Let them smoke

Let+them+smoke

When the Washington attorney general proposed a bill to raise the legal tobacco age, he wasn’t just blowing smoke.

In fact, just the opposite – so far, legislators in Olympia are on board. On Tuesday, the Washington state House Health Care Committee passed a proposal from the Attorney General Bob Ferguson in a 12-3 bipartisan vote to raise the tobacco smoking age from 18 to 21.

Justification for House Bill 1458 is rooted in the long-term health ramifications of young smokers – according to the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, more than three-quarters of adult smokers transition to regular, daily smoking before they turn 21. But while this proposal has the best of intentions, it would ultimately be detrimental to the state of Washington, costing the government an estimated annual $20 million in tax revenues and unnecessarily robbing citizens of personal freedoms.

The most measureable issue with this proposal comes down to money. The state government collects $3.03 per pack sold, according to the Washington Department of Revenue. Considering that the state saw 134.8 million packs of cigarettes sold according to the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, this tax revenue represents a healthy chunk of change added to the state’s general fund.

Do I think that smoking is a revolting and horrifying way to kill yourself slowly? Of course I do. Do I want more smoking? Of course I don’t. But I also recognize the practical reality of what smoking-tax revenue provides Washington state, and if one person’s vice puts money into the pockets of public programs, then who am I to judge?

Ironically, this loss of revenue is contingent on whether or not the state can even afford pass the proposal into law.

Three other states – New Jersey, Utah and Colorado – have previously tried and failed to raise their smoking age to 21, a failure which can be partially attributed to insufficient funding. State Secretary of Health John Wiesman told the Associated Press that last year Washington spent $3 million on the cause, which is $40 million short of what a Center for Disease Control and Prevention study recommended for an adequate effort.

Individual cities have had more success, and several, including New York City, have made 21 the legal smoking age. This change has shown promising results in dropping the teenage smoking rate. There is good in this proposal. I just don’t think it outweighs the bad, especially with regards to individual freedom.

The argument is a cliché, but that doesn’t make it any less true: if 18-year-olds can fight and die for their country, they can legally light a cigarette. If a freshman in college can blow all of her tuition money at a casino, she can smoke afterwards. If a legal adult can tie his life to another’s, or participate in the democratic process, or own land, or whatever it is he wants to do, there’s no compelling reason for smoking to be the exception. Grown-ups can slowly kill themselves if they want to, because that’s the American way.

That’s not to say we should hand our high school students to tobacco companies on a silver platter. Quite the opposite – in fact, the last few decades have shown that education works better than enforced policy. The CDC reports that smoking rates among high school students have dropped from 36.4 percent in 1997 to 18 percent in 2011. I, for one, know that the black lung photos in my eighth-grade health class certainly scared me away from a pack of Camels forever.

But high school smokers are already breaking the law, and they’ve already found a way to circumvent the age restriction. Raising the legal age would just require them to keep breaking the law for an additional three years (and as Prohibition proved, there’s absolutely nothing tempting about that). We should arm students with an education in the best and most terrifying information about smoking at our disposal, but at the end of the day, smokers gonna smoke.

There’s a smarter way to do this. Washington State tends to lead the nation in progressive social policy, and if it passes, House Bill 1458 could provide a tipping point for the entire country. A senator in California, Ed Hernandez, just introduced a similar proposal at the beginning of the month.

The issue is in the national spotlight, which is ultimately a positive thing for America’s health. Let’s focus our efforts on improving education, not on spending millions to strip the rights of legal adults.