Legislation to raise the nationwide legal age to buy tobacco products, including electronic cigarettes, from 18 to 21 passed Congress as part of the year-end spending bill and went to President Donald Trump on Friday, where he signed the measure into law. It will take around nine months for the measure to be implemented.
It passed the House December 17 and the Senate December 19. More than 6 million U.S. middle and high school students are current users of tobacco products, and 5.3 million of them, or 85 percent, are using e-cigarettes, according to the latest annual National Youth Tobacco Survey. The latest data for e-cigarette use by Kentucky teens, from 2018, shows e-cig use had nearly doubled since 2016, with more than one in four high-school seniors and one out of seven eighth-graders reporting they used the devices, the Kentucky Incentives for Prevention study found.
