US
A growing number of states, one of the latest being Virginia, have been introducing new legislation raising the minimum age for purchasing tobacco to 21, also known as Tobacco 21 bills. However, the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network and the American Heart Association have expressed concerns about the bills and oppose them in their current forms.
Representatives for both organizations have expressed that while they support the idea of raising the minimum age to 21, the process is being rushed in Virginia. The groups say there are problems that already exist and which must be sorted out first before the state can successfully raise the minimum age.
One example is the legislation as it is currently drafted continues a focus on penalizing youth rather than penalizing retailers. Ashley Bell, vice president for field advocacy for the American Heart Association, said “The youth access laws, the way they exist in Virginia now, are not strong enough to support the enforcement of raising the age, from our perspective. They may not be strong enough to support the current age.”
The groups propose that those penalties be removed altogether and replaced with a tobacco cessation or education program for those instances when someone under the age of 21 is caught for an infraction. In addition, retailers should be subject to more oversight, particularly by requiring that all businesses wishing to sell tobacco products receive licenses to do so.
Bell also said that there are various definitions in Virginia’s code for tobacco, nicotine vapor, and alternative products should have one consistent definition for all the products before expanding the minimum age, she said.