It is now illegal for retailers to sell tobacco to anyone under 21

[left-of-center2012]

It is now illegal for any retailer to sell tobacco products — including cigarettes, cigars and electronic cigarettes — to anyone under 21 years old, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

The FDA officially changed the federal minimum age to purchase tobacco from 18 to 21 after President Donald Trump approved the provision as part of a $1.4 trillion spending package he signed December 20.

The smoking age increase comes after Tobacco 21 laws were already enacted in 19 states and Washington, D.C., according to the latest tally from the American Lung Association. Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia and Washington already had laws in place that prohibited retailers from selling tobacco products to anyone younger than 21.

In addition, at least 470 cities and counties also had their own Tobacco 21 laws, according to the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, an advocacy organization.

https://www.10news.com/news/national/it-is-now-illegal-for-retailers-to-sell-tobacco-to-anyone-under-21-fda-says

[Buckeyeblue]

2. If you're old enough to vote and serve in the military

You should be able to smoke and drink.

[Iggo]

5. Absolutely.

[Amishman]

13. Yup, though I'm looking at this a different way

I'd say 20 or 21 should be the new age of adulthood, with drinking, smoking, voting, buying guns, being tried as an adult, etc raised to that threshold.

[in2herbs]

3. During the era of the draft, wasn't the age reduced from 21 to 18 because if you were old enough

to be drafted and die for your country at 18 you should be old enough to buy cigarettes, etc., at 18? We don't have a draft any more, but what kind of trouble will the military be in if they allow <21 yo members of the military to smoke?

Sometimes the stupid hurts too much.

[Mariana]

11. During the era of the draft, anyone could buy cigarettes.

And well after that. My dad used to give me money to go buy them for him before I was ten years old. Not once was I told I was too young to buy them. That was in the 1970's.

[Hekate]

4. Vaping's a nicotine bomb, each pod equivalent to 2 packs of cigs.As one teen said at a county meetin

...locally, "It's hard to imagine how a group of adults can sit around figuring out how to turn kids into addicts." She testified about personal friends who couldn't sit through a 50-minute class, who decided to forego class excursions, whose physical and mental health have been impacted by their vaping.

They're advertised as trendy, suave, cool, tasty, clever, and safer than tobacco because smokeless. The advertisers don't tell you about the added shit or the dose. Tobacco cigs generally take years to kill you, but we've got kids who are dying right now.

Here's the thing about the facile argument regarding the Draft, booze, and tobacco: Big Tobacco (from whence all nicotine products come) has known for decades that if you can arrive at your 19th birthday without becoming a smoker, you will never be their customer. So of course they "sit around figuring out how to turn kids into addicts."

[TheBlackAdder]

6. I'm OK with this. Hopefully, it will dissuade some until they mature before peer pressure sets in.

.

My mom contracted emphysema from smoking.

My sister is now battling COPD from contact cigarette smoke while she was working a wedding circuit singing gig.


There was a Nova show about the causes of lung cancer years back--it's related to the release of Polonium-210.

Polonium-210 does reflects off the skin barrier, but once inside the body, it cannot escape either. It is found in practically all organic materials, but is not unlocked unless the material is burned. If it is consumed, it does not break free during the digestive process. A person who smokes 2 packs of cigarettes a day gets the equivalent of 300 chest x-rays of radiation per year. And these are the x-ray devices from the late 80's, not the low rad ones of today.

I forgot to add, that when my father was dying from mesothelioma, contracted from working at the NY Shipyards in Camden, NJ, the oncologist at Fox Chase said that high temperatures wreak havoc on lung tissue, and while cigarette and cigar smoke is an extreme, even simple things like taking a hot steaming shower should be avoided.


Besides, cigarettes have now become a control mechanism to keep people from improving their lives. Thousands are spent every year on the product, medical bills gradually increase, life insurance increases, health insurance might increase, and often people will get denied hire from an employer or fired as smoking increases health insurance premiums and adds to lost days of work. Additionally, those who smoke need to leave multiple times a day on smoke breaks, which also impacts the work environment.

.

[Hekate]

9. One of my brothers is dying from COPD at 71. We almost lost him at Thanksgiving.

Like my daughter (now 44), he started smoking at about age 12. Wow -- what a very cool, rebellious thing to do at that age! Pwns the parents and other authority figures! You learn to lie with a straight face, too.

Nicotine. Is. Addictive.

[DFW]

7. Ah, yes, the freedom to smoke

One of those special products that, when used as directed and intended, can addict and then kill the user.

I agree with Lincoln: "what is a cigarette? A stinking weed with fire on one and a fool on the other"

Or the bumper sticker from the 1960s: Kissing a smoker is like licking an ashtray.

i.e.--go ahead if you want or must, but please nowhere near me.

[Mariana]

12. They should just be made illegal to buy, sell, or possess, by anyone.

Anything else that was proven to kill hundreds of thousands of people a year, when used as intended, would have long since been banned altogether.

[Raine]

8. Good! nt

[WillowTree]

14. Ditto.

[essme]

10. Dumb as a box of rocks. Gawd I hate moralistic crap like this.

Either take away driving (16 to 12), enlisting (18 to 21 I guess), voting (18 to 21) marriage (for some never too early so 12 to 21), and all of the other things that start adulthood or bring the numbers (alcohol and cigarettes) back down to 18 or even 16. Funny though how how highway speed limits are going up...

[StarryNite]

15. Good!

[Midwestern Democrat]

16. At the very least, any one who's over 18 today should be grandfathered with the age 18 law

I was certainly a daily smoker long before age 21 and I could not imagine what it would have been like if at - say - the age of 20 I suddenly could not have bought cigarettes legally.