Right: Online purchases of cigarettes in the USA are difficult to police. Many underaged smokers have their tobacco products delivered to their doors - including by the US Postal Service - with no real identity checks or other age-related measures to enforce smoking laws.
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Arguments against lifting the smoking and vaping age to 21
1. Lifting the smoking age to 21 is unnecessary
Those who oppose lifting the legal smoking age to 21 claim that this is unnecessary as Australia has been highly successful in reducing smoking rates by other means and this age cohort are not at significantly greater risk.
Early data from the Anti-Cancer Council of Victoria show that, in the 1950s, over 50 percent of Australian males aged 16 and over were smokers, compared to about one-quarter of females. By the 1970s, smoking among men declined, probably in response to the initial publicity regarding the health effects of smoking, which first emerged in the 1950s and early 1960s. Women's smoking prevalence has always been lower than men's, but smoking among women continued to increase in the 1970s.
The prevalence of smoking further declined for both men and women between the 1980s and 1998, with the most dramatic drop occurring among males between 1983 and 1986, when prevalence decreased by approximately 15 percent. After a relatively static period in the 1990s, the decline resumed for both sexes after 1998. Data from the National Drug Strategy Household Survey shows that since 2001, there has been a statistically significant decline in the prevalence of smoking for men and women. Between 1995 and 2013 there was a decline of 48 percent in the proportion of the population who smoked.
The latest data from the National Drug Strategy Household Survey (NDSHS) estimated that 11.6 percent of adults smoked daily in 2019. This daily smoking rate has declined from an estimated 12.8 percent in 2016 and has halved since 1991.
Similarly, data from the National Health Survey (NHS) 2017-18 show that smoking rates declined steadily over the nearly three decades to 2017-18 and, after adjusting for age, the proportion of adults who are daily smokers has halved since 1989-90.
Between 2016 and 2019 the proportion of never-smokers (fewer than 100 cigarettes smoked in a lifetime) increased to an all-time high of 63.1 percent across all age groups, 76.4 percent in 18-29-year-olds and 96.6 percent in 14-17-year-olds. Over 15 years (2002 to 2017), the proportion of secondary school students who smoked declined significantly. While 9 percent of secondary school students 12 to 17 were smoking in 2002, in 2017 this had decreased 4-fold to 2 percent. In 2017, among 16- to 17-year-olds, 9 percent were current smokers; the smoking rate for males was 10 percent and for females 9 percent. Less tobacco addiction among younger Australians has been a key driver in reduced smoking prevalence in this country. There are those who claim that this low rate of smoking among Australia's young suggests that lifting the smoking age to 21 may not be necessary, as smoking behaviour is being reduced via other means.Many factors have contributed to Australia's success in reducing the number of its citizens who take up smoking or who continue to smoke. Some important measures have been increasing taxes on tobacco products which have dramatically increased the price and social marketing campaigns focusing on health warnings. The later includes plain packaging and graphic health warnings on every pack. Laws that have substantially reduced sales to minors also appear to have contributed to declines in teenage smoking both in Australia and other countries.
Comprehensive legislation concerning smoke-free enclosed public places has been enacted in Victoria in 1987, the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) (1994), Western Australia (1999), New South Wales (2000), Tasmania (2001), Queensland (2002) and the Northern Territory (2003). Such measures reduce the opportunities for all citizens to smoke and do not focus exclusively on those aged between 18 and 21. Simone Dennis, an associate professor at Australian National University, says a culture of shame surrounding smoking has begun to emerge, and that itself has become a smoking deterrent. President of the Australian Medical Association, Tony Bartone, has stated, 'Australia is a world leader in tobacco reduction [and] targeting cohorts where smoking rates are high will hopefully see smoking targets met.'
Critics of lifting the smoking age to 21 argue that Australians aged between 18 and 21 are not an appropriate target group as they do not form a significantly high proportion of those who smoke.2. There is no clear evidence that lifting the smoking age to 21 will result in a decline in smoking
Critics of lifting the smoking age to 21 argue that there is insufficient evidence to justify that this measure reduces smoking. This concern has been raised in the United States, where lifting the smoking age to 21 has now been adopted across the country.
In 2018, Sage Journal published an article by Paula Lantz, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and James B. Hudak Professor of Health Policy at the Gerald R Ford School of Public Policy which argued that there was to this point limited evidence of the effectiveness of lifting the smoking age to 21. Professor Lantz wrote, 'Despite widespread support and rapid diffusion, the Tobacco 21 policy is not without concerns. There is a lack of empirical evidence regarding its public health impact...
Tobacco 21 is a public policy that has been spreading quickly without an empirical evidence base. To date, there have been no experimental or time-series studies of its impact in the United States or elsewhere.'
In 2016, the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) reported that there has been only one study of a Tobacco 21 policy to that point: An evaluation of the 2005 law change in Needham, Massachusetts, reported a 47 percent decline in smoking among high school students after implementation. This statistic was based on self-reported data from high school students in the area. Self-reported data is often considered unreliable because there is likely to be a bias in the sample. For example, more students who stopped smoking may have reported their behaviour than students who kept smoking.
This research based on results from Needham has been criticised for other flaws. These include that Needham simultaneously implemented additional anti-smoking activities along with the Tobacco 21 policy. This means that is not possible for researchers to determine why the smoking rate among those aged between 18 and 21 fell. Was it because of the smoking age being lifted to 21? Was it because of the other reforms that were put in place? Or, was it because of a combination of these factors. Another concern is that the study did not address the impact on 18-20-year-olds. In addition, caution is needed when generalising public policy results from a small, racially homogenous, and wealthy Boston suburb to other populations and jurisdictions. That is, Needham may simply not have been representative enough of the rest of the United States for the results that were achieved there to be expect elsewhere.
In an article published in Reason on July 25, 2017, Christian Britschgi expressed similar reservations about the apparent success of Needham in reducing youth smoking. Britschgi noted the criticisms made in 2015 by an Instituted of Medicine study which stated, 'Although Needham...has been cited as having seen significant declines in tobacco use and tobacco-related disease, there are no published data on these outcomes.' The paper further explained that no baseline data exists for Needham prior to the town raising the smoking age. That is, the smoking data from Needham before the town changed its laws did not exist in enough detail to make a comparison with what occurred after the law change.
Britschgi further observed that teen smoking has fallen across the United States independently of whether jurisdictions raise their smoking age. In 2005-just as Needham was getting its ban up and running-some 50 percent of American high school seniors had reportedly tried tobacco. By 2015 that figure had fallen to 31 percent according to the University of Michigan's Monitoring the Future study. The number who have smoked in the last 30 days is down even more, from 23 percent to 11.4 percent, the lowest the rate has ever been in the University of Michigan's data. As critics of the Tobacco 21 scheme note, these achievements are not dependent on lifting the smoking age.
3. Lifting the smoking age to 21 will encourage illegal purchases and increase the black market in tobacco products
Those who oppose lifting the smoking age to 21 argue that smokers who can no longer legally obtain cigarettes will resort to illegal means, especially through black-market suppliers.
There have been widespread claims that lifting the smoking age to 21 will only direct these smokers to illegal sources for their supply. Michelle Parker, a communications spokesperson for Imperial Tobacco Australia has stated, 'Demand for tobacco will not be reduced by increasing the legal smoking age. These adults will instead search either for a new method of supply or, more likely, avail themselves of an existing alternative, such as the black market. Illicit tobacco is readily available nationwide. Criminals selling illegal tobacco will sell to anyone of any age.'
The concern that a change in the smoking age will merely feed the black market in illegal tobacco products has been expressed by many around the world. Bill Dombrowski, president of the California Retailers Association, has suggested that raising the smoking age would simply drive young people to the black market. He has claimed, 'If you raise the age, people under 21 will find the cigarettes somewhere else.' Those who warn of the likelihood that lifting the smoking age will simply drive smokers onto the black market point to the large number of smokers who already buy their tobacco products from this source. In 2015, when Tasmania first considered lifting the smoking age to 21, Scott McIntyre, a spokesperson for British American Tobacco Australia, cautioned that 14 percent of tobacco purchased in this country was already coming from the black market.
Six years later, under the influence of further tax increases driving up the cost of cigarettes, it has been noted that illegal tobacco sales are still growing. A KPMG International Limited report estimates that more than 20 per cent of all tobacco consumed in Australia is illicit. This statistic has been affirmed by the founder of Australia's Border Force, Rohan Pike, who has claimed that one in five cigarettes smoked in Australia is now illegal. Pike has stated that normally law-abiding citizens from lower socio-economic backgrounds have been pushed into buying cheap imported 'chop chop' because they cannot afford Australia's 'exorbitant tobacco excise, which is now the highest on tobacco in the world'. Concern has been expressed that the lower price at which illegal tobacco products are sold may act as an incentive for young smokers to keep smoking. Rohan Pike has stated, 'Criminal syndicates are preying on this addiction by smuggling cheap tobacco, largely from Indonesia, Malaysia and China, over our borders, selling it on the streets and in stores for sometimes half the cost of legal tobacco.'
British American Tobacco Australia's spokesperson, Scott McIntyre, has indicated that all that may be happening through Australia's efforts to reduce smoking is that many people are now smoking illegally and at a lower price. McIntyre has stated, 'If the goal is to quit ... you are not actually making people quit, you are just essentially having people smoking the same, but paying less for it.' A similar point has been made by Andrew Gregson , Imperial Tobacco's Australian head of corporate and legal affairs. Gregson has argued that the bill to lift the smoking age in Australia is unenforceable and claimed it would result in young people buying tobacco online or on the black market. Mr Gregson has stated, 'It will merely shift tobacco demand and supply onto other channels.' The growing popularity of 'chop chop', illegally grown or imported raw tobacco, is indicated by the increase in the number of Australian smokers who are rolling their own. The percentage of Australian smokers using raw tobacco rose from 26 per cent in 2006 to 36 per cent in 2016. It has further been claimed that the Internet makes ordering and receiving illegal tobacco products far easier than it once was. A United States study conducted in 2016 found that minors ordering online received cigarettes from 32.4 percent of purchase attempts, all delivered by the United States Postal Service (USPS) from overseas sellers. None failed due to age or ID verification. All failures were due to payment processing problems. USPS left 63.6 percent of delivered orders at the door with the remainder handed to minors with no age verification.
4. Lifting the smoking age to 21 undermines the civil liberty of those over 18
Many opponents of lifting the smoking age to 21 argue that this is a serious infringement of the rights of legal adults who should be able to decide for themselves if they wish to smoke.
Opposition to lifting the smoking age in Tasmania has come from civil libertarians and others who are concerned that such a law strips away the rights of legal adults. An online survey of one thousand Tasmanians conducted in 2016 found that half of those surveyed believed that raising the smoking age would infringe civil liberties.
This view has been expressed by a range of Australian ethicists and social commentators, including some public health experts. On March 30, 2016, The Conversation published a comment by Simon Chapman, Emeritus Professor in Public Health at the University of Sydney, titled 'When is a smoker an adult? Why we shouldn't raise the legal smoking age to 21'. Professor Chapman has written, 'An argument often put against raising the legal smoking age to 21 is that the legal adult age for many significant rights is 18. At 18 you can vote, sign contracts, get married without parental consent, join the armed forces, be held criminally responsible for your actions, and serve custodial sentences in adult jails.' Professor Chapman explains further that if young people are believed to be capable of exercising personal responsibility in all these other aspects of their lives, then the same standard should be applied to their decisions regarding taking up smoking. He stated, 'The argument here is that in all these areas sentience and responsibility are assumed. The freedoms involved carry consequences (both positive and negative) for which those engaging in those freedoms should take personal responsibility. I find that argument pretty hard to disagree with.' There are many within the United States who are equally opposed to lifting the smoking age to 21, a public health strategy referred to there as Tobacco 21, on the basis that it takes away the rights of legal adults to make decisions about their actions. In 2018, Sage Journal published an article by Paula Lantz, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and James B. Hudak Professor of Health Policy at the Gerald R Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan, in which she argued against lifting the smoking age to 21 as a civil liberties issue. Professor Lantz stated, 'Young adults [those aged 18 and above] can legally get married, serve in the military, purchase property, and make a plethora of other adult decisions; nonetheless, Tobacco 21 would prohibit them from purchasing (but not using) tobacco products.'
Professor Lantz criticises prohibiting those 18 to 20 from smoking as an example of paternalism, the limiting of the rights of the individual in the belief that governments are better placed to make decisions, especially health or safety decisions for the individual. Professor Lantz has argued, 'The growth in public policies that infringe upon personal behaviors and choices that are not related to infectious disease or otherwise do not directly affect others has fueled "nanny state" concerns...Some view Tobacco 21 in the same paternalistic light as other public health policies that restrict adult personal choice, such as mandatory helmet laws, regulatory limits on restaurant portion sizes, bans on trans fats, and sugar-sweetened beverage taxes.'
A similar point of view was adopted by Paul Hsieh, who despite being a physician with a long-standing interest in public health, opposes lifting the smoking age to 21. Hsieh is the co-founder of Freedom and Individual Rights in Medicine. In a comment published in Forbes on May 28, 2019, Hsieh stated, 'As a physician, I think smoking is a terrible and foolish idea. But as an American, I respect and defend every adult's right to make that decision for themselves. (This is analogous to respecting and defending everyone's right to free speech, even if some people exercise that right to express foolish or offensive opinions.) Your life is yours to live...Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.'
5. There are other more effective ways to reduce smoking
Those opposed to lifting the smoking age to 21 question the effectiveness of this measure and argue that there are better ways of reducing the prevalence of smoking in Australia.
In 2015, when Tasmania first proposed lifting the smoking age in the state to 21, public health experts warned that other measures were more urgently needed to reduce national smoking rates, including better enforcing the current legal smoking age. The Australian Medical Association's then president, Professor Brian Owler, stated, 'Prohibition has not been shown to be particularly effective as many young people under 18 still have access (to tobacco).'
Greg Barns, barrister and criminal justice spokesperson, has also doubted the effectiveness of prohibition, stating, 'All you're going to do is get people who are 21, 22, or with fake ID, going into shops and buying cigarettes and distributing them.' Professor Owler claimed that adding health warnings to movies and television shows that displayed smoking and regulating the sale of e-cigarettes to young people would better reduce smoking. He stated, 'We've got to keep getting the message out there, using other levers like price and taxation and at the end of the day trying to deter people taking smoking up.' The Professor further suggested that assisting people to quit smoking would be a valuable measure. He proposed subsidizing some of the more expensive Nicotene therapies on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.
Critics of further prohibition have argued that there is little point in extending the smoking age to 21 when there are still young people taking up smoking under the current legal age of 18. They claim that what is required is more effective enforcement of the regulations that currently exist. Maurice Swanson, president of the Australian Council on Smoking and Health, has stated, 'If we could ensure no retailer in Australia sold tobacco to a child ... that would put an even bigger dent (in the youth smoking rate).'
In 1996, it was reported that 38 per cent of Australian students who smoked obtained their own cigarettes through illegal sales from retail outlets such as milk bars, corner stores, petrol stations and supermarkets. By 2017, the percentage of underage smokers buying cigarettes had fallen; however, health experts still regard illegal, under-age, cigarette purchase to be a significant problem. In 2017, most (84 percent of) Australian secondary school students who currently smoke (smoke at least weekly) did not buy their last cigarette themselves. The most common way Australian adolescents accessed cigarettes was through friends (48 percent of current smokers aged 12-17), followed by purchasing the cigarettes themselves (16 percent of current smokers aged 12-17) and asking someone else to buy them (15 percent of current smokers aged 12-17). The likelihood of having made a personal purchase increased with age, from about 8 percent of 12-15-year-olds, to about 21 percent of 16 -17-year-olds. This last figure of 21 percent of 16-17-year-olds buying the cigarettes they smoked indicates a significant enforcement problem which critics argue must be addressed before governments could even consider increasing the legal smoking age further. Stafford Sanders, who, in 2009, coordinated a coalition of pressure groups called Protecting Children from Tobacco has claimed that convenience stores and service stations were some of the 'worst offenders' when it came to the places where underage teens and children could obtain cigarettes. It has been noted that in some states in the United States which had introduced laws to lift the smoking age to 21, the move had only served to highlight the inadequacy of the enforcement measures that were in place. Findings from New York City showed no increase in ID checks following the new law. It has further been noted that controlling distribution outlets is another important but neglected measure that is necessary to reduce adolescent smoking. United States research has indicated that areas that are more densely populated with tobacco retailers may promote adolescent smoking not only by increasing access but also by increasing the promotions to smoke within the local environment. A 2018 meta-analysis exploring the association between tobacco outlet density arounds homes and schools and adolescents' past-month cigarette smoking found higher tobacco outlet density around homes was associated with significant increased odds of past-month smoking. The researchers illustrated that for each subsequent tobacco outlet near adolescents' homes the odds of having smoked in the past month increased 8 percent.
Critics of lifting the smoking age to 21 argue that there are other measures that must be taken to control the distribution and availability of cigarettes that are more important.