Can Brookline's New Anti-Smoking Law Create a Tobacco-Free Generation? - BU Today
BU School of Law Professor Katharine Silbaugh cosponsored a Brookline, Mass., ordinance that ties being able to buy tobacco to birth date, not to age. Anyone born after January 1, 2000, cannot legally buy tobacco or vaping products. Photo by Jackie Ricciardi
A Q&A with LAW’s Katharine Silbaugh, cosponsor of Brookline’s new first-in-the nation ordinance linking tobacco sales to birth date
BU’s Katharine Silbaugh has dedicated much of her work to safeguarding adolescents and their health.
That commitment became tangible policy in fall 2021, when the town of Brookline put into practice a first-in-the-nation ordinance that ties the right to buy tobacco to a person’s birth date, not their age. Anyone born after January 1, 2000, meaning anyone who turned 21 since January 1, 2021, is not able to legally purchase cigarettes or vaping products in Brookline—ever.
Silbaugh, a School of Law professor, a Law Alumni Scholar, and an expert on family law, adolescents, gender and household labor, cosponsored the ordinance with another Brookline resident, pharmacist Anthony Ishak. The goal of the ordinance is to prevent young people in Brookline from adopting a highly addictive habit that could kill them later in life. Cigarettes have been shown to kill nearly half a million Americans every year and cost more than $300 billion in healthcare payments, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Brookline approved the ordinance in November 2020, with 139 town meeting members voting yes, 78 no, and 11 abstaining. State Attorney General Maura Healy approved the rule last August. And then in December, the new ordinance became international news when New Zealand, which had consulted with Brookline officials about their new tobacco-free ordinance, announced its own proposal, which would start in 2027, to prohibit the sale of tobacco products to anyone born after 2008. The legal age of smoking in New Zealand is 18.
BU Today talked with Silbaugh about why she thinks the new ordinance is a good idea, how it will work in practice, and how it connects with her work to protect adolescents.
source: https://www.bu.edu/articles/2022/anti-smoking-law-brookline/
Your content is great. However, if any of the content contained herein violates any rights of yours, including those of copyright, please contact us immediately by e-mail at media[@]kissrpr.com.