In his recent commentary,
Ramesh Ponnuru asserts that “there’s no…justification [unlike alcohol] for
raising the age to buy tobacco products” from 18 to 21. While more thoughtful than some opponents, Ponnuru
echoes a familiar refrain: “If you’re old enough to vote, serve on a jury,
marry or fight in a war, you should be considered old enough to light up, too.”
The logic of this argument quickly fails under examination.
While one may cherish voting or marriage, they are still considered
privileges that are subject to qualifications.
One of these is age, which is not permanently set in stone but
determined by historical and cultural customs.
For example, the Preventing Tobacco Addiction Foundation notes that “For 600 years of
English common law and throughout most of U.S. legal history, the age of 21 was
regarded as the age of full adult status.”
Serving on a jury is required by law (Title 28, U.S. Code, Sections
1861-1878), and as such, the current age of 18 years is subject to revision.
The most common objection to both Alcohol and Tobacco 21 contrasts
eligibility for military service at age 18 with prohibition of drinking or
smoking. This argument is meaningful
only if military service is compulsory, a policy
that ended in 1973. Eighteen-year-old
men and women may choose to join the armed forces, but that choice is unrelated
to the privilege of being able to purchase and consume alcohol or tobacco,
unless society decides otherwise.
Fourteen
states have raised the age of tobacco sales to 21 years, and there are bipartisan
bills in the U.S. Congress that would make Tobacco 21 the law of the land.
In his commentary, Ponnuru enumerates the reasons for Tobacco
21: delay or reduce tobacco uptake; reduce smoking-related health effects,
medical care and insurance costs; and achieve other so-called paternalistic
objectives. But Ponnuru omits the most direct
and compelling reason to enact Tobacco 21: to delegitimize tobacco sales to
18-year-old high school students. In 2018, 16% of all high school
students could legally purchase tobacco, and they accounted for one-quarter of
high school smokers and smoker-vapers (here).
Government survey data confirms that legal buyers – not manufacturers or
retailers – are the primary source for tobacco products used by underage high
schoolers (here).
Complaints about paternalism as the rationale for Tobacco 21
are irrelevant. Tobacco 21 simply provides
the best opportunity to defeat the informal black market that supplies tobacco
products to the nation’s underage high school students.
Ponnuru objects that Tobacco 21 advocates “don’t provide any
good reason to treat young adults as though they were minors.” But there is one very good reason: to be
treated as an adult, one must act responsibly with respect to children. Those high schoolers who are the primary
suppliers of tobacco to their underage friends are clearly acting irresponsibly. This is a compelling justification for
Tobacco 21.