real class act.
“It’s funny that the politicians in Sacramento have nothing better to do with their time than continually attack smokers as a minority,” said Best, a Ventura resident told LA Times. “When you are 18 you are an adult and you get to do what you want.”
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He also said that adding a new law wouldn’t change anything about how many young people smoke before 21, and in fact, he believes the drinking age should be pushed down to 18.
But some research from Dr. Sajjad Ahmad in 2004, who was working at the Department of Planning, Policy and Design, University of California, Irvine at the time, indicates that a legal change would definitely be a deterrent for some young people from getting “initiated” as smokers. This graph shows the changes he found.
Cigarette smoking is the leading cause of preventable death in the United States. Approximately 480,000 deaths annually, or one in every five deaths overall, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And the debate is still up for states about how to include e-cigarettes into the legal mix.
[Photo from Flickr user Corrie…]
