Bills target e-cigarette, tobacco sales
Virginia legislators want to ban the sale of all tobacco and nicotine products — including e-cigarettes — to anyone under 21.
Currently, you have to be 18 to buy them.
The move, a surprise in a state that’s still a major producer of tobacco, has the support of Speaker of the House Kirk Cox, R-Colonial Heights and Senate Majority Leader Thomas K. Norment Jr., R-James City County.
Cox, a retired teacher, said he’s been concerned by a stunningly sharp rise in the number of middle- and high school students who use e-cigarettes.
“When I started, we still were dealing with smoking in the bathrooms, but the good news was that smoking had come down by the time I retired,” he said. “Vaping growth is really so explosive ... I think it is (becoming) one of the top problems within school.”
Del. Chris Stolle, R-Virginia Beach, filed a bill on Thursday and is lining up support from both sides of the aisle. Norment filed a similar bill in the Senate.
Stolle said vaping by teenagers is major public health issue, since students in high school and even middle school are getting hooked on nicotine, which can become a lifelong addiction.
The bills are aimed at what the law calls “nicotine vapor products and alternative nicotine products.” But the new age limit would also apply to tobacco products, including cigarettes and cigars.
By banning sales to people under 21, Stolle said the measure should cut off the main channel by which teenagers get e-cigarettes — asking an 18-year-old friend or classmate to buy the devices for them.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control reports that the percentage of high-school seniors who have used an e-cigarette in the past 30 days climbed to more than 20 percent last year from 11 percent in 2017.
The agency reported 6 percent of eighth graders used e-cigarettes last year.
“We want to stop young people from becoming addicted and then to start using tobacco products,” Norment said.
David Sutton, a spokesman for Altria, said the Richmond-based tobacco giant supported the bills.
“While tobacco use among persons under 18 is at historic lows, underage e-vapor use has increased alarmingly and FDA has characterized this trend as an epidemic,” he said in an email.
“Tobacco harm reduction for adults cannot succeed without effective measures to reduce underage use of all tobacco products,” Sutton added. “The best approach to achieving this goal is simple: raise the minimum age for purchasing tobacco products to 21.”
Altria late last year bought a 35 percent stake in the fast-growing e-cigarette firm Juul for $12.8 billion.