In an effort to curb teen smoking and the underage purchasing of tobacco products, state legislatures in California have recently passed a bill that would raise the age to buy tobacco from 18 to 21. The bill has been sent to the governor of California and is awaiting his signature. If the bill is passed, California will be the second state behind Hawaii to raise the minimum age to purchase to 21. The bill was passed on March 10.
Many University students approve of raising the age to buy tobacco products from 18 to 21, with many of them citing the health issues as the reason the minimum age should be raised. Junior Jena Korecky is one of the students who approves of raising the minimum age.
“It’s people’s decisions what they do with their bodies and they are adults at 18, but it also has to do with the fact that it’s a really harmful thing to do to your body and it might be for the better if it’s raised to the age of 21,” she said.
Korecky also pointed out that 21 is the legal drinking age in the United States, so it makes sense for the two ages to be the same.
According to The Los Angeles Times, in August, lawmakers brought six bills to the California state floor that also included raising the minimum age and also would limit the places where e-cigarettes would be used. These bills would also allow counties to add more taxes to the selling of tobacco products and would make it harder for loopholes to be exploited in business places.
Many Democrats in the California state house supported by the bill whereas Republicans tried to stop the bill from going through, citing that the government shouldn’t make the decisions for people’s personal lives and also said that if 18-year-olds are able to fight for their country, they should be able to smoke.
The bill also faced opposition from the tobacco industry, who said there’s a difference between tobacco-based cigarettes and e-cigarettes since the latter uses water vapor instead of actual tobacco.
The Los Angeles Times reported that the one-time tobacco fee for retailers would be eliminated and instead would be replaced with a $265 licensing fee. All-in-all, the changes that are looking to be made will produce an extra $11.1 million per year to help the state enforce laws on the tobacco industry.
University sophomore Diego Martinez thinks that it may be time to think about raising the age to 21.
“I think that raising the age is probably a good idea,” Martinez said. “Hopefully it will prevent or turn people away from smoking cigarettes, which is a bad habit to develop.”
Junior Alex Kyle also supports raising the age of purchasing tobacco, citing that her grandfather died from smoking-related illnesses and that she hated seeing someone she cares about be so sick.
“Right now, with a lot of the generational stuff going on currently and wanting to change our generation so we’re not smoking generation and that generations past us continue to be non-smoking, I think it would be a good thing and essentially help the tobacco industry be cut down and destroyed,” Kyle said.
In addition to California and Hawaii raising the minimum age to buy tobacco, many cities throughout the country, including New York City and Boston, have raised their minimum age to purchase tobacco products to 21. According to The Atlantic, Cleveland raised their smoking age to 21 this past December. NPR reported that more than 100 cities have changed the tobacco age.
The cities and states that have raised the tobacco age have also put more restrictive bans on e-cigarettes, such as banning them from movie theaters and restaurants. Many places where people were using e-cigarettes had banned tobacco-smoking in the years prior.
