Awkward Turtle! Mitch McConnell Wants To Raise Federal Tobacco And Vaping Age To 21

In 2019, there seems to be one thing that Big Tobacco, JUUL Labs (which sold out to Big Tobacco), most anti-tobacco groups, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Sen. Majority Leader Mitch "Awkward Turtle" McConnell (R-KY) can all agree on.  And that thing is a federal Tobacco 21 law that raises the sale age limit for all tobacco and vaping products to 21 nationwide.  Politics certainly does make some very strange bedfellows indeed!

This would require an act of Congress, of course, as the FDA is explictly denied (as they should be!) the authority to raise the federal age limit any higher than 18.  And unlike the drinking age where the feds had to make an end-run around the Constitution to coerce states to raise their drinking ages to 21, this time they will not have to do so and can simply set a federal age limit of 21.  They already set a federal age limit of 18 as of 2009, so that law can very easily be amended.  Crucially, this law  only applies to the age limit for sales, and only sellers are targeted and penalized (unlike the drinking age in which public possession by young people is an offense), so this is still within Congress’s authority.  

Except, of course, for the substantive due process and equal protection argument invoking the 14th Amendment, since the age limit would be higher than the age of majority, but that is a separate issue from state's rights and the 10th Amendment.  And that can potentially be challenged in court, albeit as a VERY uphill battle.

Thus, this bill is likely to pass, unfortunately.  Write your Congresscritters and convince them to oppose it.  And point out all of the other things they can do instead:

• Raise the federal cigarette tax, apply it to the producer level, and set a national price floor to discourage interstate smuggling.
• Create a federal vape products tax on all nicotine-containing vape juices and pods, ideally proportional to nicotine content.
• Ban fruity and candy flavors in any nicotine-containing product.
• Cap the nicotine content of vape products down to European and Israeli levels.
• Give out free nicotine patches, gums, inhalers, etc. to any smokers who want to quit (NYC already does this.)
• Consider gradually phasing down the maximum allowable nicotine content of combustible cigarettes to a non-addictive level.
• Consider gradually phasing out menthol cigarettes like Canada did and the EU is in the process of doing.
• And last but but not least, enforce existing laws better in terms of the current 18 age limit for tobacco and vaping products.  In fact, amend the Synar Amendment and Program to raise the passing grade for retailer compliance checks from the currently low bar of 80% to 90% and then 95%, and include vape products.  

But do NOT raise the age limit any higher than 18.