Raise Tobacco Access Age to 21 in Oregon

According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, “Worldwide, tobacco use causes more than 5 million deaths per year, and current trends show that tobacco use will cause more than 8 million deaths annually by 2030” (“Smoking and Tobacco Use”). These numbers are high and it is projected that they will only increase over time. One way to combat these rising numbers is to raise the legal age to purchase tobacco.

An individual should not be able to buy tobacco until twenty-one because there is a smaller chance of becoming addicted to the substance, it is harder for underage children to get cigarettes from adults than their teenage friends, and their brain is still developing, and tobacco is a really harmful ingredient to put into developing bodies. This is why parents who have teenagers should be concerned with the current legal smoking age.

As we see an increase in deaths per year from cigarette smoking, we also see a rise in underage smoking. Smoking is harmful to not only a full grown adult body, but actually does additional harm on developing bodies. According to Tracii Hanes, from the Live Strong Website, “Underage smokers face an increased risk of lifelong addiction and serious health problems, such as cancer and heart disease” (Tracii Hanes). Smoking effects all underage smokers and it can damage an individual’s brain, heart, mouth, lungs, skin and muscles.

Excessive smoking leads to yellowing of the teeth and skin, loss of sensitive taste buds, increased chance for heart disease, high blood pressure, trouble breathing, coughing, and lung cancer (“How Tobacco Effects Your Body”). The brain is especially vulnerable with youth because their brains are developing into their full grown adult brain, and if they are smoking it is much easier for their brain to quickly develop an addiction to nicotine, a substance found in cigarettes. If teenagers develop smoking habit addictions at a young age, they are likely to continue with their behaviors for the rest of their lives.

At eighteen years old, an individual is officially an adult, so some may argue that teenagers are old enough and mature enough to make their own decisions. Although they are capable of making decisions on their own, teenagers are more likely to buy cigarettes if it is legal for them. The problem with this is that eighteen year olds are still developing and their brain is in the height of its growth period. The brain isn’t fully developed until an individual reaches their early twenty’s. If teenagers are allowed to buy cigarettes while their brain is still in the developing stage they will begin to notice a difference in everyday activities and in their learning capabilities.

Although smoking affects learning and daily activities, it also plays as enormous role in a teenager’s immune system. Terrence Malgamoz, from the Quit Smoking-Central explains, “Instead of the brain's immune cells keeping the brain protected from infection and inversions, NNK causes the white cells in teen smokers to over-react and attack or even destroy healthy brain cells” (Terrence Malgamoz). NNK is short for nicotine-derived nitrosamine ketone, which is one of the key ingredients in tobacco. In sum, if teenagers smoke, their natural body process of destroying intruders counteracts itself and actually attacks the healthy cells in their brain.