A bill that would raise the legal age to buy tobacco products to 21 will soon make its way into the Ohio General Assembly.Sen. Grace Drake, R-Solon, said she is planning to propose the legislation as soon as the Senate votes on the school-funding issue, which should be within the next two weeks.Drake, who is a smoker, said the Tobacco-to-21 initiative is an effort to decrease the number of teen smokers and is also meant to deter young adults from picking up the habit.”I started at 17-and-a-half,” Drake said. “If I’d waited until I was 21 I probably wouldn’t have started.”Unlike other current legislation, this bill would not penalize any person caught for underage possession of tobacco, Drake said. Instead, retailers caught selling tobacco to anyone underage will be held responsible and fined.Retailers will be charged with a second-degree misdemeanor and fined $750 for first-time convictions. The second and third offenses will result in first-degree misdemeanors and $1000 fines. If retailers commit three offenses within a 10-year-period, they will not be able to sell tobacco products.Drake said there is a need for this type of legislation because tobacco is a “gateway drug,” which often leads to the use of other drugs.Teenagers who smoke are eight times more likely to smoke marijuana and 22 times more likely to smoke crack cocaine, Drake said.Drake also cites the effects of smoking on society as a reason to pass this bill.”When someone gets ill, it’s not only their problem, it’s a societal problem,” Drake said.Data supplied by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta show that 23.6 percent of college freshmen, sophomores and juniors smoke, while 14 percent of college seniors smoke.Some Ohio State students feel that no matter what legislators try to do, teens and college-age students will still keep smoking.”Obtaining cigarettes is too easy,” said Chris Stolfi, a 23-year-old senior majoring in computer and information science.Stolfi said he started smoking when he was 16, but quit after about six months.”Raising the age to 21 will not deter people from smoking, it will only raise the number of people smoking illegally,” he said.Julie Anderson, a 19-year-old freshman, also doubts the law will do any good to prevent teens from smoking.Anderson started smoking when she was 17 but quit a month ago for health reasons. “I think 18 is a reasonable age to buy cigarettes,” Anderson said.A spokesman for CDC agrees that something needs to be done to help prevent young people from smoking.”If current smoking patterns continue, an estimated 5 million people under the age of 18 will die prematurely from a smoking related disease,” said Llelwyn Grant, a press officer in the office on smoking and health.Grant says a combination of tactics works best when deterring young people from smoking.Preventing the use of nicotine by minors, providing treatment for young people who are addicted, reducing environmental smoke and increasing prices are a few of the tactics Grant said are effective.But Grant said he also agrees that retailers need to be targeted.”If you don’t have vendors or retailers adhering to laws, it’s really defeating the purpose,” he said.Drake said she doesn’t think enforcing the law will be hard to do.”The strictness of the fines will be the enforcer,” she said.If the age to buy tobacco products is raised to 21, a grandfather clause will be applied, Drake said.”Those people who are 18 at the time the bill passes would not be stopped from buying [cigarettes],” Drake said.Drake’s legislative aide, Mike Carroll, said the proposed bill has received mostly positive reactions.”We haven’t heard of any formal opposition, but I imagine it’s going to be a tough fight,” Carroll said.Former U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Coop and the American Medical Association are among the national supporters of the legislation, Carroll said.Ohio would be the first state to raise the age to buy tobacco products to 21, Carroll said.