Raising the Smoking Age and Saving Vaping

Late in 2019, as apart of the Federal budget, Congress raised the age to consume tobacco products from 18-21. This has brought up new ideas about what it means to be an adult and why Congress chose now to raise the age. The reason has to do with the recent epidemic of vaping illnesses.

What is an Adult?

Our threshold for being an adult seems to be ever moving. In 1981, MADD (mothers against drunk driving) successfully raised the age to consume alcohol from 18 to 21. Unlike other nations, even beer and wine, were all put over that threshold. You could fight in a war but not buy a drink. Renting cars has been moved up to 25, getting a credit card was moved up to 21 during the financial crisis, and now tobacco has been moved up to 21. To many young people it seems as if they aren’t really adults until they are 21. No amount of financial aptitude, responsibility, or maturity can change the fact that slowly but surely, real adulthood, at least in terms of vices, doesn’t really kick in until 21. 18-21 is beginning to be this strange neutral zone where all the expectations and responsibility have begun but few of the privileges are allowed.

Saving Vaping

In 2019, a raft of vaping illnesses from illegal vape cartridges broke out across the country. Healthy young teens were presenting to hospitals with terrible symptoms. Initially, the CDC blamed vaping writ large but months after the publicity had subsided, they finally admitted that regular nicotine vaping was not the cause. The damage to vaping as an idea was done. This research did not solve the problem of teen and youth vaping. However, by age restricting tobacco products, the chances of teens being able to access these products would be reduced, hence why the provision was added to the Federal budget measure. Those 18-21 who could buy tobacco in 2019 were suddenly left in the lurch with no grandfather provisions.

Vaping Popularity

Vaping has become popular over the last 5 years. Long-time smokers have used it to quit regular cigarettes and others have used it as an alternative to traditional tobacco. Vaping in various formats from Juul style cartridges to mods, squonks, and tanks have grown in popularity. For smoking cessation experts this has been an unwelcome development as youth rates of smoking were almost non-existent. Vaping is a billion-dollar industry and is going nowhere fast. As far as THC cartridges go, the ones responsible for the illnesses, national legalization is the best antidote to this kind of illegal activity. The reality is that if people want to consume a product like these to relax, get high, or de-stress then they will often find a way to do it. Like alcohol prohibition and the war on drugs, if people want to consume these things, they will do so.