Growing Number of Cities Increase Legal Age for Buying Cigarettes to 21

An increasing number of cities are raising the legal age to purchase cigarettes and other tobacco products from 18 to 21, The Wall Street Journal reports.

The City Council in Evanston, Illinois, home to Northwestern University, raised the age to purchase tobacco on Monday. The Board of Health in Columbia, Missouri, home to the University of Missouri, is expected to do the same next month.

New York City passed a law raising the minimum age to buy tobacco from 18 to 21 last year. The law took effect in May. Thirty communities in Massachusetts have passed on enacted similar regulations in the past year. New Jersey’s Senate approved a measure to raise the purchasing age to 21 earlier this year; the state House is scheduled to vote on it in 2015. Colorado’s legislature is expected to vote on increasing the purchasing age next year, after defeating a similar proposal this year.

According to the 2012 Surgeon General’s Report, almost 90 percent of smokers begin by age 18. About two-thirds of smokers start smoking daily before 18. It appears to take less nicotine for teenagers to become addicted, compared with adults.

The Food and Drug Administration is expecting a report from the Institute of Medicine that will predict the likely public health outcomes of raising the minimum age for purchase of tobacco products to 21 years or 25 years.

The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids is advocating for states to increase the minimum age for purchasing tobacco. “Increasing the tobacco sale age to 21 will help counter the efforts of the tobacco companies to target young people at a critical time when many move from experimenting with tobacco to regular smoking,” the group says on its website.