U.S. states debate raising legal smoking age

Many state legislators and city councils have considered raising the legal age to buy and consume tobacco this year, which in most of the cases it means raising the age to 19 or 21.

After New York City raised the legal smoking age to 21, and a study by the Institute of Medicine concluded that having a 21 year old legal minimum would reduce the consumption of tobacco among underage youth, many states have taken up the debate this year, reports CSP Net.

This summer Hawaii became the first state to pass a bill raising the legal smoking age to 21, which will be effective from 2016. Another four states currently have 19 as the legal smoking age: Alaska, Alabama, New Jersey, and Utah.

According a CSP article by Thomas A. Briant, Executive Director of the National Association of Tobacco Outlets, 11 states have debated smoking bills this year. Bills have been defeated in Iowa and Texas (both bills proposed raising the legal age to 19) and Oregon, Rhode Island, Utah, Vermont and Washington (all of which considered bills to set the minimum age at 21).

Only California, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York still have active legislative processes on raising the legal smoking age, all of these to 21.