PolicyLab

PolicyLab researcher Brian Jenssen, MD, MSHP, wrote an opinion piece for PennLive that provides an overview on the efficacy of Tobacco 21, an initiative that would raise the minimum age to purchase tobacco to 21. This initiative is highly important because, more than 50 years after the first Surgeon General’s report alerting the public to the health risks of tobacco products, cigarette smoking remains the leading cause of preventable death in the United States. While the majority of these deaths are in adults, more than 90 percent of adult smokers begin when they are under the age of 18. Read the opinion piece here.