The major flaw in Alabama’s tobacco purchase age debate

(Opinion) A bill sponsored by Rep. Chris Pringle (R-Mobile) that would raise the state’s minimum age for all tobacco purchases from 19 to 21 years old has gained the support of five Alabama physician groups, and it has a good chance of passing.

“Smoking remains one of the most preventable causes of heart disease by making the heart work harder and raising the blood pressure, which can trigger a stroke,” Medical Association President Jerry Harrison, M.D., said in a statement of support for the bill earlier this month. “So, raising Alabama’s legal tobacco age limit by a couple of years in order to add years to our children’s lives only makes sense.”

Putting aside the question of whether Pringle’s bill would actually mitigate tobacco use, and particularly cigarette use, among teens, the bill and the primary arguments used to support it are bad for this reason: they treat all tobacco products as equally dangerous.

All tobacco products are not created equally, and it’s not even close. Cigarette smoking is quite obviously dangerous, responsible for some 480,000 deaths each year in the United States, according to the CDC. An estimated 41,000 of those deaths are connected to secondhand smoking. There’s no avoiding that harsh reality, and there should be a serious debate about the freedom to smoke vs. public health.

It is important, though, to note the CDC’s precise language: cigarette smoking is responsible for an estimated 1 in 5 deaths annually, not tobacco use.

We all know this, but cigarette smoke is dangerous because it is riddled with harmful chemicals and because most cigarette smokers smoke habitually, the effects of those chemicals upon the respiratory system and the heart are catalyzed.

Pipe tobacco and cigars are not consumed in the same fashion as cigarettes and simply do not carry the same risks. Pipe tobacco and cigar smoke are not typically inhaled and do not contain the carcinogens that cigarettes do.

As for chewing tobacco, it presents dangers of lip and gum disease but does not bring with it risks of lung cancer and heart disease which, again, are what kill smokers.

Unfortunately, because cigarettes contribute to so many deaths and because they are the most commonly consumed form of tobacco, they distort debates about tobacco policy. If we are going to regulate tobacco use because of the harm it causes, we must be responsible enough to make distinctions between cigarettes and other forms of tobacco which are not nearly as harmful.

Jeremy Beaman is in his final year at the University of Mobile and also writes for The College Fix. Follow him on Twitter @jeremywbeaman.