New York moves to raise cost of cigarettes to reduce smoking

New York City is pushing legislation to raise the minimum cigarette pack price to 13 from 10.5 U.S. dollars as part of a larger effort to reduce tobacco use in the country's biggest city.

This is one of a package of proposed bills aiming to cut the number of smokers in the city by 160,000 from the current 900,000 by 2020.

Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Wednesday at an anti-smoking event that he hopes to sign five anti-tobacco bills this year. The bills will be reviewed by the City Council's Health Committee on April 27.

The five-pronged package of proposed bills would raise the minimum price for all tobacco products, reduce through attrition the number of tobacco retailers, create a retail license for e-cigarettes and cap the number of sellers, require all residential buildings to create a smoking policy and disclose it to current and would-be tenants, and ban sales at pharmacies. Endit