By Kyle Lappin

In June 2017, Maine lawmakers approved a bill prohibiting Mainers below age 21 from purchasing tobacco products, and it will soon become law. The Senate voted 29-5 and the House voted 90-44 to override Governor Paul LePage’s veto of the proposal, which supporters say will lower smoking rates and smoking-related deaths.

It turns out that the amended version of the bill exempts people already 18-20 years old and the bill implementation is delayed until July 2018, which is why we haven’t seen much stank, or still seen a lot of stank — It depends on how you look at it.

A report circulated by the American Lung Association found that increasing the legal age for purchasing tobacco could prevent over 223,000 premature deaths of people born between 2000 and 2019. This is serious!

I am two weeks in on quitting cigarettes myself. People listen, they belong on the shelves, it’s just an easy habit to indulge, just ignore that cancerous tumor bulge. Personally, I smoked because I decided to be miserable, and misery loves company — companies such as Camel, L&M, and Marlboro. Misery loves these companies.

Escaping from the joyous activities of the night with my great friends, I sneak off to combust poisonous bursts of chemical warfare with myself, just sulking over the burdens of life as we know it today. On average, it takes seven minutes to smoke a cigarette. They say Rome wasn’t built in a day, but I have been working on it for 7 minutes per hour. Say I am awake for 15 hours a day. One cigarette an hour for 7 minutes adds up to 105 minutes, multiplied by seven days a week: seven hundred and thirty-five minutes.

Not only have I saved loads of money that I work hard for everyday, but in the past two weeks I have done amazing things with the extra 1,470 minutes I’ve saved: higher-quality hanging-out time, chess club, contra dancing, playing music, writing for The Beacon. Overall quality of life is better. Air quality for myself and anyone near me has improved.

We as humans should not want to be part of the problem — infectious beings going around polluting ourselves and the planet. We have a corrupt government and good school grades to contend with as SMCC students, now is the chance to take advantage of any and all opportunities you have been gifted and presented. These chances you will not get back, just like your health if you don’t quit smoking now.