Texas will soon join the ranks of Alabama, Alaska, New Jersey and Utah as states where the legal age for using or purchasing tobacco products is 19 years old if newly proposed legislation passes. According to a recent article in the Star-Telegram, Texas state senator Carlos Uresti justifies his submitted bill for the upcoming legislative session by saying that “raising the smoking age would limit availability to the vast majority of high school students, most of whom have graduated by the time they turn 19, [and] with this decrease in availability would come a corresponding decrease in accessibility for underage adolescents.”

Uresti’s proposed legislation is intended to stop the cycle of underage tobacco addiction in Texas and would also help to keep tobacco products out of the hands of high school students. According to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 3.2 million Texans—almost one in every five Texans 18 years of age and older—is a regular smoker.