The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) raised on Thursday the minimum age for certain rules regarding the sale of tobacco products.
Starting Sept. 30, smokers under the age of 30 must show photo identification to buy tobacco products including e-cigarettes. Previously, retailers only had to verify with photo ID the age of customers under 27.
The change is part of the 2019 Further Consolidated Appropriations Act which raised the minimum age to buy tobacco products to 21, from 18. The bill also directed the FDA to increase other age requirements for tobacco sales.
“Today’s rule is another key step toward protecting our nation’s youth from the health risks of tobacco products,” said Brian King, director of the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products, in a press release. “Decades of science have shown that keeping tobacco products away from youth is critical to reducing the number of people who ultimately become addicted to these products and suffer from tobacco-related disease and death.”
Additionally, the FDA prohibited retailers from selling tobacco products via vending machines in spaces where people under 21 are present or permitted to enter — the previous rule only applied to locations where people under 18 where present.
The rule changes are part of government efforts to decrease underage tobacco sales.
Over 95% of U.S. adults who smoke daily smoked their first cigarette by the age of 21, according to the FDA.
In a report in May, the World Health Organization (WHO) said that the tobacco industry designed products that appeal to children and marketed them aggressively via social media, concerts and sporting events.
The WHO estimates that about 37 million people aged 13–15 years use tobacco.
Cigarette smoking is responsible for over 480,000 deaths in the United States each year, according to the CDC.