MINNEAPOLIS -- In the past two years, the number of legislative proposals on the local and state levels to raise the legal age to purchase tobacco products has increased significantly, with the vast majority of proposals focused on raising the legal purchasing age to 21.
One of the main reasons for this emphasis on raising the legal age is a U.S. Food and Drug Administration sponsored study conducted by the Institute of Medicine, which concluded that “the impact of raising the MLA (minimum legal age) to 21 will likely be substantially higher than raising it to 19. However, the added effect of raising the MLA from 21 to 25 will likely be considerably less.” Since the FDA does not have the authority to raise the federal legal age to purchase tobacco products (only Congress has that power), local and state lawmakers are proceeding with efforts to change the minimum legal age to buy tobacco products.
Based on NATO’s tracking and monitoring services, cites and counties in 15 different states have adopted proposals to raise the legal age to purchase tobacco products. Below is a list of the number of localities in each state that have adopted higher minimum-age requirements:
- Arkansas (1 at age 21)
- Arizona (1 at age 21)
- Florida (1 at age 21)
- Idaho (1 at age 21)
- Illinois (3 at age 21)
- Kansas (10 at age 21)
- Massachusetts (121 at age 21; 9 at age 19)
- Maine (1 at age 21)
- Missouri (5 at age 21)
- New Jersey (19 at age 21)
- New York (5 at age 21; 3 at age 19)
- Ohio (5 at age 21)
- Utah (1 at age 21; 1 at age 19)
- Washington (2 at age 21)
On a state level, 19 different state legislatures have considered legislative proposals to raise the legal age to buy tobacco products. Both California and Hawaii have adopted statewide bills that have increased the legal age to buy tobacco products to 21.
For the other 17 states, a majority of these bills would increase the age to 21, but several would raise the legal age to 19. Bills to raise the legal age in 15 of these states were either defeated or did not pass prior to adjournment of the state legislature this year. Those states that did not pass higher minimum-age bills include Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, New York, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Washington, and West Virginia. The two states with bills still pending to raise the legal age to 21 include Massachusetts and New Jersey.
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