Hawaii can increase the legal age of smoking to 100 years

Hawaii could raise the legal age of smoking to 100 years, effectively banning cigarettes for the vast majority of people in that state.

In a new bill proposed by Democrat Richard Creagan, the age of smoking would increase rapidly between 2020 and 2024.

It will have to go through the state legislature and resist a strong reaction from the tobacco companies to become state law.

Electronic cigarettes, chewing tobacco and cigars are not included in the bill.

Dr. Creagan, an emergency physician before his election as the state's representative in 2014, called the cigarette "the most lethal artifact of the history of humanity" in The law project.

In January 2017, Hawaii became the first US state to raise its smoking age to 21 years. In other US states, the legal age is usually 18 or 19 years old.

The new bill, HB 1509, suggests that the age of smoking is expected to reach 30 years in 2020, 40 years in 2021, 50 years in 2022 and 60 years in 2023 – until, ultimately, in 2024, it takes a hundred years to buy cigarettes. .

He told the Hawaii Tribune-Herald that a "ridiculously bad industry" had designed the cigarette to make it "very addictive, knowing it was very deadly".

"We do not allow people to have free access to opioids, for example, or any prescription drug," he said.

Dr. Creagan believes that electronic cigarettes and cigars are not taken into account, but that they are much safer for smokers than ordinary cigarettes – although the National Cancer Institute warns that "all tobacco products are harmful and cause cancer ".

"Regular smokers of cigars and cigarettes have similar levels of risk for cancers of the oral cavity and the esophagus," the site adds.

The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention claim that smoking is the leading cause of preventable disease and death in the country.

In the United States, about half a million people die each year from smoking-related diseases.