Lane County commissioners boost age to 21 for buying and using tobacco

[TexasTowelie]

Smoke ’em if you got ’em, as long as you are also old enough to drink in Oregon.

Lane County will be the first county in the state to raise the minimum age for buying or using tobacco, going up from age 18 to 21. On a 3-2 vote, the Lane County Board of Commissioners on Tuesday approved an ordinance raising the legal tobacco age countywide, including in Eugene, Springfield and the 10 other cities in the county.

The new county ordinance is the latest in the growing Tobacco 21 campaign, an effort to pass similar local and state laws around the country. California and Hawaii have statewide laws setting the minimum age for tobacco purchase or use at 21, and Oregon lawmakers are pursuing legislation.

Commissioners Faye Stewart, Pat Farr and Pete Sorenson voted Tuesday for the tobacco age ordinance in Lane County. Commissioners Jay Bozievich and Sid Leiken voted against it.

Read more: http://registerguard.com/rg/news/35378240-76/lane-county-commissioners-boost-age-to-21-for-buying-and-using-tobacco.html.csp

[MichMan]

1. Children shoudn't smoke nm

[Doreen]

2. I do not understand.

You can vote, you can join the military and die, you will be charged as an adult for any crime, you can legally rent without parents consent, and do anything else that "adults" do. You however are not allowed to drink or smoke. This law will not stop it and those who have already been doing it in the first place are not going to stop. Stupid law.

[TexasTowelie]

3. It's the dichotomy of

some citizens are more (or less) equal than other citizens. Discrimination takes makes many forms, but in this instance at least they will grow out of it. I was lucky and became 21 years old a whole three months before they raised the drinking age in Texas; therefore, I had to buy the booze for my college roommate who wasn't as lucky.