18 is a big age in America. You can drive past curfew, buy lottery tickets, and get drafted, among other things. And in most states, it's the age at which you can legally buy cigarettes. Some states, like Utah and Alabama, have changed this to 19, and so have some counties, in an effort to discourage the use of cigarettes. But just yesterday, New York City made a big change: they changed the legal smoking age to 21. Many younger New Yorkers are outraged about this, and the comparison is being made to the minimum age required for service in the military; if I can kill a man for my country, why can't I smoke a cigarette?
But while this is a big change, it's not necessarily a surprising one. NYC is one of the most anti-cigarette areas in the country, with huge taxes bring the average price of a pack to upwards of $12, as opposed to the national average of just above $5. So with the taxes and raised age minimum, one would think smoking would be substantially diminished in NYC, right? Well, apparently not. Just below 16% of New Yorkers smoke cigarettes, which is only slightly below the national average of 18%. But with an economic recession in full force, it's just not practical for NYC residents to pay $14 for a pack of cigarettes. And that's where one of New York's best kept secrets comes in: it's multi-million dollar black market cigarette industry.
NYC's rising cigarette taxes and restrictive smoking laws have created a slight decrease in smoking, but on the other hand, they've created an enormous market for black market cigarettes. Smugglers buy carton after carton from Virginia and Washington D.C. for a fraction of the price, and sell them to local NYC stores, generating a hefty profit. One shop owner even went as far as to say that "every store in Brooklyn" buys from one man, who the store owner claims "makes a million dollars a year."
Despite action from lawmakers over the past decade, this underground cigarette industry has not gone away, and has only flourished with newly restrictive smoking laws, and it's likely that this newest one will be no exception. Should NYC enforce it's newest cigarette law, or will it just push more teens to the ever-growing black market?
Personally, I see any law that puts restrictions on smoking as good. Although some NYC teens are still bound to break the law and find a way to get cigarettes anyway, I think many teens will be prevented from starting smoking. Also, as a result of having less teen smokers in NYC, I think there are likely to be less total smokers in NYC because about 90% of all smokers start smoking before the age of 18 (Illinois Department of Health). Simply put, if the age restriction on smoking is raised, less people will start to smoke because smoking is generally a habit that begins at an early age (younger than 21).
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