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SALT LAKE CITY — Hawaii last week became the first state to raise its legal smoking age to 21. And one Utah legislator is looking to reintroduce legislation to have Utah follow in Hawaii’s footsteps.

Utah Rep. Kraig Powell has already filed a bill for the 2016 legislative session to raise the legal smoking age to 21 in the state of Utah. Powell said the increased age is intended to help curb those that start smoking in their early adult years.

“I actually filed the bill on the first day possible in May because I believe this is an important issue and I think Utah can be a leader in healthy lifestyles that we have here,” Powell said. “I think this is an important policy decision for Utah to take.

“Raising the smoking age limit allowed by law is a large step toward eradicating smoking from society in general,” Powell added. “The statistics show the vast majority of smokers begin smoking prior to age 19. And if we can delay the onset of the beginning of smoking for just a few more years, it’s likely they will never begin smoking.”

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Utah lawmaker proposes raising legal smoking age to 21 Utah could become the first state in the nation to raise the legal smoking age to 21 if state lawmakers pass a bill that failed last year.

Powell’s bill would have a clause stating that military individuals stationed in Utah after living in a state where smoking was legal younger than 21 would be exempt from the law. The bill would also have a two-year “phase-in period” to help those over 19 who are already smokers.

The bill’s original sponsor, former Sen. Stuart Reid, introduced the first bill in 2014. The bill made it through the Senate Health and Human Services Committee in a close, divided vote, but failed on the Senate floor. A similar bill was filed last session, but the bill was never heard, failing to be scheduled in one of the House of Representatives’ committees.

Powell said the opposition to Sen. Reid’s bill came from a group of libertarians, who were in favor of “individual freedom,” and the Utah Retail Merchants Association, who were opposed because “it was not the role of government” to dictate adult decisions.”

“I think the opposition to this bill is motivated primarily out of the feeling that there ought to be as much freedom as possible for people to make their own decisions as adults,” Powell said. “The hazards of smoking and the lack of redeeming value in any sort from tobacco, I think, overrides that concern in this instance.”

Contributing: Andrea May

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