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Bill would ban cigarette sales to anyone under 100 in Hawaii

Cigarettes in Hawaii may soon go up in smoke — thanks to a proposed bill that aims to bar sales of them to anyone under the age of 100.

“The legislature finds that the cigarette is considered the deadliest artifact in human history,” states the bill, sponsored by Democratic Rep. Richard Creagan. “The cigarette is an unreasonably dangerous and defective product, killing half of its long-term users.”

The bill adds that the Aloha State is “suffering from its own addiction to cigarettes in the form of the large sums of money that the State receives from state cigarette sales taxes, with the tax revenues recently reaching more than $100,000,000 per year.”

If enacted, the law would ultimately ban the sale of cigarettes by raising the minimum age of legal access to cigarettes to 30 in 2020, to 40 in 2021, to 50 in 2022, to 60 in 2023 and finally to 100 in 2024.





Under the bill, e-cigarettes are excluded on the premise that they “differ from regular cigarettes in that they have a much lower carcinogenic potential than cigarettes.”

Cigars and chewing tobacco are also left out of the bill.

Hawaii has already proved itself to be strict on cigarette sales.

It is one of six states that have raised the tobacco age to 21. The others are California, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Oregon and Maine.

Creagan, an emergency medicine specialist in Naalehu, told the Hawaii Tribune Herald that he wants to see cigarettes off the shelves in Hawaii completely.

“Basically, we essentially have a group who are heavily addicted — in my view, enslaved by a ridiculously bad industry — which has enslaved them by designing a cigarette that is highly addictive, knowing that [it’s] highly lethal. And, it is,” Creagan told the news outlet.





He noted that the state’s current tobacco laws are “not stopping the problem.”

“The state is obliged to protect the public’s health,” the lawmaker said, adding, “We don’t allow people free access to opioids, for instance, or any prescription drugs.”

“This is more lethal, more dangerous than any prescription drug, and it is more addicting. In my view, you are taking people who are enslaved from a horrific addiction, and freeing people from horrific enslavement,” he said. “We, as legislators, have a duty to do things to save people’s lives. If we don’t ban cigarettes, we are killing people.”





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Filed under bills , cigarettes , hawaii , 2/5/19