According to 2020 data from the National Youth Smoking Survey (NYTS), nearly 1 in 4 high school students (3.65 million) currently use a tobacco product. Current tobacco use was highest for e-cigarettes (19.6%), followed by cigars (5.0%), cigarettes (4.6%), cigarettes (4.6%), smokeless tobacco (3.1%), hookah (2.7%), heated tobacco products (1.4%) and pipe tobacco (0.7%). A recent study found that people who start smoking regularly between the ages of 18 and 20 are more likely to become addicted to nicotine and less likely to quit smoking than people who start smoking at age 21 or older.3 These findings are consistent with a 2015 report from the National Academy of Medicine, , which provides that raising the legal age of sale (MLSA) for tobacco products from 18 to 21 or 25 years is likely to significantly reduce the prevalence of smoking and smoking-related deaths.4 This fact sheet describes federal and state laws that set minimum age requirements for tobacco sales. The minimum age to buy tobacco in the U.S. prior to 2019 varied by state and territory. As of December 2019, the smoking age is 21 in all states and territories after the federal law passed in Congress and was signed by President Donald Trump in December 2019. “Raising the smoking age to 21 is a positive step, but it`s not a substitute for banning flavored e-cigarettes that attract and addict our children,” Myers said in part. The tobacco industry claims to support restrictions on young people`s access to tobacco, but has consistently opposed raising the minimum age of legal access to 215.6 to the point of denying that such laws ever existed.7 Increasing the MLA for tobacco to 21 is feasible, was once the norm in one-third of all states. and would reduce tobacco addiction and deaths.2 With the passage of federal T21, there have also been corresponding updates to the Synar program. To receive their block drug grants, states and territories must now report illicit sales to people under the age of 21, whether or not they have increased their own MLSA to 21.5 In 2009, Congress signed into law the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act (Tobacco Control Act), which gives the U.S.

Food and Drug Administration (FDA) broad powers to regulate manufacturing. Marketing and sale of tobacco products. As passed, it applied to cigarettes, cigarette tobacco, roll-your-own tobacco, and smokeless tobacco.6 In 2016, the FDA established a rule that extended its regulatory authority to all tobacco products, including e-cigarettes, cigars, and hookah and pipe tobacco.7 Following the adoption of this rule, No tobacco product could be sold to a person under the age of 18. Trump has previously advocated raising the age limit for buying tobacco products, including e-cigarettes and vaping products, to 21. Another noted that “it is crucial to make our case that the tobacco industry believes that smoking is an adult custom and does not want minors to smoke.” 73(p116) In the United States, state laws set a minimum legal age for smoking (MLA). These laws first appeared in the 1880s, and by 1920 between 14 and 22 states had 21-year-old legislatures (14 states explicitly at age 21, while 8 states limited sales to “minors” aged 14 to 24). In 2015, 46 of the 50 states and Washington, D.C., had 18-year-old lawmakers, the other 4 had 19-year-olds. The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act of 2009 established a national non-preventive MLA of 18 years to be enforced by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and prohibited the FDA from setting an older age.1 Between 2012 and October 2015, 93 municipalities increased their RMA to 21 years.2, 3 In 2015, Hawaii increased its tobacco MLA to age 21. Going into effect in 2016.4 On December 20, 2019, Congress increased the MLSA for tobacco products from age 18 to 21.

This law, known as Tobacco 21 or T21, came into force immediately, and it is now illegal for a retailer to sell tobacco products – including cigarettes, cigars and e-cigarettes – to anyone under the age of 21.8 The new federal MHA applies to all retail establishments and persons without exception; It applies to retailers in all states, DC, all U.S. territories, and tribal lands. There are no exceptions for active military personnel or veterans between the ages of 18 and 20.8, as was previously the case in some states.9 Measures to raise the legal age for tobacco sales to 21 are among the provisions attached to the spending bills. Health organizations have lobbied the government to ban flavors popular among young people. Vaping advocates have argued that they are a tool for adult smokers to quit combustible cigarettes. Vape shop owners argued that restrictions on the sale of flavors would destroy their business. Growing evidence of tobacco addiction suggests that reinstating MPs to 21 would reduce the occurrence and prevalence of smoking, particularly among those under 18. Cigarette manufacturers, then dominated by American Tobacco, lobbied extensively against these new laws.11 Between 1890 and its court-ordered dissolution in 1911, American Tobacco sued laws prohibiting the sale of cigarettes and recruited allies from the railroad industry, newspapers, and retailers to lobby on their behalf against tobacco royalties and prohibition.11 A progressive historian Era a noted in his book Cigarette Wars that the company had a reputation for bribing state legislators: For most of the 20th century, the tobacco industry aggressively encouraged and defended inferior congressmen for tobacco. This policy advocacy reflects the tobacco industry`s assessment that recruiting young smokers is essential to their economic survival. This assessment, along with the growing body of evidence on tobacco addiction among young adults, suggests that reinstating MPs at age 21 would reduce the occurrence and prevalence of smoking, particularly among adolescents under the age of 18. By the late 1600s, the public was widely aware that those who used tobacco had difficulty quitting.