Should the Legal Age for the Purchase of Tobacco Be Increased to 21 Years?

The tobacco epidemic may be declining in developed countries but is rising rapidly in developing countries, such as India. Effective policies to counter targeting of young people by the tobacco industry will be a key determinant of the magnitude of the epidemic over the coming decades. Many signatories to the Framework Convention for Tobacco Control (FCTC) have adopted recommendations of Article 16 and put in place policy that prescribes a legal age of purchase for tobacco of 18 years. This paper presents a case for increasing the legal age for sale for the purchase of tobacco to 21 years in India. We argue that this could be an effective tobacco-control measure, if complemented with other key enforcement measures, such as the licensing of tobacco vendors. National and state tobacco-control programs must conduct annual random compliance checks and back these with punitive measures as prescribed under the national tobacco-control law, which restricts access to minor. Additionally there should be a national, state, and district level strategy with a timeframe for achieving a target compliance rate.