John Kruzel hopes other cities follow New York’s lead in banning cigarette sales to anyone under 21:
[T]he 18–20 set does more than just supply cigarettes to underage smokers. According to a mix of firm statistics, anecdata, and a damning confession by a Big Tobacco official, this age group also gets addicted to nicotine in big numbers. “A significant number do in fact start between 18 and 21,” John Banzhaf, the executive director of Action on Smoking and Health, told CNN in 2002. Among 18-to-25-year-olds, the average age of first use is 18.9 years old, according to cardiologist Mehmet Oz.
On the retail side, one New York City vendor told a local CBS affiliate that half of his cigarette sales go to people between the ages of 18 and 21. But perhaps the most damning line (and maybe the obvious causal explanation) comes from a 1982 internal memo penned by an employee of the tobacco manufacturer R.J. Reynolds: “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.” To put it another way, in the words of Patrick Reynolds, the grandson of R.J. Reynolds who would spurn the family trade to become an anti-smoking advocate, “Once they reach 21, it’s no longer an interesting vehicle for rebellion.”
Four Massachusetts towns have already boosted the smoking age to 21, and similar pushes are underway in Utah, Hawaii, and Washington, DC.
(Graph: Office of the Surgeon General)
The Dish 