Ban smoking before age 21

If a person makes it to age 21 without becoming a regular smoker, odds are he or she never will succumb to the expensive, addictive and deadly habit. In a state where 1,200 people a year die from tobacco use or exposure, preventing young people from smoking is a matter of public health — and an urgent matter at that.

Each year in Hawaii, 5,600 kids pick up a cigarette for the first time, and 1,400 of them become regular smokers — even if they intend to quit. That fits with the U.S. Surgeon General’s report that 95 percent of all adult smokers started using tobacco before they turned 21, and highlights the importance of making it harder for young people to purchase tobacco products in the first place.

The issue is especially important on Oahu, where the smoking rate has tripled among young people and continues to climb, according to a study conducted for the Coalition for a Tobacco-Free Hawaii.

The state Legislature missed a real opportunity when it failed to approve a bill last session that would have raised the legal age for using tobacco from 18 to 21. Counties are acting on their own, though, and while this island-by-island approach is less preferable than a statewide law, it is better than nothing at all.

Hawaii County led the way with a law that took effect July 1, and now the Honolulu City Council is rightly considering a similar measure. Bill 51, introduced by Council Chairman Ernie Martin and Councilman Stanley Chang, would prohibit the sale, gift or other distribution of all forms of tobacco and electronic smoking devices to anyone under 21. Offenders would be fined under the measure, which would take effect on Jan. 1, 2015, if approved.

The Council and mayor should approve this measure, which would deter young people from a deadly habit, at just the impressionable age that glitzy advertising goads them to take it up. Adults 18-20 are frequently the source of tobacco for even younger smokers, studies show. Raising the buying age to 21 therefore stems the flow of tobacco to both young adults and adolescents, who, once puffing along, are more likely to become heavy, lifelong smokers who die from tobacco use.

Consider the experience of Needham, Mass., a Boston suburb that in 2005 passed a law prohibiting anyone under age 21 from buying tobacco products. Since that time, the smoking rate among adults in the city has fallen so much that it stands 56 percent lower than the state’s smoking rate overall. The health benefits in Needham are measurable, too: Fewer hospitalizations due to lung cancer and lower mortality rates, according to the Massachusetts Department of Public Health.

Hawaii, which counts about $330 million in health-care costs each year related to tobacco use, is sure to see similar benefits if populous Oahu follows the good example set by Hawaii County.

Oahu’s proposal, like Hawaii County’s law, also rightly covers electronic smoking devices, which use nicotine derived from tobacco and can be used to inhale THC, the psychoactive active ingredient in marijuana, without emitting the tell-tale odor associated with smoking that drug.

The most immediate impact of Bill 51’s passage would be to make it harder for young people to obtain cigarettes and other forms of tobacco, fostering health benefits that last a lifetime. Another advantage is that it would raise the bar for tobacco consumption amid a national movement to legalize the recreational use of marijuana. Age consistency would be wise, easing enforcement for whatever marijuana laws emerge in the future; Colorado and Washington, for example, set the marijuana-smoking age at 21 and Colorado has considered raising its tobacco-smoking age from 18 to match.

That’s looking ahead, though. The main benefits of Bill 51 are right now, saving young adults from a lifetime of misery. The most persuasive argument for these types of laws come from the tobacco industry itself, as in a 1982 internal R.J. Reynolds memo: "If a man has never smoked by age 18, the odds are three-to-one he never will. By age 24, the odds are twenty-to-one."

Laws designed to keep young adults from buying tobacco are nothing less than an investment in our future.