Massachusetts lawmakers push for an effort to ban all tobacco sales over time

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Massachusetts lawmakers push for an effort to ban all tobacco sales over time

2024-11-29 13:16 Last Updated At：13:31

BOSTON (AP) — A handful of Massachusetts lawmakers are hoping to persuade their colleagues to support a proposal that would make the state the first to adopt a ban meant to eliminate the use of tobacco products over time.

Other locations have weighed similar “generational tobacco bans,” which phase out the use of tobacco products based not just on a person's age but on birth year.

Under a Massachusetts law signed in 2018, the age to buy any tobacco product — including cigarettes, cigars and e-cigarettes — was raised to 21. Massachusetts also has banned the sale of all flavored tobacco products in an effort to reduce youth interest in nicotine.

The new proposal, which lawmakers plan to file next year, would expand the effort to curb smoking by gradually ending all sales of nicotine and tobacco products. If the bill is approved, young people not old enough to legally purchase nicotine and tobacco would never be lawfully able to purchase them in Massachusetts, thereby creating no more new users.

It would not apply to marijuana, and the cutoff date would be adjusted when passed to ensure everyone age 21 and above at that time would not be affected.

Brookline, a town of about 63,000 neighboring Boston, was the first municipality in the country to adopt such a ban in 2020. Instead of raising the age for purchasing cigarettes, the bylaw blocks the sale of tobacco to anyone born on or after Jan. 1, 2000. The rule went into effect in 2021.

That would mean at some point in the future no one would be allowed to buy any tobacco products in the town. The measure was challenged, but the state's highest court weighed in earlier this year, upholding the ban.

Other Massachusetts cities and towns already have approved similar tobacco bans, including Malden, Melrose, Reading, Stoneham, Wakefield, and Winchester.

Democratic state Sen. Jason Lewis, one of the backers of the statewide proposal, said the bill would "save countless lives and create a healthier world for the next generation.”

“We all know the devastating health effects of nicotine and tobacco products, especially on our youth," he said.

Nicotine and tobacco products are addictive and can increase the risk of lung cancer, heart disease, stroke and other illnesses.

Nearly 9 out of 10 adults who smoke cigarettes daily first tried smoking by age 18, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which also found that in 2024 about 2 in 5 students who had ever used a tobacco product currently used them.

Peter Brennan, executive director of the New England Convenience Store and Energy Marketers Association, said the proposal would undercut small mom and pop shops that rely on cigarettes for a significant portion of their sales.

It also would put stores located near neighboring states that allow the sale of cigarettes to all adults at a competitive disadvantage.

“It’s a terrible idea,” he said. “You’re really just taking away adults’ right to purchase a legal, age-restricted product.”

Taking certain rights away from some adults and not others is likely unconstitutional, he said, adding that other prohibition efforts haven’t worked, like past bans on alcohol, marijuana and gambling.

It's unclear how much support the proposal has in the Legislature.

Massachusetts has taken other steps in recent decades to curb smoking, including raising taxes on cigarettes. Those taxes would presumably be reduced and ultimately eliminated by an incremental statewide smoking ban.

Any reduction in cigarette tax revenue would be more than offset by reduced healthcare costs and other savings, Lewis said.

In 2022, 10.4% of adults in Massachusetts reported smoking cigarettes, according to the state Department of Public Health.

Some California lawmakers have pushed to ban all tobacco sales, filing legislation last year to make it illegal to sell cigarettes and other products to anyone born after Jan. 1, 2007.

In 2022, New Zealand became the first nation to pass a law intended to impose a lifetime ban on young people buying cigarettes by mandating that tobacco can’t ever be sold to anybody born on or after Jan. 1, 2009. The law was later axed.

In the U.K., Prime Minister Rishi Sunak proposed raising the legal age that people in England can buy cigarettes by one year, every year until it is eventually illegal for the whole population. The proposal failed to win approval earlier this year.

Santa's annual train visit delivers hope and magic to one corner of coal country

2024-11-29 13:15 Last Updated At：13:21

ON BOARD THE SANTA TRAIN (AP) — Since 1943, the people of Appalachian Kentucky, Virginia, and Tennessee have looked forward to Santa's arrival. Not in a sleigh on their rooftops, but on a train.

The Santa Train marks its 82nd running this year, bringing presents and joy to small towns along a 110-mile portion of the CSX rail line tucked into remote coal-country river valleys. Many of the children who line the tracks and wait for Santa on the Saturday before Thanksgiving are the third, fourth or fifth generation to do so.

“I look for it every year. I count the days down,” said Sandra Owens, of Haysi, Virginia, who held a pink pillowcase with a message in black ink, “Thank you CSX and volunteers for the Santa Train. 82.”

Owens moved to Kentucky from Delaware 55 years ago when she got married and experienced her first Santa Train a few years later, when her son turned 3. He is 46 now, and these days she brings her grandchildren. In a few more years, she hopes to bring great-grandchildren.

“The faces of the kids, that’s what makes me happy,” she said. "You can’t see anything better.”

The train starts out in Shelbiana, Kentucky, where families wait in the pre-dawn. At each stop there are dozens to hundreds of people. Many crowd around the back of the train, where Santa and his helpers toss stuffed animals. Meanwhile, groups of volunteer “elves” carrying bags full of gifts fan out, making sure every child goes home with something. Each year they hand out more than 15 tons of gifts that include hats, mittens and fuzzy blankets along with board games, skate boards and teddy bears.

Donna Doughetry from Snowflake, Virginia, remembers coming to see the Santa Train as a child in nearby Fort Blackmore.

“Years back, we didn't get a lot,” she said. “So back then this was kind of what we got, and we were proud of it. It meant a lot to us.”

Over the years, her kids have at times received handmade gifts from the Santa Train, like crocheted hats, which they still have and cherish.

Even though it is easier for people in these isolated, rural communities to buy Christmas presents these days, Dougherty made the short trek to Fort Blackmore with her niece on Saturday, carrying on the family tradition that she is glad she can still share.

“It’s really nice that they do this,” she said. “It shows the true Christmas spirit.”

CSX employees consider it an honor to be chosen to staff the Santa Train as volunteers. Jesse Hensley had been trying to get a spot for 35 years, ever since he met his wife, Angie, who grew up with the Santa Train in St. Paul, Virginia.

“It was such a thrill when we heard that whistle blow,” she remembered. “When I was a little girl, you know, you have dreams. My dream was to ride that train. Never in my life did I ever think that I would get to.”

The pair was selected to ride the train this year because they volunteered countless hours after the flooding caused by Hurricane Helene devastated their community of Erwin, Tennessee, where Jesse Hensley works as a machinist mechanic for CSX.

The Santa Train doesn't run to Erwin, but CSX added a special event this year to bring cheer to the community. Residents were invited to a holiday party with food, music, and gifts in the Erwin rail yard. Santa paid a visit on train with cars decked out in lights forming the shapes of ornaments, moving jingle bells, marching toy soldiers, and the words “Holiday Express” in giant red letters.

Two days later, Angie Hensley was all smiles on the Santa Train and nearly as excited as the children she helped distribute toys to, including grandnieces and grandnephews in St. Paul. The joy of helping on the Santa Train was even better than she had imagined, she said.

Her fellow volunteers included CSX President and CEO Joe Hinrichs, who got off at every stop, handing out toys and talking to those who had come to see the train. Hinrichs' best memory so far was at a stop a couple of years ago when a family brought a disabled child but were hanging back from the train to avoid the tussle of the crowd. Helpers cleared a path to bring the boy forward and gave him a giant teddy bear they had saved for a special occasion.

“We brought it out there, and everybody got around it, and we gave it to him. And there wasn’t a dry eye anywhere,” Hinrichs said. "It was a magical moment.”