Voting majorities in Phoenix and Mesa, two-thirds of voters to be exact, believe the smoking age should be raised to 21. The American Heart Association and CityHealth commissioned the polling.

CityHealth is an initiative of the de Beaumont Foundation and Kaiser Permanente. “Raising the tobacco sales age to 21 is one of the best things cities can do to save lives and increase quality of life for local residents,” said CityHealth president Shelley Hearne. “We would love to see Phoenix and Mesa join the hundreds of other cities across the U.S. that are protecting their youth from the harms of tobacco.”

According to the Phoenix poll, 66% of voters wanted to raise the age, 26% were against it, and 8% had no opinion. In Mesa, 68% wanted to change the age, 23% didn’t, and 9% didn’t have an opinion.

The polls were conducted on March 11-13, and they had a 4.9% margin of error. According to an American Lung Association report, 8,250 deaths in 2017 in Arizona were contributed to smoking.

Cottonwood and Douglas have already raised their legal smoking age to 21, but bills to increase the age throughout the state have been unsuccessful. There has been no action taken on the most recent bill addressing the issue, Senate Bill 1363.