Massachusetts Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Edward Markey announced their support Wednesday for a proposal that would raise the national legal tobacco smoking age by three years, to 21.
The Tobacco to 21 Act already has the support from 10 senators who believe it will save lives and benefit the health of Americans, according to a Wednesday press release from Markey’s office.
“Raising the minimum age for tobacco sales to 21 will help protect the generations of the 21st century and prevent millions from suffering the terrible health consequences of tobacco-related disease, including death,” Markey said in the release.
Warren echoed Markey and other senators supporting the bill.
“Stopping tobacco sales to people under 21 reduces smoking by kids and teens, saves lives, and leads to healthier communities,” Warren said in a Wednesday release from her office. “Cities and towns in Massachusetts have led the nation in raising the smoking age. Now it’s time to put this policy in place all across the country.”
The act seeks to decrease premature deaths by curbing smoking among young people. According to the Institute of Medicine, enacting the Tobacco 21 Act would “result in 223,000 fewer premature deaths, 50,000 fewer deaths from lung cancer, and 4.2 million fewer years of life lost for those born between 2000 and 2019,” the bill stated.
Other support for the bill comes from senators in Hawaii, California, Illinois, Ohio, Connecticut and Rhode Island.
Julie Ann Starr, a professor at Boston University’s Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, said the bill has several preventative benefits, including reducing the number of people diagnosed with lung cancer, since the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently stated that all types of lung carcinoma can be associated with smoking.
“It’s not just lung cancer, it’s chronic destructive pulmonary disease, and what people have to live with in their 50s, 60s and 70s, that they never imagined could happen to them when they started smoking at 16,” Starr said.
Michael Siegel, a professor of community health sciences in the School of Public Health, also supports the Tobacco to 21 Act. He explained that although people begin smoking at every age, those who begin at age 21 or older are more likely to be social smokers rather than lifelong addicts.
“This is not a miracle cure where we’re going to raise the age to 21 and youth will completely stop smoking,” Siegel said. “What research shows is that when you do raise the age, especially a substantial jump like this one, it does become substantially easier to enforce these purchase laws and it does have a significant effect.”
Siegel added that any change can have a meaningful effect on public health.
“Because smoking is so harmful and because it essentially kills half the people that use it long term, the effect on public health, even a small reduction, is substantial,” Siegel said.
Although one of the major goals of the bill is to positively influence the choices of young people, some BU students and Boston residents were somewhat skeptical about how effective the act would be.
Lindsy Hively, 42, of Back Bay, said while it would be a good measure, enforcing such a law might be difficult.
“The message is right, but my support depends on how much money would go into enforcing it. It may be a little counterintuitive,” she said. “I think it would be hard to enforce and institute.”
Raina Morris, 18, of Fenway, agreed the act might not be the most efficient way to change smoking habits.
“It’ll just criminalize something that’s super trivial and create a whole issue of underage people who are already addicted having to use illegal methods to get cigarettes,” she said. “I feel like taxing them more would be more effective.”
Nicole McCormick, a graduate student in the College of Communication , said she would support the bill, but was also unsure of its effectiveness.
“I would support it but I don’t know how much change it would actually cause,” she said. “It’s kind of like the legal drinking age is 21 but you know, if you’re in college and you’re 18, it’s pretty easy to find. Their efforts might be better suited by pursuing this in other ways.”
Will Denslow, however, a junior in the Questrom School of Business, said the bill, if passed, would serve its purpose.
“We’re already making changes to make [BU] a smoke-free campus, which a lot of our peer schools have already done, so overall it would be a good thing and less people would be smoking” he said. “Any kind of law that’s trying to demote smoking is a good thing as a whole.”
