By The Staff | The Save Jersey Blog
A necessary step to protect kids? Or more Trenton big government paternalism?
On Thursday, the Assembly Health and Senior Services Committee cleared a bill sponsored by outgoing Deputy Republican Conference Leader Mary Pat Angelini (R-11) which, if it ultimately becomes law, would raise the minimum age for purchasing tobacco (and electronic smoking devices) from 19 to 21 throughout the Garden State.
“No one knows what’s in e-cigarettes,” explained Angelini. “Different manufacturers use different vapors. People think it’s not an issue because they’re not inhaling nicotine, but there might be something in there that’s worse for you than nicotine. There’s also some question as to whether e-cigarettes are addictive.”
New Jersey would join a handful of other locales (New York City, two Boston suburbs and several towns in Hawaii) as the only U.S. jurisdictions with an age 21 minimum.
The flip side? Opponents argue a 21-year-old college student or military member is mature enough to decide for themselves whether they want to enjoy a cigarette, cigar, or utilize a vapor-inducing product for which, as Angelini concedes above, the science is still in flux.
And is it overkill anyway? “Even in the absence of any additional policy interventions, smoking rates will continue to decline just as they have over the past half-century,” argued W. Kip Viscusi of Harvard Law School in a widely-circulated 2003 Cato Institute article. “As individual wealth rises, the value associated with health risks increases as well. People consequently will be less willing to bear risks as they become more affluent. Market forces alone will continue to generate a decline in smoking, but they will do so in a way that is respectful to individual preferences and the choices that people make.”
What do you think, Save Jerseyans?
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If you’re old enough to vote and serve in the military, you should be allowed to smoke as well. Same goes for drinking.
Lol.
How will they collect the taxes then?
Never pass. The corrupt legislators will loose money.
And this here explains why Angelini lost. Another nannystater.
Angelini deserved to lose. This is so nanny state BS.
Won’t change a thing.
How about minimum IQ to run for office?
Idiotic. NJ needs to stop with the pussification nonsense. If you can die for this country at 18, you should be able to put whatever you damn well please in your body.
Unconstitutional. So is the drinking age.
Why bother.
If you need to be 21 to have a beer then that should be the age for cigarettes too
No, our job is not to babysit grown ups, even 21 is too high. You can go to war but you can’t buy cigarettes?
How about for voting ?
Are they going to enforce this? I live a few blocks from a high school and see kids smoking passed cops daily. If it was a beer they’d go to jail.
We really don’t need ANYMORE laws. Where we once had a few “big laws.” We now have libraries, filled with encyclopedias, with countless little laws … and we are NO better off for it.
Sooo, they’re buying heroin, pot, and meth in the schools but they need to have id and be 21 to buy cigarettes. NJ is one crazy place. Priorities are a little messed up.
Glad I escaped New Jersey and moved to Pennsylvania.
No way! All the more reason not to buy cigs in this state if you ask me!
I have never smoked but that’s my personal choice. I don’t believe that legislation will stop young people from smoking hence I believe this legislation is useless.
So they are further wanting to infringe of the free rights of ADULTS – 18 years or older. I have never smoked and I rarely drink, bur the age of an adult is 18 and as such they should be freely allowed to do anything that any other adult can legally do.
More people policing with Bulls hit laws thst won’t be adhered to or enforced… all because FEELINGS.. and morons actually vote for people just because they dream up and pass this shit..
Silly already. If they really cared about health more than tax $$ they would ban smoking for everyone.
Stupid. Anyone over 18 is an adult and needs to be treated as such for everything. NJ overregulates everything. I don’t smoke or like smoking but people need to be responsible for their own actions not the government.
Smoking kills