The Retailers Association of Massachusetts opposes the age increase, arguing that it is "anti-local business and anti-consumer as it seeks to ban licensed stores from selling a legal product to adult consumers." In a letter to lawmakers, RAM said that the legislation would shift "tobacco sales out-of-state and to the internet thus depriving the Commonwealth of tobacco excise tax revenue used to address problems associated with smoking which will endure." The American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network lauded the Senate's move Thursday, saying it put Massachusetts "one step closer to reducing tobacco related disease and death." "Together with Massachusetts' appropriately strong tobacco taxes and 100 percent smoke free workplace law, passage of this bill will once again make Massachusetts the leader in the fight against Big Tobacco and ensure that the Commonwealth has some of the strongest anti-tobacco policies in the nation," Marc Hymovitz, the advocacy group's director of government relations, said in a statement
People with metastatic cancer often have a lower chance of survival because the cancer has already spread throughout the body
Wrapper: The wrapper is the outer tobacco leaf that holds everything together
ICD-10-CM guidelines specify that when chronic bronchitis with airway obstruction or COPD is documented, J44.x takes precedence over J41.x
Abstract Objective: To quantify and communicate risk equivalencies for alcohol-and tobacco-attributable mortality by comparing per standard drinks consumed to per number of cigarettes smoked in Canada
