Only 4 percent of smokers succeed in quitting on their own. (Photo : REUTERS)
Raising the smoking age will be very beneficial and will lessen the forecasted 4.2 million fewer years of life lost for the coming generation of American adults, according to a study.
Barring people under the age of 21 from legally smoking will give a result of around quarter of a million less premature deaths and 50,000 fewer lunch cancer deaths of people born between 2000 and 2019 due to tobacco use.
Through the request of the United States Food and Drug Administration, the conducted study compared the foreseen benefits of raising the minimum legal age of people allowed to buy tobacco products. While it is currently 18 years old in most states, it is 19, 21 or 25 in some states.
The study theoretically concluded that raising the legal age to 25 years old, which is the prevalence smoking age of teens today would decline by 16 percent, CNN reported.
Since the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) were not allowed to raise the MLA for tobacco products above 18 years of age by the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act of 2009, it authorized the Institute of Medicine (IOM) to give a report investigating the public health implications of raising the MLA. However, the IOM were told not to make a direct recommendation on whether or not the MLA should be raised.
Raising the MLA may not easily create a quick result or a drastic change within social sources to limit tobacco exposure to people in this age group. However, raising to 21 might delay the initiation of smoking, which is defined as having smoked 100 cigarettes, according to Medical News Today.
