To The Readers’ Forum:

When a county legislator votes on an issue, the legislator needs reasons to support the choice she is making. There are reasons such as: good for the taxpayer, efficiency, reduces taxes, or protects the lake. For example, the reason for voting to reduce the county property tax by three million dollars and increase the sales tax by seven million dollars was “to save the taxpayer money.”

Now there is an issue about increasing the legal age for purchasing cigarettes. Those in favor of raising the age support their vote with the reason that it protects the health of the youth of our county, to help reduce the number of people who get cancer. In Chautauqua County, one thousand people a year are diagnosed with having cancer (1 out of every 133 people). But then another reason appears for being against raising the legal age for buying chemically laden inhalers. This new reason is called being “business friendly.” Thus, when those who sell cigarettes say they will lose 2 percent of their income from cigarette sales, “business friendly” means to vote against raising the age to buy cigarettes. With this reason of “business friendly” being spoken, everything stops. No reason is greater than”business friendly.” We must at all costs do things to be “business friendly,” even if it means we allow our youth to later develop cancer from smoking.

Another reason for not raising the age is that the youth will go to other places to buy cigarettes, so let us sell cigarettes so we can have the money instead of them. But that is just another form of “business friendly.” It is the same reasoning that gets us polluted air, polluted lakes, paying employees a dollar a day. If other businesses are earning profits by hurting people, we should be able to do that too, so don’t raise the age for buying cigarettes.

It’s all about what we value – profit or health/people. Really, the issue is simple when we put the value of our health first. Raise the legal age needed to purchase the known carcinogen called the cigarette.

Timothy Hoyer

Jamestown