Proposed Legislation Could Raise Smoking Age Limit

It's not a law yet, but one Oklahoma lawmaker wants to raise the age requirement to buy tobacco products. A Lawton representative says it's strictly public health related, but some businesses say it will damage their sales. Currently four other states have increased their age requirements when purchasing tobacco to 19 years old. Now representative Ann Coody of Lawton wants Oklahoma to start a trend and raise the age limit to 21 years old. Six thousand Oklahomans die every year because of tobacco and our state spends over a billion dollars in direct health care costs, related to tobacco usage. State representative Ann Coody wants those numbers to change. "If people waited until they were a little bit more mature, to start using tobacco that perhaps they would've obtained the maturity not to do it at all," says Representative Ann Coody.

That's the thought behind House bill 2314, which would increase the age requirement to buy tobacco from 18 to 21 gradually over the next three years. Representative Coody says this is strictly to help our state's public health. QuikTrip spokesperson Mike Thornbrugh says ultimately it will hurt business more than anything. "There maybe some adults that are going to quit but all you are going to do is send them to a smoke shop," says Thornbrugh. "They represent a different nation to have laws of its own," says Coody. You see this legislation doesn't apply to Indian smoke shops, it would still be legal for them to sell tobacco to an 18 year old.

"For QT it's the business we will lose, the revenues for the city and the state will decline," says Thornbrugh. Representative Coody says in response, yes it might bring down sales, but long term the state of Oklahoma would save money. We wouldn't have to pay for health care costs. "I want us to grow economically but I don't want to do that at the cost of poor health for our people," says Coody. We reached out to several smoke shops and none of them wanted to talk about this topic. The proposed legislation passed through the House Public Health Committee today, it will now be passed onto the House of Representatives for review.