Raising smoking age about money as much as health

Should we raise the legal smoking age to 21 in Washington state? It’s an idea that’s picking up some steam after Attorney General Bob Ferguson threw his support behind House Bill 1458.

It’s a laudable but flawed idea and, if you believe the motivations, it doesn’t go far enough.

It turns out that most smokers start at the age of 18, and by shifting the age to 21, you’re making it harder for teens to get hooked on cigarettes. But there’s no causal relationship (meaning when you turn 18, you’re not more likely to start cigarettes as a result of some brain chemical shift; it’s just that it’s the age when it’s a legal option). Therein lies the problem: wouldn’t you just make the new age you’re most likely to pick up smoking?

This begs the question: how big of a problem is teen smoking? Are teens picking up cigarettes at an alarming rate, both in relation to other ages and the historical incidents? Not even close.

As KIRO-TV points out, “[s]tudies say teen smoking has gone down 60 percent since the 1990s and smoke shops only make 2 percent of their sales to teens.”

I’d argue the main reason smoking is lower amongst teens is the significant cultural shift on smoking; teens know, with certainty, smoking can lead you to an early grave. It’s also not considered as “cool” as it once was.

But let’s also focus on that 2 percent stat because that’s why part of this effort is slightly disingenuous. Are we not concerned with the 21 years old who start smoking? What about the 25-45 year olds, who, according to the CDC, make up the bulk of the smokers? Why not on a state level, push the age or tax higher? On a federal level, why not just try to ban smoking altogether if we’re doing this to protect the health of our nation? 2 percent is why.

It’s easier, on a state level, to throw away the 2 percent in cigarette tax we collect for the general fund, but less easy to throw away the 98 percent remaining, especially when we pull in nearly $500 million in funding for our use (yes, the 2 percent if a national average but you get the point). If we really cared about preventing the diseases that come from smoking, we wouldn’t be taking the money and using it in the general fund. We’d commit it all to medical research and education.

Is it possible we don’t see a tougher stance on a state or federal level because, however much we care about the health and well-being of the citizenry, we depend on the cash associated with the cigarette tax?