SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California lawmakers voted Thursday to make the nation’s most populous state the second to raise the smoking age from 18 to 21 as part of a sweeping package of measures they are considering to crack down on tobacco.
Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown still must sign off on the legislation the Senate approved to makeCalifornia the first state after Hawaii with the higher age limit. His spokesman said last week that the governor generally does not comment on pending legislation.
The bills also would restrict electronic cigarettes the same as tobacco products. The increasingly popular devices are not regulated by the federal government.
The higher age limit got approved despite amid intense lobbying from tobacco interests and fierce opposition from many Republicans, who say the state should butt out of people’s personal decisions, even if they are harmful to health.
The six bills, which the Assembly has already backed, represent California’s most substantial anti-tobacco effort in nearly two decades, the American Cancer Society said.
“With California having such a huge population, it’s going to be very impactful nationwide,” said Cathy Callaway, associate director of state and local campaigns for the American Cancer Society.
The Senate vote comes just over a week after San Francisco officials opted to raise the tobacco buying age to 21, making it the largest city to do so after New York. Nationwide, more than 120 municipalities have raised the smoking age, according to Tobacco 21, a group that advocates the policy shift nationally.
Hawaii was first to adopt the higher age limit statewide. New Jersey’s Legislature voted to raise the smoking age from 19 to 21, but the bill died when Republican Gov. Chris Christie decided not to act on it before a January deadline.
Advocates note that the vast majority of smokers start before they are 18, according to data from the U.S. surgeon general. Making it illegal for 18-year-old high school students to buy tobacco for their underage friends will make it more difficult for teens to get the products, they say.
Critics say adults are trusted to make weighty decisions to vote or join the military once they turn 18. In response, Democrats changed the bill to allow members of the military to continue buying cigarettes at 18.
“You can commit a felony when you’re 18 years old and for the rest of your life, be in prison,” Assembly Republican Leader Chad Mayes said. “And yet you can’t buy a pack of cigarettes.”
Another bill would classify e-cigarettes, or “vaping” devices, as tobacco products subject to the same restrictions on who can purchase them and where they can be used.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration proposed regulating e-cigarettes but the rule has not taken effect.
Anti-tobacco advocates fear that vaporizers are enticing to young people and may encourage them to eventually take up smoking. Others say they are a less-harmful, tar-free alternative to cigarettes. They have not been extensively studied, and there is no scientific consensus on their harms or benefits.
The package of bills would expand smoke-free areas to include bars, workplace breakrooms, small businesses, warehouses, and hotel lobbies and meeting rooms. Smoking bans would apply at more schools, including charter schools, and counties would be able to raise their own cigarette taxes beyond the state’s levy of $0.87 per pack.
Anti-smoking groups are collecting signatures for a November ballot initiative that would raise the cigarette tax to $2 a pack and direct the money to health care, tobacco-use prevention, research and law enforcement.
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This story has been corrected to show that the name of Assembly Republican Leader Chad Mayes was misspelled Hayes.
Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
They’ll send you to war to die before you can legally buy a beer or smoke a cigarette. If a person is an adult at 18, they should be able to make adult decisions.
Does anyone else find it odd that a person could be old enough to qualify for the California legislature (18) and to have voted for a bill to make their own purchase of cigarettes illegal because they are not old enough? And, again in theory, old enough to be elected Governor and to sign that bill into law.
This is not fair. Nor is it Just.
I DETEST Big Tobacco , smoking, and what their LYING For profit did, and continues to do to destroy people for Profit. I also wholeheartedly endorse Tobacco companies being held fully and fiscally responsible for the misrepresentation which leads people to make a poorly informed choice.
BUT…
If you can ask someone to volunteer to elect to serve and possibly die in a war not of their own making at 18 years old, that person ought to have the absolute Right (However STUPID It may be) to elect to smoke. Their MUST be a point where ADULTHOOD is distinguished once and forever from Childhood. That point must be, in all cases, clearly defined, and universally recognized by a Society as a whole.
This has as much to do with universal application of freedoms as it does with their universal appreciation.
Stopping those not of whatever age from smoking, drinking and other activities is the task of the society, just as much as it is the task of the Society to be certain that such Rights are universally extended and enjoyed. Such equality by those who shall have attained a certain point in age and therefore involvement in the Society as a whole is essential in maintaining greater freedoms for every individual in all walks of life.
If you deny one such Right to those who are 18, where is it to stop? Will you next take the ballot away from them as well? This sort of action is altogether and completely understandable from a Human point of view. Wishing to preserve those we care for from obvious danger is the most basic and upright expression of Human love and compassion.
But done in this manner it is done by legislation rather than by the method which I endorse, which is called Educated Choice.
Let those deciding to engage in the adult Vices and bear Adult responsibilities have a clear understanding of the consequences of the choice they make. Furnishing that information and requiring its absolute truthfulness, regardless of profit and loss by any business, is the proper policing role of the Society at large. The same one that guarantees that all rights also carry responsibilities.
That is why I endorse, and always will endorse making “Big Tobacco” responsible for the outright and nefarious LIES which they have used and continue to use Overseas to get uninformed people to use and abuse a “product” which is as much a drug as is Alcohol, Gambling, and the various pleasures of sensuality by consenting adults. At what point is the phrase “Consenting adult” to assume a real, moral. and legal meaning?
Legislation in this case is an abdication of the proper role of the Society at large. And like it or not, the denial of the Right which accompanies the misplaced responsibility should not be allowed in a day and age where the People at large find more and more of their freedoms eroded by legislation enacted in the name of their own “security.”
Then raise the minimum age of military service, voting, adult sentencing, gun ownership and unrestricted driver’s licenses to 21 for more consistency. (Raising my right hand): “I am a life-long nonsmoker; I detest the filthy practice, and I will vote for the Democratic nominee in the general election.”