Steve Burns
WMAL.com

WASHINGTON – (WMAL) A package of anti-tobacco and anti-smoking bills advanced in the D.C. Council Tuesday, among them a bill raising the minimum age to purchase cigarettes at 21. The District would join Hawaii, California, Boston, Chicago and New York in increasing the minimum age.

“Nationally, almost ten percent of high school students admit to smoking tobacco in the past 30 days,” Councilmember Yvette Alexander said. “with most of those students obtaining tobacco products from friends of legal age.”

Alexander introduced the bill, maintaining it would help teenagers avoid ever getting involved with cigarettes.

“Studies have shown that smoking initiation is rare after the formative teenage years,” she said.

The bill didn’t come without controversy, not about cigarettes themselves, but about the disciplinary impacts of the law.

“There’s a direct correlation between someone being suspended from school at a very young age, and them ending up caught up in the criminal justice system,” Councilmember David Grosso said. “It’s not just one issue. It’s a cumulative effect that puts this burden on our youth, and we’re adding to that.”

Council Chairman Phil Mendelson agreed with him, noting the law could also be used for a pretextual stop by police – a minor infraction used to investigate an unrelated, more serious offense.

“Our approach seems to be, ‘well, we’ll just make it illegal, and that’s how we’ll fix the problem,’ and that’s wrong,” Mendelson said.

The bill passed 10-3.

Another anti-tobacco bill, passed without debate, makes it illegal to use chewing tobacco at sporting events, with an eye towards the Nationals and their opponents.

“This bill reduces our children’s exposure to tobacco use, by their role models,” Councilmember Kenyan McDuffie said. “The use of smokeless tobacco among young people actually increased between 1999 and 2013 to 8.8 percent.”

The bill follows similar measures in San Francisco, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York City.

Finally, the Council also gave initial approval to a bill forcing e-cigarette users to comply with all smoking laws already on the books, making it illegal, for example, for them to light up inside a restaurant or workplace.

All bills will see a final vote later in the session before being sent to Mayor Muriel Bowser for approval.

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