The Tasmanian Government revealed its five-year preventive health plan which includes the lifting of legal smoking age to 21 or older.
According to the report of The Mercury, the state government plans to improve the distressing health statistics by drafting a consultative healthy Tasmania five-year strategic plan. Part of the plan is the consideration of raising the legal age for smoking to 21 or 25. Health Minister Michael Ferguson stated that the plan includes the deliberate ambition of taking the population to the healthiest by 2025.
The site also added that Mr. Ferguson said that to achieve noteworthy health benefits, international evidence pointed out to lifting the minimum legal age. More than 30 per cent of Tasmanians aged 18-24 are daily or occasional smokers, study shows.
According to these studies, most smokers take up the habit before the age of 25, Nine MSN wrote. Mr. Ferguson even confirmed the high rates of youth smoking and teenage mothers smoking during pregnancy.
Cancer Council of Tasmania representative Penny Egan said 32 percent of Tasmanians aged between 18 and 24 are smokers, the site added. Egan supports the government's move to get rid of the addiction. The Australian Medical Association also is backs the plan of the state government.
However, Tasmanian MLC Ivan Dean plans to ban smoking for people who were born from year 2000, ABC News reported. Mr. Dean believes that the plan of lifting the legal smoking age will not be successful in dropping the rate.
ABC News quoted Mr. Dean saying "We're saying at 18 years of age smoking is OK for you, that's the anomaly in the law and that's what raising it from 21 or 25 will do as well. It indicates or supports smoking at some age." His bill is at present being well thought-out by a Parliamentary Committee.
If the plan push through, Tasmania could have the sternest tobacco laws in the world.
