You can vote, join the military and buy cigarettes at the age of 18 -- for now.
The legal age to smoke in Illinois would increase from 18 to 21 under legislation introduced in Springfield.
"If we can guide them through these late teens and into their 20s without a nicotine addiction, it's more likely they will never become tobacco users," said Dr. Ronald Johnson, a physician in Pittsfield.
Johnson says Illinois public college campuses already are smoke-free.
Ginnie Flynn, with the Illinois Academy of Family Physicians, doesn't smoke now; but she did when she was younger. She says cigarettes were easily accessible from a convenience store near her college dorm.
"I was smart enough to get into college, but I probably wasn't smart enough to make the best choice for myself at that time,” Flynn said. “And I didn't.
"You know, and when I was finally smart enough to make the choice to quit, it was hard, and it did take multiple times. And I never once look back on those days and say ,'Boy, that was cool, when I was that 20-year-old smoking in my dorm and smoking around campus.'"
Advocates say keeping cigarettes out of teens' reach could reduce the roughly $5.5 billion the state spends every year on smoking-related health costs.
