Underage addiction up in smoke

I remember the first time I smoked a cigarette.

I was 15 or 16, on the back deck of my friend’s house with our group of friends. They were all a couple of years older than me, and most of them smoked.

I asked for a cigarette.

Then another.

Then another.

From then on it became one or two a week, then half a pack a week, and slowly but surely, I was smoking half a pack a day.

Coughing up red lugis in the shower, feeling my breaths hurt, feeling cravings so strong I could literally punch someone in the face — it was a downward spiral.

My experience isn’t unique, though.

Every day about 4,000 children smoke their first cigarette.

A thousand become daily cigarette smokers.

Some might see New York City’s recent move to raise the minimum age to purchase tobacco up to 21, among other harsh restrictions, as infringing on the free will of adults.

I don’t.

I see it as a step to help prevent Ike Hajinazarians all over New York City from getting that first cigarette.

How many 16-year-olds hang out with 18-year-olds? Plenty.

How many hang out with 21-year-olds? Not that many.

By pushing up the minimum age, New York City is replacing the group of “underagers” from 16-17 to 18-20.

Adults.

Adults who are less susceptible to peer pressure.

The job of a government is to protect its citizens.

It took me three cigarettes to get addicted, to start the slide down this slippery slope that only ends in cancer and death.

Maybe if 18-year-old Ike had been in the same situation, he would have been smart enough to not take that first cigarette.

And maybe 19-year-old Ike would be able to go more than four hours without nicotine.

­— ikehaji@indiana.edu
Follow columnist Ike Hajinazarian on Twitter @_IkeHaji.