TRENTON – Senator Joseph F. Vitale, D-Middlesex, the Chairman of the Senate Health, Human Services and Senior Citizens Committee, issued the following statement regarding Committee approval, by a vote of 6-0 with one abstention, of a bill he sponsored with Governor Codey to increase the age at which vendors can legally sell cigarettes from 18 to 19:
“The most sure-fire way to avoid any one of the myriad of health risks attached to smoking is never to start.
“The logic is flawless, but so many of our State’s kids cannot see past the peer pressure of high school to realize just what a risk they’d be taking by lighting up. They only know that on the school yard, the ‘cool kids’ are the ones who smoke.