Illustration by Iain Duffus
NO TOBACCO BEFORE 21
Of the new state laws, perhaps most notable is the age requirement of 21 to purchase, possess or sell tobacco or nicotine vapor products, with an exemption for active-duty military personnel.
In late January, Jennifer Hunter of Altria Client Services testified before the state Senate Courts of Justice Committee on behalf of Altria in support of a measure introduced by Republican Sen. Tommy Norment that increases the minimum age for buying tobacco products from 18 to 21.
“New and emerging technologies like e-vapor and heat-not-burn tobacco products offer tremendous promise for reducing harm,” Hunter said, “but the FDA has made clear that this harm reduction future cannot be fully achieved without doing more to reverse underage e-vapor use rates.”
While underage use of conventional tobacco products is at the lowest level in a generation, the use of e-vapor products among 12- to 17-year-olds has increased alarmingly in the past year, Hunter told the committee, citing National Youth Tobacco Survey data showing increases of e-vapor use of 80 percent among high schoolers to an estimated 3 million, or 1 in 5 students.
Hunter added that a minimum age of 21 will put tobacco products in line with alcoholic beverages, as well as cannabis, “which is subject to a minimum age of 21 in every state that has legalized it recreationally.”
DEFINING PRODUCTS
Another successful Norment bill establishes — for the purposes of levying future local taxes — the definitions of noncombustible tobacco products, including vapor items, but it does have a caveat for the definition of “cigarette” itself to apply only to nicotine-containing products that produce smoke from combustion — possibly exempting former Altria company Philip Morris International’s new “heat-not-burn” tobacco-containing device IQOS, which the FDA approved on April 30. Through a licensing agreement, Philip Morris USA will sell the product domestically. The new definitions follow a one-year study by the Joint Subcommittee to Evaluate Tax Preferences, which assessed options “for the modernization of cigarette taxes and possible reforms to the taxation of tobacco products that will provide fairness and equity for all local governments.”
SMOKING PENALTIES
Localities may also begin implementing civil violations of up to $25 for smoking in a designated nonsmoking area at a municipally owned outdoor amphitheater or concert venue, if such a penalty is passed by local ordinance. Fines are to be used “solely for public health purposes.”
SMOKE-FREE SCHOOLS
School boards must amend policies prohibiting the use and distribution of tobacco products on school buses and properties to include nicotine vapor products, with written provisions for reasonable enforcement “including the enumeration of possible sanctions or disciplinary action consistent with state or federal law, and referrals to resources to help staff and students overcome tobacco addiction.”
