“Big Tobacco and its legion of lobbyists, which for years fought efforts to raise the legal age to buy smoking and vaping products, mysteriously changed their tune in statehouses this year, instead arguing the age should be upped from 18 to 21. Big Tobacco and its legislative allies say they’re following the lead of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in trying to fight dramatic increases in youth vaping. But public health groups, which first pushed for 21, claim the latest effort is a cynical ploy from an old tobacco playbook — playing the good guy and supporting weak statewide legislation that adds multiple exemptions, nullifies tougher local rules and ensures ineffective enforcement. It’s important to get it right, health advocates say, because once legislators update their state’s tobacco law they are unlikely to go back and change it anytime soon. One 2013 study published in the American Journal of Public Health showed it can take 17 years for states to update a weak tobacco law once passed.”
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BIG TOBACCO’S SURPRISING NEW CAMPAIGN TO RAISE THE SMOKING AGE
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