Extending a decade of moves to crack down on smoking in the nation's largest city, the idea aims to stop young people from developing a habit that remains the leading preventable cause of death here and nationwide, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn said as she announced the plan. Eighty percent of the city's smokers started lighting up before they were 21, officials say.
"The point here is to really address where smoking begins," she said, flanked by colleagues and the city's health commissioner, an array that signals the proposal has the political ingredients to pass, with support in the council and Mayor Michael Bloomberg's backing.
But it may face questions about its effectiveness and fairness. A retailers' representative suggested the measure would simply drive younger smokers to neighboring communities or corner-store cigarette sellers instead of city stores, while a smokers' rights advocate called it "government paternalism at its worst."
Under federal law, no one under 18 can buy tobacco anywhere in the country. Some states and localities have raised the age to 19, and at least two communities have agreed to raise it to 21.
New York would be the biggest city to do so. A similar proposal has been floated in the Texas Legislature, but it's on hold after a budget board estimated it would cost the state more than $42 million in cigarette tax revenue over two years.
To supporters, the cost to government is far outstripped by smoking's toll on human lives.
Public health and anti-smoking advocates say a higher minimum age for buying tobacco discourages, or at least delays, young people from starting smoking and thereby limits their health risks.
"Curtailing smoking among these age groups is critical to winning the fight against tobacco and reducing the deaths, disease and health care costs it causes," said Susan M. Liss, executive director of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.
While tobacco use has become less prevalent in New York City over the last decade, the smoking rate has plateaued at 8.5 percent among the city's public high school students since 2007. An estimated 20,000 of them smoke today.
It's already against the law for many of them to buy cigarettes. But raising the minimum age would further reduce their access to cigarettes by making it illegal to turn to slightly older friends to buy smokes for them, officials say.
"We know that enforcement is never going to be perfect," but this measure should make it "much harder" for teens to get cigarettes, Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Farley said.
City officials cited statistical modeling, published in the journal Health Policy, that estimated that raising the tobacco purchase age to 21 nationally could cut the smoking rate by two-thirds among 14-to-17-year-olds and by half among 18-to-20-year-olds over 50 years. Texas budget officials projected a one-third reduction in the use of all tobacco products by 18-to-20-year-olds.
A higher minimum tobacco purchase age could cut noticeably into sales that make up 40 percent of gross revenues for the average convenience store, said Jeff Lenard, a spokesman for the National Association of Convenience stores. But he suggested younger smokers might just go outside the city - the minimum age is 19 in nearby Long Island and New Jersey, for instance - or to black-market merchants.
To smoker Audrey Silk, people considered old enough to vote and serve in the military should be allowed to decide whether to use cigarettes.
"Intolerance for anyone smoking is the anti-smokers' excuse to reduce adults to the status of children," said Silk, who founded a group that has sued the city over previous tobacco restrictions.
Advocates for the measure say the parallel isn't voting but drinking. They cite laws against selling alcohol to anyone under 21.
The nation's largest cigarette maker, Altria Group Inc., had no immediate comment, spokesman David Sutton said. He has previously noted that the Richmond, Va.-based company, which produces the top-selling Marlboro brand, supported federal legislation that in 2009 gave the Food and Drug Administration the power to regulate tobacco products, which includes various retail restrictions.
Representatives for R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. didn't immediately respond to phone and email inquiries. Based in Winston-Salem, N.C., it makes Camel and other brands.
The age limit is already 21 in Needham, Mass., and is headed toward 21 in another Boston suburb, Canton. The town Board of Health agreed to the change this month, though a detailed regulation is still in the works, said Public Health Director John L. Ciccotelli.
It's expected to include a provision requiring an annual local study of whether smoking declines among high-school students - and eliminating the measure in five years if it doesn't, he said.
Since Bloomberg took office in 2002, New York City helped impose the highest cigarette taxes in the country, barred smoking at parks and on beaches and conducted sometimes graphic advertising campaigns about the hazards of smoking.
Last month, the Bloomberg administration unveiled a proposal to keep cigarettes out of sight in stores until an adult customer asks for a pack, as well as stopping shops from taking cigarette coupons and honoring discounts.
A council hearing on those and the age limit proposal is set for May 2.
Several of New York City's smoking regulations have survived court challenges. But a federal appeals court said last year that the city couldn't force tobacco retailers to display gruesome images of diseased lungs and decaying teeth.
Quinn, a leading Democratic candidate to succeed Bloomberg next year, has often been perceived as an ally of his.
Bloomberg also has pushed a number of other pioneering public-health measures, such as compelling chain restaurants to post calorie counts on their menus, banning artificial trans fats in restaurants and attempting to limit the size of sugary drinks. A court struck down the big-beverage rule last month, but the city is appealing and Bloomberg has urged voluntary compliance in the meantime.
While Bloomberg has led the way on many anti-smoking initiatives, this one arose from the City Council - particularly Councilman James Gennaro, who lost his mother to lung cancer after she smoked for decades.
___
Associated Press writer Michael Felberbaum in Richmond, Va., contributed to this report.
