A new bill went into effect on April 1st in South Hadley that changed the age for purchasing tobacco from 18 years old to 21 years old. Raising the tobacco age to 21 in the town of South Hadley is not a good idea.

The people that introduced the bill are only thinking about this issue from one angle. If they look at this issue from a different perspective, they might see that they are doing more harm than good.

First off, raising the age for buying tobacco in one town will not stop people from buying it. If a person between the ages of 18 and 21 wants tobacco, they can go to a different town nearby to get it, or they can just have an older friend buy it for them. This might dissuade some people from smoking as often as they may had been before, but the people that use tobacco everyday will just make the ten minute drive to stock up on whatever they wanted because nicotine is highly addictive.

If a person really wants something, they are going to get it. Look at prohibition in the 1920’s; people started drinking just because it was not allowed for them to drink. If a 19 year old wants to get a tobacco product, they are going to find a way to purchase said tobacco product.

I can see how these activists are trying to help people by hoping to prevent people from picking up a smoking habit, but I believe that they are actually doing more harm than good due to the fact that the local businesses will struggle more in our town financially.

According to wggb.com, a local business woman sold at least 60 cartons of cigarettes a day when the age for tobacco purchase was 18 and said that changing the legal age will cut about 25% of revenue for her business. If you live in South Hadley, your neighbors, the people running these businesses are going to suffer if this bill is passed. If theses businesses suffer, the local economy suffers as well.

The group that initiated this bill are trying to help people, especially teens, by taking away their right to buy any type of tobacco product. If a person wants to use their own money to buy cigarettes, they should be able to, regardless of the health concerns attached to the item. It is their right to use their money to purchase what they want.

Unless this bill is passed statewide, it will not make a very big difference. The process of passing a bill like this statewide will be difficult to say the least, and may take years to actually pass. While the idea is that the law passed in South Hadley will cause a chain reaction, spurring surrounding towns to pass similar laws, but this isn’t necessarily true.

Individual towns may get attention for passing a bill like this one because of the reaction of the general public. But just because the town gets attention for what happens, doesn’t mean many  other towns, or the state will follow. Our town got attention for it for all of two weeks after a few other towns got their fifteen minutes of fame for passing similar laws and then people stopped reporting on it.

Mastorakis may be reached at [email protected]