Push to raise legal smoking age gaining traction
Posted Mar 5, 2017 07:07:53 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
The Canadian Cancer Society is pushing to raise the legal smoking age to 21, claiming it could lower the youth smoking rate by 12%.
Federal Health Minister Jane Philpott says the goal is to get the overall smoking rate to just 5% by 2035, which could be greatly helped by stopping teens from starting young.
Senior Policy Analyst Rob Cunningham with the Canadian Cancer Society says this simple change to federal policy would be a huge improvement.
“We’d reduce youth smoking by about one eighth. That in itself is very significant. One eighth of 37,000 deaths is enormous from a public health perspective. A federal age is better because it applies across Canada,” says Cunningham.
He adds that a US study has already lead to several cities and States raising their legal smoking ages.
