BC Health Minister suggests hiking legal smoking age to 21

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – On the occasion of National Non-Smoking Week, BC Health Minister Terry Lake is trying to start a provincial debate over raising the minimum legal smoking age from 19 to 21.

The policy is already being pursued by lawmakers in dozens of districts and a handful of states south of the border, including Washington and Texas.

“What we’ve seen down there in jurisdictions that have done this is a reduction in smoking in high school students,” Lake says. “That seems like a good thing to me, and something I think we should have a conversation about.”

A 2015 study by the US-based National Institute of Medicine suggests that raising the legal smoking age to 21 could drop the smoking rate by roughly 12 per cent, and eventually reduce smoking-related deaths by 10 per cent.

The same study, often cited by US lawmakers when proposing the policy change, says about 90 per cent of daily smokers started smoking before they turned 19.

BC Medical Health Officer Perry Kendall says there is broad support in the medical community for raising the age.

“In actual practice, fewer [young people] buy cigarettes on a regular basis, and so you see a decline in the number of young people who regularly smoke tobacco,” he says.

“I think the only people who could object to this are the people who are currently selling tobacco to 19 and 20-year-olds.”

Lake is quick to add that the conversation is just beginning, so concrete legislation may be a ways off.

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