BOSTON (AP) — Boston health officials have voted to raise the minimum age for buying cigarettes and other tobacco products from 18 to 21.
Mayor Marty Walsh says the city now joins more than 85 other Massachusetts cities and towns — as well as New York City and Hawaii — in hiking the age for purchasing cigarettes.
The Boston Board of Health also voted Thursday to increase the age for admission to adult-only retail tobacco stores and smoking bars to 21.
Massachusetts lawmakers are considering a bill that would make 21 the legal age for buying tobacco statewide.
A group representing convenience store and gas station owners opposed the age hike, saying it would hurt business while not addressing the problem of teen smoking.
The change in Boston takes effect Feb. 15.
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Here’s a better idea. Congress should declare that on January 1, 2020, no one born after December 31, 1999, may purchase tobacco.
It’s time for the federal government to stop protecting, encouraging, or profiting from the sale of what is essentially poison.
Yeah, good luck with that argument.
Hey, how about a Constitutional amendment to prohibit smoking? That should work!
You’ll have to pry the Marlboro 100’s out of my cold, dead hands!
Put away two packs a day for 27 years, haven’t touched one since 1999. But the reduced lung capacity lingers on. High-altitude trekking is, alas, off the menu.
So, you can vote at age 18, get elected to most offices at the same age, marry or join the army even before that age, die for your country in war (or get sent to the death chamber). Or drive a car at 16. But if you want a glass of beer or a cigarillo, you have to be 21. Obviously, those two are so much more important decisions and you have to be more mature for them then for the simple stuff above.