Gov. Jerry Brown signed a sweeping package of tobacco bills into law on Wednesday, including one that will raise the legal age to buy products from 18 to 21 and another that dramatically tightens restrictions on e-cigarettes.
But the governor vetoed a bill that would have permitted cities and counties to establish their own tobacco taxes.
“Although California has one of the lowest cigarette taxes in the nation,” the governor said in a veto message, “I am reluctant to approve this measure in view of all the taxes being proposed for the 2016 ballot.”
California becomes just the second state after Hawaii to raise the lawful age to buy tobacco products, a move that backers applaud as a sure way to curtail harm to adolescents and reduce the number of adult smokers.
Sen. Ed Hernandez, D-West Covina, was the lead author of the bill to raise the tobacco age. In a phone interview, he said he was “ecstatic.”
“What this means for California is now we can know that our youth are less likely to be addicted to this horrible drug of tobacco,” he said. “There’s going to be less addiction to tobacco, [and] we’re going to reduce health care costs and save lives.”
The law, which takes effect on June 9, applies to all 18- to 20-year-olds, except military personnel. The bill had stalled for months until a compromise was reached to permit service members under 21 to continue purchasing tobacco.
A major Institute of Medicine report last year concluded that if all states raised the tobacco age to 21, there would be a 12 percent drop in the number of teen and young adult smokers.
“The biggest drops in tobacco use (will) likely occur among teens ages 15 to 17 — kids who can’t legally buy tobacco products in California now but who run in the same social circles as 18-year-olds who may illegally purchase tobacco products for younger friends,” said Larry Cohen, executive director of the Oakland-based Prevention Institute and a longtime advocate for tobacco control policies.
Adolescents are at particular risk for nicotine addiction since their brains are still developing, says longtime tobacco critic, Stan Glantz, a professor at the University of California, San Francisco.
“Exposing the developing brain to nicotine, which is in both e-cigarettes and conventional cigarettes, physically changes the brain,” Glantz said. “That’s why the younger someone starts to smoke, the more addicted they tend to get … and the harder time they have stopping.
Hernandez said that about 90 percent of tobacco users start smoking before age 21, and 80 percent of lifetime users start before they are 18.
Brown signed three other bills:
- An expansion of smoke-free workspaces to include hotel lobbies, bars, banquet rooms and employee break rooms
- Expansion of eligibility for tobacco prevention funds to charter schools
- Increases in tobacco retailer license fees from a one-time $100 fee to an annual $265 fee
Anti-tobacco groups are now focusing on an effort to gather signatures for a potential November ballot issue that would raise the statewide cigarette tax from the current $0.87 per pack to $2.
While California is seen as tough on tobacco, it ranks 36th in the country on per-pack taxes. A 2012 ballot proposition to raise the tax by $1 per pack failed by less than half a percentage point after the tobacco industry spent $47 million to defeat it.
A statewide Field Poll last year found that two-thirds of California voters support an increase in the tobacco tax.