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WEDNESDAYS • Feb. 27, 2019
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Richmond & Hampton Roads
LEGACYNEWSPAPER.COM • FREE
New bill increases tobacco age to 21 starting in July
Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam has signed a bill that raises the age to purchase tobacco products to 21 years old. Northam signed the bill last week after it previously passed the Virginia Senate and House. Six other states have already implemented this change, California, Oregon, Hawaii, Maine, New Jersey, and Massachusetts. The Virginia House of Delegates passed HB2748 in a 62-32 vote and the Virginia Senate passed the bill with a vote of 32-7 earlier in February. This is legislation to address the epidemic of teenage vaping and end teen access to tobacco products by
raising the minimum age required to purchase tobacco products in the commonwealth of Virginia to 21. Even though teenage use of traditional tobacco products is at an all-time low, self-reported teenage use of vaping doubled last year. Over 20 percent of high school seniors reported vaping in the last 30 days in 2018 compared to 11 percent in 2017. For 10th graders, the rate was 16 percent in 2018 compared to eight percent in 2017. For 8th graders, it was six percent in 2018 compared to three percent in 2017. The federal tobacco purchasing age remains 18.
In addition to raising the legal smoking age to 21, the law will also affect online ordering and shipping regulations for vaporizer and nicotine products, as well as impose steep penalties for providing such devices to minors or consuming such items as a minor, rendering violators subject to civil penalties and fines. All vaping products, hardware, juices, and e-liquids for sale will be required to display a prominent “and conspicuously displayed” Surgeon General’s warning—similar to the one we now see on cigarettes. Historically, Virginia had lax tobacco regulations and first raised
the legal smoking age from 16 to 18 in 1991. The legal smoking age has been 18 years old for almost three decades. Rather than adding another set of rules entirely, the bill structures its foundational argument on amending existing cigarette laws by replacing age 18 with age 21, and to also expand the definition of that which “cigarettes” quantify — meaning, for legal purposes, vaporizers, vapes, Juuls, e-cigarettes, etc. will now be pursuant to most of the restrictions in cigarette laws. Vaporizers and cigarettes will now both be treated as legally equivalent.