TEHRAN, Feb 05 - Cigarette smokers in Hawaii state of US are expected to wait until the age of 100 in order they can smoke.
TEHRAN, Young Journalists Club (YJC) - A lawmaker in Hawaii introduced a bill that would bar cigarette sales to anyone under the age of 100.
The bill proposed by a local Democratic representative Richard Creagan, would effectively amount to a cigarette ban by 2024.
Hawaii already has some of the toughest laws on cigarette sales but Creagan -- an emergency room doctor -- believes more needs to be done to ban "the deadliest artifact in human history," according to his proposed bill.
"Basically, we essentially have a group who are heavily addicted -- in my view, enslaved by a ridiculously bad industry -- which has enslaved them by designing a cigarette that is highly addictive, knowing that it highly lethal. And, it is," he told the Hawaii Tribune-Herald.
Under current law, one must be 21-years-old to purchase cigarettes in Hawaii. Nationwide, the minimum age is 18 or 19.
Creagan's proposal calls for raising the cigarette-buying age to 30 by next year, 40 in 2021, 50 in 2022 and 60 in 2023. By 2024, the minimum age would be 100.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, cigarette smoking is the leading cause of preventable disease and death in the United States, accounting for nearly half a million deaths every year.
Source: AFP
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