Area Boards of Health Consider Raising Legal Age to Buy Tobacco

Source from:  The Berkshare Eagle 07/14/2015

A regional effort is emerging to hike the legal age to purchase tobacco throughout Berkshire County.

Faced with some of the highest rates of tobacco use in Massachusetts, smoking cessation program officials and boards of health in a number of communities are considering the change to reduce tobacco use across all age groups, said James Wilusz, director of public health with the Tri-Town Health Department.

In his role of advising communities wishing to update tobacco control regulations, Wilusz said he hopes to schedule a group meeting this fall to update all Berkshire health officials on methods and strategies for raising the legal age and on the rationale.

"There is big momentum right now," Wilusz said of the entire state. "Quite a few boards of health are [taking action]."

He said that following Needham, which raised the legal age in 2005 and is considered the first in the nation to do so, 64 other Massachusetts communities had taken action to raise the legal age as of Monday. A few raised the age to purchase tobacco products to 19, but most set the age at 21.

"We have come so far on tobacco control from just a few years ago," Wilusz said.

The legal age in Pittsfield and other Berkshire communities is currently 18.

Local boards of health are empowered to set regulations concerning tobacco sales and use. The Pittsfield board last week briefly discussed the age issue after receiving information on the effort statewide from Wilusz. Board members have indicated they are open to such a change.

Board member Jay Green said he thought it would be "much more effective to do this countywide," so that abutting communities do not have conflicting regulations.

Pittsfield Health Director Gina Armstrong said information provided by Wilusz shows there is a "dramatic change" in the rates of tobacco use for each year the legal age is raised.

Wilusz coordinates a Massachusetts Tobacco Cessation and Prevention-funded program directly involving 12 Berkshire communities, including North Adams and Pittsfield, and also provides information to officials in other towns considering updating their tobacco regulations.

He recently circulated a report from the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies that focused on the implications of individual communities raising the minimum age to purchase tobacco products above the norm of 18 in most states.

The March 2015 report considered the effects of raising the legal age to 19, 21 and 25 years of age.

"The initiation age of tobacco use is critical," the report states. "Among adults who become daily smokers, approximately 90 percent report first use of cigarettes before reaching 19 years of age, and almost 100 percent report first use before age 26."

While a handful of states have set the age statewide at 19, the rest have a default age of 18, unless local officials approve a higher age.

The report concludes that increasing the age will "likely prevent or delay initiation of tobacco use by adolescents and young adults," and "the group most impacted will be those ages 15 to 17 years."

In addition, the report stated that "the impact of raising the [legal age] to 21 will likely be substantially higher than raising it to 19."

Projecting the effects over time, the report states that there would be "a 3 percent decrease in prevalence of tobacco use among those [future] adults if the [legal age] were raised to 19, a 12 percent decrease if raised to 21, and a 16 percent decrease if raised to 25."

Thus far, only Lanesborough has decided to raise the legal age to purchase tobacco products, but that doesn't take effect until 2018. Meanwhile, Lenox, Stockbridge, Lee and Williamstown are among local towns considering a change, Wilusz said.

Elizabeth Rolison, who manages the Tobacco-Free Community Partnership at the Berkshire Area Health Education Center, said Monday she would be attending a meeting on the subject in Williamstown and would like to see the town raise the legal age.

She said she hopes such a change would encourage Lanesborough to raise its age sooner, as the two towns share a school district.

Rolison added that "my focus is on youth," and she stresses the importance of discouraging tobacco use among teens.

Citing sobering statistics on tobacco use, Wilusz said Berkshire County has some of the highest rates of tobacco use in the state. North Adams has the highest rate in the state, he said, at 28 percent of adults, and Pittsfield's rate is 22 percent.

The statewide rate is 15 percent, he said, adding that Great Barrington and Lee also have high rates of use.

According to a list compiled from the Massachusetts Municipal Association and distributed by Wilusz, Western Massachusetts communities having raised or taking action to raise the legal age include Amherst, Ashland, Greenfield, Gill, Holyoke, Hatfield, Lanesborough, Leverett, Montague and South Hadley. Enditem