 New York City’s 18-year-olds can vote in their first election next week, but soon they won’t be able to buy a pack of cigarettes.
The city’s famously tough smoking laws got even tougher on Wednesday when the city council voted to raise the minimum age to buy tobacco from 18 – the federal minimum – to 21. New York isn’t the first US locale to tighten age restrictions – you have to be 19 to buy smokes in several states, including New Jersey, and two towns in Massachusetts have raised their age limit to 21 – but the council bragged of being the first “major city” to pass such a strict rule. Continue reading » | 
