18 is the minimum age at which a significant proportion of adults believe a teen may be allowed to choose their own smoking course.50 (p. 383) In the United States, state laws set a minimum age of legal access (MLA) of 18 for most tobacco products. We examined the history of these laws using internal tobacco industry documents and newspaper archives from 1860 to 2014. Cigarette tobacco is very popular. It is not uncommon, it is said, to see a child under the age of five smoking with contentment.25 Young adult smokers have the highest smoking rates of any age group in the United States, and the early years of smoking are key to solidifying addiction.63–69 As a result, Philip Morris` 5-year plan indicated that the company was prepared to devote enormous resources to blocking WADA`s proposals. The laws appeared in the 1880s; By 1920, half of the states had established deputies of at least 21 years of age. After 1920, tobacco industry lobbying eroded it at 16 to 18. In the 1980s, the tobacco industry viewed the reinstatement of high-level MPs as a major trade threat. The industry`s political advocacy group reflects its assessment that recruiting young smokers is crucial to its survival. The momentum for tobacco regulation faded after the United States entered World War I. Although Congress attempted to ban tobacco in the military in 1917 on the grounds that it threatened the welfare of U.S. troops, tobacco industry groups blocked the legislation using organized letter-writing campaigns and press releases claiming that tobacco was an “absolute necessity” and that it would be “barbaric” to deny it to soldiers. 11 In 1918, the War Department included tobacco in soldiers` daily rations, making the U.S.
government the largest purchaser of tobacco in the world.11 By the end of World War I, smoking was widespread and socially accepted, although medical evidence linking smoking to lung cancer was growing. In 1939, longtime recalcitrants in Ohio and Rhode Island appointed congressmen (18 and 16, respectively). 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. Tobacco companies also began to devote more and more resources to the sale of candy cigarettes.40 Beginning in 1953, Philip Morris arranged for candy cigarettes to be sold through his “Johnny Jr. The organization, best known for its efforts to pass the 18th Amendment to the Constitution, which bans the sale of alcohol, has also opposed tobacco and gambling. Along with affiliated groups, she advocated for laws restricting the sale and use of cigarettes. In 1890, their efforts, combined with the general critical situation regarding smoking among children, resulted in the prohibition of the sale or use of cigarettes by 26 states and territories, which were defined differently from those under the age of 14 to 24.18-20 In a comprehensive article recently published in the American Journal of Public Health, Dorie E.
Apollonio and Stanton A. Glantz return to the age restrictions on tobacco sales in the United States. until 1863. As they found, age restrictions for buying cigarettes and other tobacco products are older than the average person might think, especially considering that the surgeon general`s warning about the dangers of smoking dates back to 1964. And in this early history of the minimum age, there are many examples of laws starting at the age of 21. It is illegal to sell or give tobacco products directly or indirectly to minors, and anyone caught doing so will be subject to severe penalties. In the 1980s, the American Medical Association (AMA) and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services considered adolescent tobacco advertising and the resulting adolescent smoking to be an increasingly serious public health problem.55,56 In 1985, WADA proposed new national restrictions on tobacco marketing. including increasing the number of national MPs to 21 and banning the sale of vending machines.57 58 Efforts to increase the number of MPs have gained ground in the 21st century. In 2005, the health department in Needham, Massachusetts, increased its number of lawmakers to 21 with little media attention. Evidence that smoking rates in Needham had dropped by 50% as a result of the change prompted other places in Massachusetts to pass similar laws.81,82 Between 2012 and 2015, 93 locations in 7 states increased their number of lawmakers from ages 18 to 21.83,84 Philip Morris and Lorillard, who actively opposed efforts to increase the number of lawmakers in Colorado. and against local proposals in Massachusetts, arguing that states and municipalities should wait for action from Congress or the FDA81, even if the FDA is prohibited from increasing the number of lawmakers over 18 years.
In 2009, during the administration of Barack Obama, the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act was passed, which again established a federal minimum age of eighteen and prohibited the FDA from setting a higher minimum age of purchase. [8] From 1993 to 2012, the smoking age was eighteen or nineteen in all states. In 2005, the city of Needham, Massachusetts, became the first jurisdiction in the country to raise the minimum purchasing age to 21. [9] Between 2012 and 2015, local communities in the United States began raising their smoking age to twenty-one, with Hawaii becoming the first state to increase its age to twenty-one in 2015. [10] This began the shift to states that eventually raised their age to twenty-one due to the teen vaping crisis. [11] In 2019, eighteen states had their minimum purchasing age at twenty-one, thirty states had their age at eighteen, two had it at nineteen, and the District of Columbia had it at twenty-one. On December 20, 2019, with the passage of fiscal year 2020 funds signed by President Donald Trump, the federal age for smokers was raised to twenty-one by changing the minimum age of purchase in the Synar Amendment of 1992. [12] The U.S.
Department of Defense followed suit and raised the age to buy tobacco at military bases in the United States to twenty-one. and abroad. [13] A growing body of evidence on tobacco addiction suggests that reinstating MPs to age 21 would reduce the occurrence and prevalence of smoking, particularly among those under 18. For most of the 20th century, the tobacco industry vigorously encouraged and defended inferior MPs 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. States chose different age limits when they first passed laws restricting the sale and use of tobacco, and changed their deputies over time. Illinois, for example, lowered its MLA from 18 to 16 in 1920 and increased it to 18 in 1964. In contrast, Iowa increased its MLA from 16 to 21 in 1934 and reduced it to 18 in 1964. In the 1950s and 1960s, lawmakers in several states repeatedly attempted to lower the minimum age of legal access to tobacco to 18 or 16, in some cases successfully. In 1953 and 1955, Maryland and Oregon temporarily lifted their bans on selling cigarettes to minors. Between 1954 and 1963, 10 states lowered the age of entry from 21 to 18 (and from 19 in Utah).28-35 In the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
In the nineteenth century, higher age limits were seen as a way to better enforce them; 50 years later, the press reported that lower age limits had been proposed to ensure “stricter enforcement.” 36:37 Dec.