To the Editor:
Re “Raise the Legal Age for Cigarette Sales” (editorial, March 6):
Big Tobacco and its proxies often say, “If someone is old enough to fight in the United States military, he or she is old enough to smoke.” But maximizing individual freedom means the opposite. Nicotine enslaves smokers in their addiction, leaving most of them unable to quit despite numerous attempts. That’s why most current smokers advocate a minimum legal sales age of 21 for tobacco products.
Moreover, recent neuroscience research indicates that nicotine acts as a gateway drug by rewiring the adolescent brain to make heroin, cocaine and other opioids more addictive.
The leaders of more than 100 cities and towns in Massachusetts have formally voted to adopt a minimum legal sales age of 21 (MLSA 21). Adults should be free to choose, but Big Tobacco should not be free to entice our children into a lethal addiction through cigarettes, nor through e-cigarettes and other new tobacco products that are cheap, sweet and far too accessible.
KEN FARBSTEIN
Needham, Mass.
The writer was the grass-roots campaign coordinator for Tobacco Free Mass through December 2015.
