Mayor Rahm Emanuel appears to have a vendetta set against tobacco products. At the end of December, he began a campaign against e-cigs, on Jan. 11 he proposed raising the already very high tobacco taxes to help fund a CPS student program and now here we are in February and Mayor Emanuel is pushing forward with his bandwagon idea of changing the legal age to purchase tobacco to 21.

Let’s be clear: smoking is terrible for your health. It causes cancer, it kills people, second hand smoke is bad, the list goes on and on. However, what’s really at heart here is that a Mayor is deciding the rights of an adult. How is it that a man can enlist to serve his country, take a bullet protecting the rights of the people in his nation, and then he comes home and is denied the right to smoke a cigarette? That’s hardly fair. Increasing the legal age to purchase tobacco in Chicago to 21 instead of 18 is repulsive as it impedes on our basic libertarian principles here in the United States. Adulthood brings about many decisions for us to make regarding our future and our health, but those decisions and choices are for us to make. Not Mayor Emanuel.

I’d also like to point out that the Mayor’s stated reason for deciding to increase the age to purchase tobacco is part of a new strategy to fight addiction and that if passed, the ordinance “would put tobacco products on par with alcohol and protect young adults from starting a dangerous lifelong habit.” Clearly Rahm is ignorant to the taboo affect he’s stirring up. Kids will always want what they are supposed to not have and if there’s a will there’s always going to be a way. Look at alcohol as an example. Despite the legal drinking age being moved from 18 to 21 in 1984, the risk of binge drinking remained the same for females in this age range from 1979 to 2006 and there was NO reduction in binge drinking that occurred for college males according to the Center of Alcohol Marketing and Youth. If an underage kid wants anything alcohol or tobacco related, all they have to do is whip out their fake ID and walk into a nearby liquor/convenience store or ask an older friend or relative to purchase it for them. You aren’t stopping the rebellious youth, Mayor Emanuel!

Another fact that may be difficult for some people to admit is that our nation has a reliance on tobacco as a deeply embedded part of the economy. In the 2010 fiscal year, the federal excise tax on cigarettes (currently $1.01 per pack) brought in $15.5 billion in revenue, and in 2009, states raked in more than $24 billion by taxing cigarettes and $8.8 billion in settlement payments from tobacco companies (under the 1998 tobacco Master Settlement Agreement) according to the Daily Caller. That is money that is used to help finance government institutions like public schools and hospitals. So while it can be argued that cigarettes are causing detrimental health issues, the more cigarette packages bought, the more funding goes into the betterment of our cities public buildings, ironically, like hospitals.

A majority of the public is gung-ho about the Mayor’s decision to raise the legal tobacco-purchasing age to 21, but it needs to be acknowledged that there are consequences to this decision that impact our city. So before everyone gets all excited about the health benefits to be reaped from this exciting new proposal, let’s all take a step back and recognize the fundamental libertarian principal that is in danger of infringement, and the potential result that increasing the age to buy tobacco could have on the Chicagoland financial situation.