Tobacco 21
Dear Editor: As a country and as a community, we’ve made a lot of progress in preventing tobacco related problems. We still have a long ways to go and the Centers for Disease Control estimates that 1 in 13 kids alive today will die prematurely because of tobacco use/exposure. That’s 5.6 million kids.
One of the most effective tools for addressing this health issue is raising the minimum legal sales age (MLSA) for the purchase of tobacco products to 21 years old. Right now, over 62 million people live in cities, counties, and states where you have to be 21 to buy tobacco. These communities are enjoying better health outcomes, especially for young people. For example, in 2004 the health board in Needham, Mass., passed a tobacco 21 ordinance. A few years after this policy change Needham was included in a study that found a 50 percent drop in current smoking rates among the town’s high school-aged students, as well as a massive 65 percent drop in frequent use among their teens. Other Massachusetts suburbs in the study that didn’t adopt a tobacco 21 policy experienced modest reductions in tobacco use, but Needham dropped by three times the rate of their neighbors.
The reason tobacco 21 policies work is because 18-20 year olds purchase only 2 percent of cigarettes sold, but are 90 percent of the supply of addictive tobacco to younger kids. High school students just don’t know as many people over 21, and those who are over 21 are much less willing to buy teenagers cigarettes every day. This is the lever by which tobacco 21 policies work. By eliminating less than 2 percent of sales to customers under 21 (which is nowhere near enough to significantly impact a local business) almost 90 percent of youth-initiation can be eliminated. Tobacco 21 policies work and can help with the $170 billion in annual healthcare expenditures caused by tobacco use.
In 2009, Congress mandated a study to be done by the Institute of Medicine on the effects of raising the MLSA to 21. Using mathematical modeling with extremely conservative estimates, the 360-page document reported that raising the sales age to 21 would result in a 25 percent drop in youth initiation, a 12 percent drop in overall smoking rates, and 4.2 million years of lives saved for this generation of kids. That’s huge and it makes sense especially when you consider how common and sensible the 21-year-old threshold is.
In order to buy alcohol, marijuana or handguns, a person needs to be 21. That’s also the minimum age for things like renting a car, getting a hotel room or adopting a child. Twenty-one is the threshold for so many potentially problematic purchases, yet with tobacco, which always leads to problems, you only have to be 19 years old in Sitka to buy. Given the facts that nicotine is a highly addictive drug and the rational part of a teen’s brain isn’t fully developed until he or she is 25 years old, as well as the fact that tobacco kills about half a million Americans per year, doesn’t it make sense that the appropriate age to buy tobacco would also be at least 21?
The American Heart Association, the American Lung Association, the Institute of Medicine, and the American Academy of Family Physicians have all endorsed raising the minimum legal tobacco sales age to 21 years old. It seems like every week another community follows this sensible advice and protects their teens by adopting a tobacco 21 ordinance.
No community in Alaska has adopted this public health policy and we still sell this deadly tobacco to 19- and 20- year-olds here. But, perhaps it’s Sitka’s turn to once again be a leader in our state by passing a tobacco 21 policy. We are certain that our kids deserve it, and if we make this choice we’ll have a healthier town.
Doug Osborne, Colleen Dahlquist, Loyd Platson, Amber Hulon,
Melissa Viator, Vicki D’Amico, Amanda Roberts, Anthony Treas, Jennifer McNichol M.D.
