opinion

Could Tobacco 21 increase smoking rates?

Proponents of Tobacco 21 claim raising the smoking age to 21 will prevent youth smoking. With virtually no empirical data to support it, the policy remains based around hopeful speculation.

T21 is host to an array of unintended consequences. As with past prohibitive strategies in the United States, T21 has potential to increase use rates through psychological reactance, and out of protest once the targeted demographic realizes their right to choose has been removed. As supply and demand changes, this policy is poised to make tobacco more accessible to minors by bolstering a black market.

According to a survey conducted in Cohasset, Mass., teen smoking has surged for the first time in years. The sudden spike occurred just one year following the city’s enactment of T21. The survey reports use within the last 30 days by 12th-graders increasing from 9 percent in 2015 to 33 percent in 2017. Use by 11th-graders increased from 6 percent to 19 percent.

This uptick comes during an otherwise unprecedented national downtrend. U.S. youth rates have reached record low of 8 percent, according to the latest federal data, while youth vaping has also declined by 29 percent. Youth smoking in Minnesota plummeted by 56 percent from 2011 to 2016.

This isn’t the first time a smoking prohibition has backfired. In early 20th century some states passed laws banning women from smoking in public. As a result, women who otherwise wouldn’t have - began smoking - as a social and political statement.

One of the most alarming aspects of this ‘smoking prevention’ policy is it prevents adult access to vapor products — a 95 percent safer alternative to smoking according to the Royal College of Physicians. This keeps those who began smoking before 18 tethered to cigarettes for three more years, causing unnecessary harm to their health. Adults 18 to 20 who depend on vapor products to abstain from smoking, will lose access, sending many back to smoking as cigarettes are far easier to obtain under this policy.

Recently published research supported by the National Institutes of Health concluded laws banning sales of e-cigarettes to young adults actually pushes youth toward traditional cigarettes. They found strict enforcement of these laws is linked to increase in youth smoking, that the unintended consequences of these laws is concerning and may have a negative impact on public health.

T21 campaign aims to funnel newly restricted smokers and vapers back to low (6-8 percent) success-rate pharmaceutical nicotine replacement therapy products. While these products work for some, they fail the majority of smokers.

According to survey results in the American Journal of Preventative Medicine, vaping has a 70 percent success rate in helping smokers quit the habit.

The latest Minnesota Adults Tobacco Survey shows an all-time low in smoking rates, and all time high for successful quit attempts — but vapor products were not only the most popular option for people seeking to quit. Traditional nicotine replacement therapy saw a nearly 50 percent decrease.

According to the American Lung Association, the top influencing factor on whether a teen experiments with smoking is if the adults in their life smoke. For youth prevention to be truly effective, it must be carried out in tandem with efforts that aim to support adult smokers who are trying to quit.

We must keep all tobacco harm reduction pathways open equally to adult smokers to effectively reduce smoking-related harm.

The Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior reports that anti-smoking education has a much greater effect than restrictive regulations and taxation when it comes to reducing youth smoking. Resources ought to be focused on accurate, education-based approach rather than trying to social-engineer behavior through strategies that have a history of failure.

T21 recklessly defies state ruled Age of Majority and discriminates against a specific demographic of adult citizens, removing freedom of choice and equality.

We need to consider the sociological and psychological repercussions of removing freedoms from the same demographic of people we concurrently encourage to risk their lives in service to our country.

This kind of legislation represents the gradual erosion of autonomy, etched away through the passage of more and more behavioral restrictions into law. To suggest the government should regulate outside the guidelines established by our Constitution and remove the people's right to make decisions for themselves, is a slippery slope and the implications aren't good for anyone.

Thank you, St. Cloud, for joining the majority of Minnesota municipalities that have turned down T21 — Hutchinson, Frazee, Perham, Elk River, Eagle Lake, South Bend, Detroit Lakes, Becker County.

This is the opinion of Jenny Hoban, a Detroit Lakes resident and Tobacco Harm Reduction specialist and vice pesident for THR4Life, a volunteer-based nonprofit dedicated helping smokers regain control over their lives by providing balanced and accurate information about tobacco harm reduction.