Florida's controversial Governor Ron DeSantis (R) has been a bit of a mixed bag overall. The True Spirit of America Party (TSAP) is, to put it mildly, not exactly a fan of Republicans in general and Trump supporters in particular, but has nonetheless generally agreed with his light-touch, focused protection handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has actually yielded a lower cumulative per capita death rate than the national average (and much lower than several lockdown states) despite Florida's significantly older and fatter population. And in terms of excess all-cause mortality, wide-open Florida even did better than the overall strictest state of all, California. There are some bad things about DeSantis of course, such as his latest Georgia-style voter suppression efforts and his heavy-handed and poorly-written anti-rioting law that arguably throws out the proverbial baby with the bathwater, but generally he is not too terrible by current low-bar Republican standards.
And of course, Twenty-One Debunked in particular has supported the fact that he was one of the most prominent holdouts in keeping the legal smoking age at 18 despite the trend towards raising it to 21 at the local, state, and eventually federal levels. After all, he has previously opposed and vetoed every single attempt to raise Florida's smoking age any higher than 18. Well, until now, that is. Like most other governors, as of today, DeSantis has officially SOLD OUT and signed into law a bill that raises Florida's smoking and vaping age to 21, effective October 1, 2021. True, this new law does have an exemption for military service members aged 18-20, making it a shade less bad than some other states, but we still oppose this law on principle like we oppose all inherently ageist Tobacco 21 laws, period.
One could argue that any state law that sets the age limit below 21 is effectively void since the federal smoking age has been 21 since December 2019, but that is beside the point. A state that chooses to remain 18 in spite of the federal Tobacco 21 law is a principled state with integrity, and is at the very least NOT helping the federal government enforce such an ageist abomination. Today, Florida lost that status.
DeSantis is now the 34th governor to raise the age limit for tobacco and vaping to 21, bringing it to now more than two out of three states who set it at 21. With "allies" like him (and Trump, who raised the federal age limit to 21), who really needs enemies?
The federal government should have let states and states alone in determining what the smoking/vaping minimum age should be. The federal government should have also let states and states alone which the legal drinking age should be. I as you will give credit to Governor DeSantis for opposing a minimum age of 21 for Tobacco until now. There have always been and are better ways to reduce smoking and vaping among young people, rather than using 21 as a minimum age.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, money talks. States have to comply to keep that federal funding coming.
ReplyDeleteWhat I mean is that the National Minimum Legal Drinking Age Act should not have been passed. The federal government should have let states decide state governments decide what the drinking age should be in its state without consequence. The 10th amendment should be acknowledged so that states may decide minimum ages.
DeleteUnfortunately, money talks. States have to comply to keep that federal funding coming.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, money talks. States have to comply to keep that federal funding coming.
ReplyDelete