Hawaii raises minimum age for tobacco products to 21

HONOLULU — Hawaii’s governor, David Ige, signed a bill Monday that prohibits anyone under the age of 21 from buying, selling, consuming or possessing cigaretetes and other tobacco products, including e-cigarettes. Hawaii is the first state to raise the minimum age of legal access to 21, with most states’s MLA being 18 years old, or 19 in four states.

 

“Raising the minimum age as part of our comprehensive tobacco control efforts will help reduce tobacco use among our youth and increase the likelihood that our [children] will grow up to be tobacco-free,” Ige said, citing the statistic that 86% of the state’s adult smokers started before they were 21 years old and 34 percent had started between the ages of 18 and 20.

 

The law will go into effect on Jan. 1, 2016, and is part of Hawaii’s larger effort to curb smoking, which includes another law signed Monday that prohibits smoking in Hawaii state parks.