The age to buy tobacco could be raised to 21. Would it have stopped these smokers?
“I started smoking before I could buy them anyway, it wasn’t that difficult.’’
On Thursday, the Boston Public Health Commission is holding a public hearing from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. about the proposed amendments to raise the minimum sales age for tobacco and nicotine products (including e-cigarettes) to 21.
The agency will accept written comments until December 9 and plans to vote on December 17. If approved, Boston would become the second major city in the U.S. after New York City to increase the legal age for tobacco sales; 83 smaller communities across Massachusetts have already raised the age to 21.
Needham was the first town in the country to pass a Tobacco 21 law in 2005, and a study shows that the youth smoking rate there dropped almost 50 percent in the first five years after the ban. If young people can’t get cigarettes and start smoking, they’re less likely to be smokers later on in life and for longer periods of time, health officials say.
We talked to people around college campuses about when they first started smoking and why, and if they feel a higher age restriction would have prevented them from starting.
Ali Khodr
Ali Khodr, 24, Grad student at MIT studying archaeology:
“I would support [the change] even as a smoker. The later people are hooked on smoking, the better. I don’t encourage it. I actually only started this summer. My girlfriend is a smoker. She’s 23 and she’s been smoking since she was 17. We’re both from Lebanon, and it’s a bigger problem there. A packet of cigarettes is so much cheaper. It’s like $2 or $2.50, and it’s actually not taxed. Lebanon is a gray zone, it’s not enforced.
“Not many people at MIT smoke, it’s mostly the architecture students. They all hang out on the steps right in front of the architecture school, but otherwise on campus you won’t see it. Most people here are health conscious. And there’s definitely an education factor.’’
Sofya Bazhanova
Sofya Bazhanova, 19, Sophomore at Boston University studying Philosophy and Religion:
“I’m from Russia, and I started smoking when I was around 16. It was like a cool thing to do before school. It was like a really social thing, and I’m still a social smoker.
“In California, I went to LA and the cigarettes are so cheap there and I was like ‘I should buy a pack.’ And I’m smoking outside and people were looking at me as if I was like crazy, homeless person and I was just smoking a cigarette. But here it’s just much more liberal.
“They [changed the age] already in Cambridge and in Brookline. And, well, I’m still able to buy cigarettes in places I know. Honestly, not from a position of a smoker who’s 19, I would say that it’s—you can get married, you can [have] an abortion, you can join the army when you are 18 —but you cannot smoke. So I think like if you compare getting married and getting an abortion to smoking, it’s not the same thing.
“The age is 18 [in Russia] for smoking and drinking. I think that if you forbid something it gets more desirable for young people. There’s always stores that don’t card you, and we also had a really fun thing [where] we wrote notes from our parents, and like you come to the store and you’re like, ‘My dad is watching soccer right now, he cannot go downstairs, he gave me this note please sell me the pack of cigarettes.’ You’re like, they’re watching soccer, they’re not gonna leave the couch. It was a funny thing to do.’’
Erik Fox
Erik Fox, 30:
“I’ve been smoking on and off since I was like 20. I started only because I had to show my friends they were smoking wrong. My friend was like, ‘I’m smoking’ and he was just puffing it like a cigar. I’m like, ‘That’s not how you inhale.’ And so that’s when I started but really that was just sort of every once in awhile at parties. So I don’t know if [a higher age] would’ve stopped me. I mean, ages have never stopped me from doing anything before, but you know. Yeah, they should switch it with the drinking age. Drinking age 18, smoking 21, which ones more damaging?’’
Meghan
Meghan, 26, Grad student at Boston University studying English:
“I’m not that proud of [being a smoker]. Because I know it’s bad for me and everybody tries to tell me that and that’s annoying. Like I got it, I’m not stupid, I’m at a college. I think I understand…People are going to get their hands on it one way or another. But I know that’s a reductive argument.
“I started smoking because I was a waitress, and it was like the only way to get a break. You’d work a 10-hour shift and people who don’t smoke don’t go on breaks and people who do smoke go out on breaks. So, like, if you’re on your feet you want to sit down for a minute…that was the thing that started it for me. And in the service industry, everyone smokes.
“I actually remember the first pack of cigarettes I bought because I used to just bum, and the first pack of cigarettes I bought I was like, ‘Oh my god, I have to smoke all of these.’ And now I’m like, oh f—, it’s all gone.’’
Kyra Adams
Kyra Adams, 18, Freshman at Emerson College studying Writing, Literature, and Publishing:
“I’ve been smoking probably like, since I’d say freshman year of high school. My parents smoked, so that was pretty much my influence, because my stepdad used to keep a carton of them in the freezer, and it was like really easy for me to get my hands on them when I was in like middle school, and, I mean, I didn’t know how to smoke a cigarette in middle school so I don’t really count that. Plus it’d be like, ‘I’m gonna sit on my roof and be all reserved.’ But then eighth grade, freshman year, it was the people I was hanging out with pretty much, they all smoked.
“Just like alcohol, you can probably ask. I mean, cigarettes are so much easier to ask people to buy for you. Even as a kid, when I was 16, I’d just be like, ‘Can you run in the store for me?’ I don’t think it’s gonna make that much of an impact. It’s gonna piss a lot of people off I’d say, but as far as like, limiting how much people smoke, I don’t think it’s gonna make that much of a difference. I think the biggest thing for me out here is the prices of the cigarettes, because it’s $10 a pack, $11 a pack out here and [in Illinois] where I’m from it’s probably 5, 6 bucks.’’
Kevin
Kevin, 27, Grad student at Emerson College:
“I’ve smoked since I was 15. I don’t know, I’ve always identified myself as a smoker I think. When I was little, I would smoke those little…pretend those small pretzel sticks were cigarettes. [I got cigarettes] through friends that stole them from their parents.
“I think it’ll open up a black market for cigarettes, definitely. People are going to smoke, people are going to do stuff regardless. Even if it’s against the law, you know, it’s like drinking— even a ton of 18, 19 year olds in Boston still drink, they get it some how. Making a law about it will just inconvenience business owners and also inconvenience students by having to make them go through some black market. It’s not going to make them disappear at all.
“But I think it’s good though, I think that the more laws there are against smoking, the harder its gonna be for people to smoke. I don’t know, I see both sides. I think that, like, it’s good and it’s bad. I think people are gonna smoke regardless. It has to be a personal choice, an individual choice.’’
Bridget Wood (left) and Sarah Orouke
Bridget Wood, 21, Senior at Emerson College:
“I started at 17 or 18. I started smoking before I could buy them anyway, it wasn’t that difficult. And because my town actually already made the law for 21 a while back—Sictuate, MA, on the South Shore—so they already did that and everyone in my town was like, ‘OK I’ll just go to the town next door and buy them,’ so I don’t know.
“I just had friends who bought them for me. I still get carded at the stores and I’m 21, though I look 12. I stopped smoking for a while and then started again when I went abroad to Europe [the Netherlands]. It’s so, everyone over there does it. It’s like, you feel like you’re part of the culture.’’
Sarah Orouke
Sarah Orouke, 25, Senior at Emerson College:
“I started at 15. I don’t think [the change is] gonna have a huge impact. I mean go for it, if it works, great. I kind of wish I wasn’t smoking but, you know, they’re gonna get it if they want it. I had older friends. I was able to successfully buy them off a store once right before I turned 18.’’
Matty Whipple
Matty Whipple, 18, Freshman at Suffolk University studying Psychology:
“I’m been smoking since sophomore year of high school so that’s like 3 years now. I tried to impress a significant other and it got out of control and now here I am, three years later. So, if you guys are doing stories about how people get hooked and how it’s awful, then [I’m a] case story.
“I started so young I couldn’t buy them anyway, so I think if kids are gonna do it, they’re gonna find a way to do it. But I definitely think that it will find a drop in teenage smokers, so it could benefit. But then there’s people like me that are stuck, I don’t know what to do. I’ll either try to get some of the smoking aids, but I don’t know if that’s gonna get bumped up to 21 too, and then can I get grandfathered in? There’s a lot of questions.’’
Devang Ruprelia
Devang Ruparelia, 25, Getting his Masters at Suffolk University:
I’ve been a smoker [for] the last 10 years. [I started] with friends, actually. Everyone wanted to try it just out of school, in high school, so we just tried it once. We started trying, experimenting with other brands, got used to it, and now I’m just so much addicted to it.
“I come from India and there, probably there is a legal age for people but you can get singles pretty easily. Not the boxes, but singles. I don’t know about Boston, I’m pretty new to the city, to the country as well, so I don’t know about the legal age and the stuff like whether underage people can get it easily or not, but I think if everyone is ready to go for it, 21 is a pretty good age.
“Even I ask people to quit smoking, and I’ve been trying to do that since a very long time, but it would be better if the age is increased. I’ve tried [to quit] many times. I just bought a vaporizer but I just finished the juice for it so I’ve yet to go and buy for it. It’s pretty hard, especially from 10 years. Everyone should just quit smoking.’’
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