The Issue: Whether raising the legal age to purchase cigarettes from 18 to 21 would be a wise policy.
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Mayor Bloomberg’s proposal to prohibit selling tobacco to anyone under 21 is totally unnecessary (“Bloomberg’s Oral Fixation,” Editorial, April 28).
The teenage smoking rate is at a 30-year low. Teenage marijuana use is more prevalent now than it’s ever been.
Bloomberg despises cigarette smokers and is intoxicated by his own power. He uses public policy not to fulfill a public need but to satisfy a personal compulsion.Stephen Helfer
Cambridge, Mass.
At 18, you are old enough to vote, be a parent, pay taxes, own a car, take out a bank loan, serve in the military and die for your country — but not to consume cigarettes?
This makes no sense. The underground economy will make even more money selling tobacco products to those under 21.
New York City and state continue to lose tens of millions of dollars in uncollected tax revenues.
Why sell hard drugs when you can sell cigarettes with no penalties?
This proposal is the latest in a steady stream of insane and expensive legislation coming out of Washington, Albany and City Hall that is infringing on both our economic and civil liberties.
Larry Penner
Great Neck
This proposal is sound public policy, grounded in medical research on the disproportionate effects of smoking on the teen brain, and it recognizes the significant reductions in teen smoking projected to result from increasing the age limits on tobacco sales.
Addiction is a complex brain disease that in 9 out of 10 cases originates in adolescence. Research shows that the human brain is still developing through the mid-20s, making young people especially vulnerable to the effects of tobacco and other addictive substances.
The earlier tobacco use starts, the greater the chances of other drug use.
Smoking initiation is a function of a complex set of environmental, psychological and genetic factors, including access to cigarettes and perceptions of harm associated with their use.
No one prevention approach is sufficient; raising the age of legal sale is one important and promising component of a larger city strategy.
Susan Foster
Vice President/Director
Division of Policy
Research and Analysis,
The National Center
on Addiction
and Substance Abuse
Columbia University
Manhattan
Christine Quinn may not be wrong to support a ban on under-21 cigarette sales, but how can one do that when an 18-year-old can die in the service of his nation and a little girl walking home from school can be hit by a stray bullet in a Bronx shootout?
How about keeping young people safe everywhere?Arthur Gunther
Blauvelt
Sorry, Bloomie: You can raise the age for buying smokes to 35, but if teens want to smoke, they will.
The parents, friends or shopowners who don’t care will buy or sell them. Robert J. Karl
Elmont
The proposal to raise the minimum age of purchasing cigarettes will benefit the health of young New Yorkers and decrease the medical expenses of smoking-related health issues.
This is needed to reduce the smoking rate among our young population.
The NYC Department of Mental Hygiene’s survey shows that almost 100,000 young adults between the ages of 18 and 24 smoke in NYC and that 80 percent of smokers start before the age of 21.
Furthermore, 25 percent of public high-school students under 18 who smoke reported purchasing cigarettes in stores.
Tobacco is a leading cause of preventable, premature death in New York City, killing thousands each year.
The Chinese-American Planning Council in Queens, the Queens Smoke-Free Partnership and various others strongly support the proposal to raise the age limit. Chai Lian Gan
Chinese-American
Planning Council
Queens