Governor Jerry Brown yesterday signed into law a host of new bills designed to regulate tobacco and nicotine products, the most impactful of which is the raising of the statewide smoking age from 18 to 21 years old. With the signing of another bill, written by State Senator Mark Leno, that reclassifies all e-cigarette products as tobacco products, these new age restrictions will also apply to vaping. So reports the LA Times, which further notes that as these bills were approved during a special session, they will take effect on June 9 of this year — sooner than they would have otherwise.
Other measures signed Wednesday close loopholes related to smoking bans in workplaces, and expand no-smoking areas at schools and school facilities.
“The governor’s signature on Tobacco 21 is a signal that California presents a united front against Big Tobacco," State Senator Ed Hernandez, the bill's author, said in a statement. "Together, we stand to disrupt the chain of adolescent addiction."
With the signing into law of the new age restrictions, California becomes the second state (after Hawaii) to raise the smoking age above 18 to 21. San Francisco supervisors, of course, passed a similar measure earlier this year which is set to go into effect on June 1.
Interestingly, Hernandez seemed sensitive to that classic argument, often applied to the drinking age, that if a person can be drafted at 18 then he should be able to smoke/drink at that age as well. And so, Hernandez wrote into the law that active military personnel are excluded from the rules.
The Associated Press reports that, according to The Institute of Medicine, roughly 90 percent of daily smokers began using some form of tobacco by the age of 19. As such, proponents of the new law hope it will cut down on the number of people who pick up smoking in the first place.
A trade association for the e-cig industry called Smoke-Free Alternatives issued a statement saying, "California took a step backwards today by reclassifying vapor products as tobacco. Stigmatizing vapor products, which contain no tobacco, and treating them the same as combustible tobacco while actively seeking to economically penalize smokers attempting to switch is counterproductive to public health"
The California Medical Association supported the law, with its president noting that it was time for a new approach to regulating tobacco. “It is long past due for California to update our approach to tobacco," observed Steven Larson, "and with the governor’s signature on these life-saving bills, we have done just that.”
