Williamstown Board of Health Favors Raising Tobacco Age to 21
 Board of Health Chairman Ronald A. Stant, left, and Health Officer Jeffrey Kennedy. The board is leaning toward raising the age for buying cigarettes to 21. |
The panel heard a report from the director of public health initiatives for the Berkshire Area Health Education Center, who said officials in several county towns are interested in increasing the legal age from 18 to 21.
"There's talk," Joan G. Rubel told the board. "I think the science is clear now. If all teens now could only purchase at 21, you'd have a 12 percent drop in smoking by the time they were adults. That's impressive."
Rubel pointed to a report issued in March by the Institute of Medicine. It found that increasing the age from 18 to 21 would prevent 249,000 premature deaths among Americans born between 2000 and 2019.
"It's another tool in the toolbox," Rubel said of the higher age minimum. "We're thinking high school kids won't be as easily exposed to a 21-year-old as they are to an 18-year-old to buy cigarettes for them."
Health Agent Jeffrey Kennedy told the board that it would be a relatively simple fix to adopt the town's code.
He also said Laura Kittross of the Berkshire Public Health Alliance is planning a meeting for health officials throughout the county to talk about the idea of raising the legal age.
"Personally, I like the idea of the towns in Berkshire County doing it together and setting a date," Rubel said. "Then you don't have a Williamstown kid going to North Adams to buy tobacco."
"As much as I'd like to do it as soon as possible, it would be wonderful if we could do it with other Boards of Health," board member Dr. Erwin Steubner said.
Steubner asked Rubel if there were any legal challenges that could be raised to increasing the minimum age.
"I haven't heard of any," she said. "New York City did it a while ago. I haven't heard of any problems there."
The only Berkshire County town to address the issue to date is Lanesborough, which decided to raise the legal age effective in 2018, Rubel said.
In other business on Monday, the Board of Health continued discussions on two issues related to agriculture in town.
The first was the board's proposed amendment to the town code to create regulations for stables and livestock keeping.
Kennedy told the board that he had consulted with the town's Agriculture Commission, which was on board with a pared down set of regulations that "deleted overcomplicated stuff and kept it simple."
The four members in attendance at Monday's meeting voted unanimously to enact the new code, effective June 1.
Kennedy also gave the board an update on its enforcement order against the piggery operated by Jennifer LaValley-Hurley on Hopper Road.
Kennedy said he and the operators of the farm appeared before Western Massachusetts Housing Court Judge Dina E. Fein on April 22.
"Judge Fein ruled the board has the authority to order the closure of the piggery, that it did not act in an arbitrary manner and that the LaValleys have until June 1 to comply with the board's order," Kennedy said.
That order applies only to the pig operation at the farm and not to the rest of the farm, the board clarified again on Monday.
Tags: board of health, cigarettes, tobacco regulations,
