Mayor Bloomberg expressed clearly the motivation of the new law as a need to focus on health. “People always try to put things like selling cigarettes in the context of jobs and whether or not it helps or hurts stores. I think that is just so outrageously misplaced. This is an issue of whether we’re going to kill people. This century a billion people will die from smoking around the world”, he said.
The number of smokers with ages between 18 and 20 in NYC is estimated to be around 27,000. However, the law doesn’t prohibit tobacco possession, it only makes more difficult to procure it.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg himself is a former smoker. New York City is the only city in America that prohibits tobacco sales to young adults and it also has the nation’s highest cigarette taxes .Some critics signaled that this law will drive teenagers to the black market.
