California Raises Smoking Age to 21

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In majority Latino California, Governor Jerry Brown has signed a series of bills that will raise the smoking age from 18 to 21 and will limit the sale of electronic cigarettes, reports the LA Times.

“[These laws] will save countless lives, reduce astronomical costs to the health care system, and cost very little because it uses existing enforcement mechanisms,” said Senator Ed Hernandez, who authored the bill to raise the age of tobacco products. “Today was an enormous victory for not only this generation, but also for many generations to come who will not suffer the deadly impacts of tobacco.”

California joins Hawaii as the second state to raise the smoking age and to ban the selling of electronic cigarettes to anyone under 21.

According to a recent study, raising the smoking age nationwide can result in almost “a quarter-million fewer premature deaths and 50,000 fewer deaths from lung cancer among people born between 2000 and 2019.”