As we enter a new year, there’s plenty for we tobacco folks to be concerned about. Deeming regulations could potentially wipe out the majority of e-vapor players (or at least supremely stifle innovation); excise-tax-disparities from state to state will continue to fuel a burgeoning black market; and who knows what new wacky ways federal, state and local legislatures will find to make selling tobacco products just a little more difficult.
For me, though, the issue to watch in 2016 is the increasing pressure to raise the tobacco purchase age. It’s not that troubling in terms of sales; most retailers will tell you that 18-, 19- and 20-year-olds don’t account for a huge percentage of tobacco sales. But it’s very troubling when you consider it as an issue of adults’ rights.
Raising the purchase age seems to be everywhere. Last year, Hawaii became the first state to officially increase the smoking age to 21; the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is studying the effects of raising the purchase age to 19 or 21; and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recently released a policy statement calling for the United States to raise the age nationwide.
“Tobacco is unique among consumer products in that it severely injures and kills when used exactly as intended,” reads the AAP statement. “Protecting children from tobacco products is one of the most important things that a society can do to protect children’s health.”
The question is: Are 18-, 19- and 20-year-olds actually children?
Yes, when it comes to alcohol. Not so much when it comes to voting, enlisting for combat, paying taxes, applying for a credit card or getting married (or divorced, for that matter).
Even for alcohol, this wasn’t always the case. As my parents frequently testify when fondly recalling the University of Dayton-sanctioned keggers they’d throw in their freshmen dorm, 18 was once what I like to think of as the national “adult age.” In other words, the country recognized that if you were grown up enough to fight in a war, you were also grown up enough to enjoy an adult beverage.
In 1984, the National Minimum Drinking Age Act effectively forced all states to increase the minimum age. Much like today’s calls to increase the tobacco purchase age, this act was passed as an effort to “save the children.”
Gray Matter
In this gray area between 18 and 21, it’s increasingly difficult to enforce such laws. When I was in that age bracket, like countless others, I had no problem obtaining alcohol—and it wasn’t through fake IDs or careless clerks. Why risk it when I was at a college campus filled with “of age” students who were happy to pick up an extra bottle of cheap vodka for we under-21-ers?
However, it was distinctly more difficult to find an older friend to buy me a pack of cigarettes when I was under 18. It wasn’t that I didn’t know people who were old enough to buy them; it was that, for the most part, it made people uncomfortable to “contribute to the delinquency of a minor” by buying a 15-year-old cigarettes. (That’s an actual response I got.)
It goes back to that concept of the adult age. Regardless of the law, most people recognize 18 as the entrance into adulthood. Does it mean that you magically turn into a responsible adult on your 18th birthday? Of course not. Are some people more capable than others of making adult decisions at 18? Definitely. But unless we’re going to try to develop some kind of test to prove “adultness,” 18 seems to be the standard that’s been set.
“Personal rights are important because government and society impose responsibilities and duties on those who have reached the age of 18,” NATO executive director Thomas A. Briant says of the issue. “The magnitude of these obligations should also allow a person of adult age to choose what legal products they desire to purchase.”
I don’t disagree with organizations such as the AAP that want to keep tobacco products out of the hands of children. But Briant is right: Eighteen-, 19- and 20-year-olds are not children, at least not by the legal definition. If we as a nation are allowing them to make the adult decisions of joining the army, dropping out of high school or going into massive credit-card debt, how can we tell them they’re not mature enough to decide whether they want to smoke?
Melissa Vonder Haar is senior editor of CSP magazine. Reach her at mvonderhaar-peretz@winsightmedia.com.
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