Students entering the University of Florida from high school who smoke will have to wait until they become juniors or seniors before they can legally buy tobacco near the campus.
That’s because Alachua County, home to the Gainesville campus, has become the first county in Florida to raise the minimum age for tobacco sales from 18 to 21, News4Jax reported.
It won’t completely change life at UF. “Smoking has been banned on campus since 2010, so [the ordinance is] not a concern for the university campus specifically,” said UF spokeswoman Margot Winick.
But students of legal age can still buy tobacco products and smoke them elsewhere.
The sales rule applies also to vaping electronic cigarettes, which has become popular among teens. The minimum age to buy e-cigarettes ranges from 18 to 21 nationwide, according to the Public Health Law Center. In Florida, it’s currently 18.
In addition to raising the age, a movement catching on nationwide, vendors will have to apply for a one-year license to sell tobacco products. These retailers won’t be able to sell tobacco products within 1,000 feet of a public school.
Alachua County Commissioner Ken Cornell told ABC’s WCJB that youthful smoking, which includes tobacco-free vaping with its own risks, “is definitely an epidemic.” He added that “public health is important and the public health of our kids is the most important.”
The Institute of Medicine released a report in 2015 that said raising the smoking age to 21 could prevent about 223,000 premature deaths among Americans born between 2000 and 2019.
California and Hawaii became 21-and-older states for the purchase of tobacco in 2016. In July 2018, Maine started a 21 rule , and Oregon did the same in January 2018.
This month, on Jan. 1, Massachusetts made it illegal to sell tobacco products to anyone younger than 21.
These states, and New Jersey, also set 21 as the minimum age to buy e-cigarettes.
Earlier this week, The Washington Post reported that “some prominent legislators are backing a bill to raise the minimum age for buying cigarettes and vapes from 18 to 21 in Virginia, a state where tobacco once loomed so large that images of the leaves adorn its stately Capitol.”
Raising the tobacco age is a nationwide movement. Many cities and counties across the U.S. have also moved to 21 in recent years. These include:
The city of Sitka in Alaska. Cottonwood and Douglas cities in Arizona. Harrison city and Helena-West Helena and Phillips counties in Arkansas. Aspen, Avon, and Basalt municipalities in Colorado.
Also, 23 counties or cities in Illinois, including Chicago, now have a 21 minimum age. Kansas has seen 21 cities raise the age to 21.
Ann Arbor and Genesee County in Michigan raised tobacco sales to 21.
Minneapolis and numerous counties in Minnesota went 21.
The cities of Dover and Keene in New Hampshire. Seventeen cities in Ohio. The town of Barrington and city of Central Falls in Rhode Island. San Antonio in Texas.
And the nation’s capital, Washington, D.C., raised the minimum age from 18 to 21 in 2016, and that also includes the purchase of e-cigarettes.
This story was originally published January 24, 2019 12:44 PM.
