Tobacco Of Tobacco And Tobacco - 1406 Words

The younger the individual when they initially start smoking, the greater the possibility of addiction and becoming a lifelong smoker (King, 2015). Tobacco addiction is an issue the United States is struggling with, partially due to the fact that 90% of adult smokers began before or by the age of 18 (Ahmad, 2015). Researchers believe that since younger people become easily addicted to tobacco and older people have an easier time quitting tobacco product use, raising the minimum age for tobacco sales could prevent this addiction from spreading (Ahmad, 2015). Public opinion about tobacco use, the Tobacco 21 bill, California’s computer model, retail, and the comparison in impact between alcohol and tobacco purchasing ages are all considered†¦show more content†¦The state hopes to accomplish this through their Tobacco 21 bill, but they worry about compliances with the retailers of tobacco products. In order to ensure compliance, the State Department of Health Services i n California will conduct 4 random checks annually at tobacco outlets (Ahmad, 2015). There are an estimated 73,700 tobacco selling outlets in California which means there will be a total of 294,800 inspections per year (Ahmad, 2015). To help support the Tobacco 21 bill, the government of California has developed an elaborate computer model. The model calculates the possibilities if the legal tobacco age was raised from 18 to 21 while including multiple aspects in the consideration of the results presented by the model. The model presents drastic changes in smokers of all different age categories over a fifty year span (Ahmad, 2015). The 14-17 year old category is estimated to drop from 15.4% to 2.4%, the 18- 20 year old category could drop from 16.8% to 7.9%, and the 21 and older category could drop from 16.7% to 12.6%. The model also presented the results for the legal age being increased to 19 or 20, and while those results proved that the prevalence dropped, it is not as drastic as if the age were raised to 21. This proves that the age gap between 21 year olds and underage tobacco users is significant enough to reduce the start of use and