AzPHA Members will be voting on the following Resolution at our September 28, 2017 Annual Meeting
Background and Summary
Tobacco use poses serious public health problems. Over the past 50 years, tobacco control in the United States has led to an estimated 8 million fewer premature deaths. However, tobacco use continues to significantly affect public health, and more than 40 million Americans still smoke.
Nearly all adults who have ever smoked daily first tried a cigarette before 21 years of age. The parts of the brain most responsible for cognitive and psychosocial maturity continue to develop and change through young adulthood, and adolescent brains are uniquely vulnerable to the effects of nicotine, including nicotine from electronic nicotine delivery devices (electronic cigarettes).
In 2009, the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act granted the U.S. Food and Drug Administration broad authorities over tobacco products but prohibited the FDA from establishing a nationwide minimum age to buy tobacco above 18. The law directed the FDA to convene a panel of experts to conduct a study on the public health implications of raising the minimum age to purchase tobacco products and electronic nicotine delivery devices.
At FDA’s request, the Institute of Medicine published a report entitledPublic Health Implications of Raising the Minimum Age of Legal Access to Tobacco Products. The report literature on tobacco use initiation, developmental biology and psychology, and tobacco policy and predicted the likely public health outcomes of raising the minimum legal age for tobacco products.
The report concluded that: “… Increasing the minimum age of legal access to tobacco products will prevent or delay initiation of tobacco use by adolescents and young adults, particularly those ages 15 to 17, and improve the health of Americans across the lifespan”. The report also quantifies the immediate and long term accompanying public health outcome improvements. The report concludes that there would be a 12% decrease in the prevalence of smoking among the cohort if the minimum age of purchase were moved to 21 years old from the current 18.
The analysis concluded that raising the minimum age to 21 will “… likely immediately improve the health of adolescents and young adults by reducing the number of those with adverse physiological effects such as increased inflammation and impaired immune functioning caused by smoking, as these could potentially lead to negative health consequences, including increased hospitalizations and lessened capacity to heal wounds. Adverse maternal, fetal, and infant outcomes—including preterm births, low birth weight, and sudden infant death—will also probably decrease due to reduced tobacco exposure in mothers and infants. Raising the minimum legal age will also lessen the population’s exposure to secondhand smoke and its associated health effects, both now and in the future.”
Over time, the report concludes that raising the minimum legal age for buying tobacco will likely lead to substantial reductions in smoking-related mortality observed for 30 years. If the minimum legal age to purchase tobacco were raised to 21 nationally, there would be approximately 223,000 fewer premature deaths, 50,000 fewer deaths from lung cancer, and 4.2 million fewer years of life lost for those born between 2000 and 2019.
Several jurisdictions have already raised the minimum legal age to buy tobacco. New York City raised the age to 21, in 2013. Hawaii did it in 2015, becoming the first state to go to the 21 (the Hawaii Public Health Association was instrumental in that effort). California followed suit in 2016, and New Jersey and Oregon did so in 2017. In Arizona, Douglas and Cottonwood have passed local ordinances restricting the sale of tobacco to people 21 and older.
Proposed AzPHA Resolution – September 2017
Whereas, the Arizona Public Health Association recognizes that tobacco use poses serious public health problems; and
Whereas, nearly all adults who have ever smoked daily first tried a cigarette before 21 years of age; and
Whereas, the parts of the brain most responsible for cognitive and psychosocial maturity continue to develop and change through young adulthood, and adolescent brains are uniquely vulnerable to the effects of nicotine, including nicotine from electronic nicotine delivery devices; and
Whereas, increasing the minimum age of legal access to tobacco products and electronic nicotine delivery devices will prevent or delay initiation of tobacco use by adolescents and young adults and improve the health of Americans across the lifespan; and
Whereas, if the minimum legal age were raised to 21 in Arizona, there would be approximately 4,460 fewer premature deaths, 1,000 fewer deaths from lung cancer, and 840,000 fewer years of life lost for those born between 2000 and 2019;
Therefore, be it resolved that the Arizona Public Health Association supports raising the minimum legal age to purchase tobacco and electronic nicotine delivery devices in Arizona to 21 years old.
