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Starting July 1, only individuals 19 and older will be allowed to buy cigarettes and other tobacco products in Newburyport, a Massachusetts city near the New Hampshire border. Amherst is considering adopting a similar law.

(Republican file photo)

AMHERST - The town could join a growing list of communities that have raised the purchase age of cigarettes from 18 to 21.

The Board of Health began talking about revising its smoking regulations last year, said board chairwoman Nancy Gilbert but had other issues to contend with.

Board members began talking about them again last month and will likely set a public hearing to talk about the age change in April.

Health boards in South Hadley, Montague and Leverett have raised the age joining dozens and dozens of communities across the state with similar changes.

Gilbert, a nurse who has worked in public health and teaches part time at the University of Massachusetts, said the research shows that three out of four who started smoking in their teens become adult smokers.

"The earlier you start smoking the greater the addiction."

And she said the teen brain is still being developed and smoking research is now showing that smoking has negative effects on that cognitive development.

She said the board, as people involved in public health, "We want to protect citizens."

In 2013, the Board of Health banned the sale of cigarettes at pharmacies and shortly after that was enacted, the pharmacy chain CVS announced that it would stop selling cigarettes at its chain of 7,600 stores.

Gilbert believes that raising the age is part of a similar trend to protect public health and that more and more communities will adopt the change just as they did smoking bans at restaurants and bars before it became state law.