Tobacco 21 Laws' Benefits Are An Illusion

Another recent study found that while self-reported teen smoking and vaping rates declined after Tobacco 21 laws, biomarker exposure showed mixed evidence at best, implying that fewer young smokers are identifying as smokers (and similar findings for vaping).  Thus, the supposed reductions in smoking and vaping in surveys and sales data are at least largely an artifact of underreporting and cross-border shopping rather than real reductions.  Oops!

Looks like it was all just another mirage, kinda like with the 21 drinking age.  What next, a study that finds that water is wet and the sun rises in the east?

How To Make Tobacco Less Appealing And Addictive Without Banning It Or Reducing Nicotine Below Natural Levels

Here is a "Cliffs Notes" style list on how to make cigarettes and other smokeable tobacco products less addictive and appealing WITHOUT banning it outright, raising the age limit any higher than 18, or even reducing nicotine below natural levels:

• First and foremost, BAN ADDITIVES!  No non-tobacco ingredients should be added, period.
• Adding extra nicotine deliberately should also be banned as well.
• Require the smoke pH to be 8 or higher to discourage deep inhalation of smoke, as it naturally was prior to the 20th century. 
• Phase out the pH-lowering and environmentally unsustainable practice of flue-curing tobacco. 
• Phase out cigarette "filters", which don't really filter, and merely provide a false sense of security to smokers, and inherently creates a major toxic waste littering problem to boot.

If they still want to reduce maximum nicotine levels to a non-addictive level in ready-made commercial cigarettes and little cigars, go right ahead.  But it would be best to do the other things on the list first.

Also, banning the use of radioactive (!) phosphate fertilizers to grow tobacco is really a textbook no-brainer in terms of tobacco harm reduction. 

Additionally, requiring all tobacco products to be sold only in dedicated tobacco stores, or other places where you have to be 18 or older to enter, would really not be a bad idea either.  It would certainly make it less ubiquitous, convenient, and tempting without the constant reminder in grocery stores, convenience stores, gas stations, pharmacies, etc.

So what are we waiting for?

A Better Way To Phase Out Tobacco

California is now seeking to emulate New Zealand, Norway, Singapore, and the Philippines in phasing out tobacco products with a permanent generational ban on the sale of such to anyone born on after January 1, 2007.  Twenty-One Debunked has generally opposed such an idea on principle, as we had discussed previously.   Not only is it inherently ageist, and further promotes black markets, but it will drag it out and take decades to have the desired endgame effect.

Here's a better idea, that the FDA is already currently considering:  Reduce the maximum allowable nicotine levels in commercial cigarettes, and perhaps other combustible tobacco products, to a non-addictive or sub-addictive level.  This idea, or at least some flavor of it, has long been endorsed by many stakeholders and pundits the world over, from the American Medical Association to Robert N. Proctor to Malcolm Gladwell.  And Twenty-One Debunked has endorsed it since 2013, ideally keeping the legal age limit at 18 (which Congress and Trump unfortunately raised to 21 in late 2019, much to our chagrin).

By that, it means reducing nicotine levels by 95% or so from current levels, down to no more than 0.5 mg/g (0.05%) of tobacco.  Crucially, this would apply to nicotine content, not "delivery," as the latter can be gamed and manipulated too easily.

If done smoothly and gradually enough, and leaving noncombustible tobacco and nicotine products untouched, this will dramatically reduce smoking rates for all ages, and thus save thousands if not millions of lives without creating any more of a black market than already exists from high cigarette taxes alone.  Pairing it with a tax hike (within reason) would also increase its effectiveness as well.

Even if the new nicotine limits applied only to the sale of pre-rolled cigarettes and quasi-cigarettes like little cigars, and nothing else, it would likely still have the desired effect.  That is because those are the products that really drive the deadly tobacco epidemic.

It could be done in either one step with some lead time, or a few steps over a period of months to a year or two, for all cigarette manufacturing and importation going forward, plus an additional year to clear out excess inventory.  Doing it in a few steps would probably be better overall we think.  Either way would probably be fine though. 

Banning the use of additives, which are largely all about increasing the addictiveness of the products, would also make sense as well.  Michigan already has an excellent law on the books, that bans any "deleterious" ingredient or anything "foreign to tobacco" being added to cigarettes.  It needs enforcing.

Redesigning the cigarette to have a more alkaline smoke pH of 8 or higher, as it typically was prior to the 20th century, would make it less appealing and harder to inhale at least for new smokers.  Most cigars and pipe tobacco are already like that currently. 

And for the love of all that is good, ban the use of radioactive phosphate fertilizers yesterday!

Another good idea would be to only allow tobacco products to be sold in designated or dedicated tobacco-related stores (i.e. smoke and vape shops) and/or places that one needs to be 18+ to enter.

As for nicotine vapes, capping the maximum nicotine content at current European or Israeli levels (lower than USA levels but still generous) would reduce overall nicotine addiction rates without driving vapers back to smoking cigarettes.

Do these things and the desired endgame can be achieved in a matter of months to years, not decades.  But that would make too much sense, right?

FUN FACT:  Hemp-based, tobacco-free "blunt wraps" are now commercially available, so even the classic use of hollowed-out cheap tobacco cigars for rolling cannabis blunts is now thoroughly obsolete as well. 

UPDATE:  Apparently New Zealand will, starting in 2025, mandate that only very low nicotine cigarettes (VLNC) be sold, similar to what we advocate above.  Also, in 2024 they will sharply reduce the number of tobacco retail outlets by 90-95%, and ban the sale of cigarettes at kiosks, gas stations, or supermarkets.  This will be in addition to their generational ban for anyone born after January 1, 2009.  Thus, the generational ban is completely redundant and unnecessary, given the other two components.  And also the price of a pack of smokes there, $36 NZD, is the equivalent of over $20 USD (that is, more than a dollar per cigarette!) thanks to their already high taxes, making it a very expensive habit as it is.

And vape products would remain unaffected. 

Twenty-One Debunked's preferred plan, in a nutshell, is basically the New Zealand plan MINUS the generational ban and keeping the age limit at 18, plus a few other things above listed above.

UPDATE 2:  Bhutan, the only country in the 21st century that had completely banned tobacco across the board, has failed so miserably in doing so (thanks to the black market and international smuggling, and despite very stiff penalties too) that they ended up reversing their ban in 2021, largely out of fear that rampant cross-border smuggling would.... increase the spread of Covid.  Seriously, you cannot make this stuff up!  This should really be a cautionary tale.

Latest California Smoking Age Study More Smoke Than Fire

Last month, a new study looking at the results of California's smoking age hike from 18 to 21 in 2016 turns out to be less than meets the eye.  The study, looking at BRFSS survey data for 18-20 year olds pre versus post implementation, found that, compared to 21-23 year olds in California and to 18-20 year olds in the eight comparison states, 18-20 year olds did not see any significant change in the rate of decline of current or ever smoking, but did see significantly faster declines in the rates of daily smoking in the three years after the age limit was hiked to 21 versus before implementation.  Interestingly, vaping was not examined at all due to apparent data gaps at the time, so this study says absolutely nothing about vaping.

While the part about daily smoking sounds impressive on the surface, one should keep in mind that cigarette taxes were hiked by $2.00/pack in 2016 (effective April 2017), and generally the younger a person is, the more price-sensitive they are since they tend to have less disposable income, and furthermore the earlier they are in the course of their tobacco habits.  So it would stand to reason that the tax hike alone, which makes regular and especially daily smoking that much more of an expensive burden on the smoker, would have had a larger impact on 18-20 year olds than 21-23 year olds in California.  That would also explain why current or ever smoking (which were essentially not affected at all) would be much less affected than daily smoking as well.  

Of note, Pennsylvania had also raised their cigarette tax in 2016 yet still kept their age limit at 18 (until July 2020, that is), yet interestingly that state was NOT one of the eight comparison states.  The results of this study would thus likely have been very different if Pennsylvania was one of the comparison states.

Alternatively, some of the progression to daily smoking may simply have been delayed by a few years by the age limit hike, yielding no real long-run benefits, kinda like some studies have strongly suggested about drunk driving deaths when the drinking age was raised to 21.  Indeed, by 2019 the daily smoking rate among 21-23 year olds was actually a bit higher than it was in 2016.

And as we have previously noted, in NYC and elsewhere, raising the smoking age to 21 does not seem to actually reduce high school smoking rates compared with keeping it 18, so the "trickle-down" theory that is often used as a specious justification for Tobacco 21 laws is very unlikely to be the case in California (or anywhere else) either.

Thus, this study is more smoke than fire.  And regardless, we at Twenty-One Debunked would still oppose the 21 smoking age on principle regardless of its effects.  Young adults who are old enough to go to war, be tried as adults, etc. should NOT have the state dictating what otherwise legal substances they choose to put into their own bodies at all, period.  Seriously.

And that is a hill we will die on.

What's The Best Way To Reduce Teen Vaping? Teens Already Know The Answer

As bewildered chronological adults wring their hands and scratch their heads on how to best fight the teen vaping "epidemic", a recent article came out in Utah that actually asked teens themselves how to do it.  The answer was simple:  tax the hell out of it to make it more expensive.  Gee, who woulda thunk it?

Notice they did not say anything about raising the age limit, by the way.   America's experience with combustible cigarettes has shown that raising the price, via taxes or otherwise, seems to be the most effective and cost-effective way to do it.  And while it works for all ages, the effect size is larger for young people since they are more price-sensitive overall.

Of course, if vape taxes are raised, care must be taken to also raise combustible tobacco taxes so as not to inadvertently steer young people back to smoking.   And as long as vaping remains an available alternative, cigarette taxes can go much higher than they are now (except New York) without creating too much of a black market.   Thus vape taxes should go up, and cigarette taxes should be even higher still.  And only nicotine-containing vape juices and pods should be taxed significantly, ideally proportional to nicotine content.  (Hardware devices themselves should only be taxed modestly, if at all.)

Other effective measures we have noted include capping and reducing the nicotine content of vape products down to European and Israeli levels (JUUL, we're looking at YOU), strictly enforcing the 18 age limit on vendors for all tobacco and nicotine products, and perhaps also removing kid-friendly fruity flavors of nicotine-containing vapes from the market.  But raising the age limit any higher than 18 should quite frankly not even be considered.   Too bad Utah is now the latest state to NOT heed that last bit of advice.