It's time to RAISE THE LEGAL SMOKING AGE TO 21

Amid the mourning and tributes following the recent death of David Bowie, we were struck by the number of photos that accompanied news stories or were shared on social media that showed the legendary singer holding or smoking a cigarette. While there has not been any elaboration on the type of cancer the 69-year-old Bowie succumbed to, a lifetime of smoking can be a culprit in several different types of cancer. It is also a contributor to cardiac problems, which Bowie also apparently endured in the last decade of his life.

Smoking was as commonplace as chewing a stick of gum in the postwar Britain where Bowie came of age - in the years after World War II, when the country's economy was straitjacketed by rationing and austerity, cigarettes were among the few items readily and abundantly available. It hooked hordes of people in Bowie's age cohort, and many are now dealing with the consequences, if they have not already died off.

Thankfully, the number of tobacco smokers, both here and in other parts of the developed world, has been steadily declining in the half-century since the surgeon general warned about the dire health impacts of tobacco consumption. And lawmakers in several parts of the country are taking an additional, crucial step that could lower the number of people lighting up even further - raising the age at which people can legally buy tobacco to 21.

Hawaii became the first state in the nation to raise the smoking age, with the law going into effect Jan. 1. Legislators in other states are considering similar measures, and a bill made it to the desk of Gov. Chris Christie in New Jersey. State Rep. Vanessa Lowery Brown, a Democrat from the Philadelphia area, introduced a 21-and-over bill for tobacco use in the Pennsylvania House last year, but considering she is defending herself against bribery charges, Brown is hardly in a position to take to the hustings in support of the bill. Cities like Cleveland and New York already raised their legal smoking age to 21.

There's a reason so many lawmakers are taking action on this - there's plenty of evidence it works.

A study from the Institute of Medicine estimates smoking rates would decline by 12 percent and death rates from smoking would fall by 10 percent if the legal smoking age were raised to 21.

Fewer people smoking also means lower insurance premiums and reduced Medicare and Medicaid expenditures, even for nonsmokers.

Then there's the example of Needham, Massachusetts, a Boston suburb which shifted its legal smoking age to 21 in 2005. A decade later, there are 50 percent fewer smokers there than in the rest of the state.

We can also look back to the 1980s, when the legal drinking age returned to 21 in most parts of the United States.

For a roughly 20-year period beforehand, the legal drinking age was lowered to 18, with a corresponding increase in the number of drunken-driving fatalities. In the 30 years since, the number of alcohol-related deaths on our streets and highways has been sliced in half.

Opponents of raising the smoking age counter Americans over age 18 can legally marry without parental consent in 48 of the 50 states (Mississippi and Nebraska are the exceptions), can join the military and cast a ballot. Why not let them make their own decisions when it comes to cigarettes? Besides, it's about "freedom."

It sounds reasonable enough, but when you tally costs incurred, whether in doctors' offices and hospitals, lowered productivity, diminished vitality and lost lives, diverting young people from smoking at an age when they are most likely to pick up the deadly habit is something clearly be beneficial to us all.

-The (Washington) Observer-Reporter

The foregoing opinions do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editorial Board or Times News LLC.