Experts: Raising Legal Age To Buy Tobacco Will Reduce Smoking

(RTTNews) - Raising the minimum age of legal access to tobacco products will reduce tobacco use initiation, particularly among adolescents 15 to 17 years of age; improve the health of Americans across the lifespan; and save lives, according to a report by the Institute of Medicine.

The initiation age of tobacco use is critical. About 90% of smokers say they first tried a cigarette before reaching 19 years of age, and almost all smokers say they tasted cigarette before they turned 26.

Most U.S. states currently set the minimum age of legal access to tobacco products at 18 years. Four states set the minimum age at 19 years, and several localities around the country have raised the minimum age to 21 years.

In the Institute of Medicine report, a committee of experts reviewed existing literature on tobacco use initiation, developmental biology and psychology, and tobacco policy and predicted the likely public health outcomes of raising the minimum legal age for tobacco products to 19 years, 21 years, and 25 years.

The committee, which used mathematical modeling to quantify predictions, concluded that raising the minimum age of legal access to tobacco products in the United States, particularly to ages 21 and 25, will likely lead to a substantial reduction in smoking prevalence. If the minimum legal age were raised now, the experts projected that by the time today's teenagers were adults, there would be a 3% decrease in prevalence of tobacco use among those adults if the minimum legal age were raised to 19, a 12% decrease if raised to 21, and a 16% decrease if raised to 25.

The committee also concluded that raising the minimum legal age will likely immediately improve the health of adolescents and young adults by reducing the number of those with adverse physiological effects such as increased inflammation and impaired immune functioning caused by smoking. Adverse maternal, fetal, and infant outcomes—including preterm births, low birth weight, and sudden infant death—will also probably decrease due to reduced tobacco exposure in mothers and infants.

The Institute of Medicine report estimates that if the minimum legal age were raised now to 21 nationwide, there would be about 223,000 fewer premature deaths, 50,000 fewer deaths from lung cancer, and 4.2 million fewer years of life lost for those born between 2000 and 2019.

The report contains only conclusions regarding raising the minimum legal age as requested by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The committee does not make recommendations as to whether the minimum legal age should be raised.