21 to buy tobacco and vaping products? WA lawmakers want to raise age

You have to be at least 21 to buy alcohol or marijuana in Washington state. But now, Washington state lawmakers are considering putting the same age restriction on tobacco and vaping products.

At a recent hearing on the proposal in Olympia, Margo Ross spoke out against the idea. Ross, who owns two vapor products stores in Moses Lake, told lawmakers that vaping can help young smokers quit cigarettes.

But Democratic state Sen. Patty Kuderer (D-Bellevue), who is sponsoring the bill to raise the age to vape, didn't buy that argument.

"What is being touted as a way to get off cigarettes by adults is actually having the opposite effect among young people," Kuderer told KUOW. "It's encouraging them to start smoking, so rather than seeing that trend go down as we've seen from generation to generation, we're starting to see people start smoking again.”

Several states, including Hawaii, Oregon and California, have already raised the tobacco purchasing age to 21. Sen. Kuderer said that the evidence she's seen suggest those laws decrease youth smoking.

“What we've seen from the data is that if people don't start smoking until they're 21, they’re much less likely to ever start," Kuderer said. "So that means we save lives and we save health care costs from smoking-related illnesses.”

This isn't the first time that the state legislature has attempted to raise the age for purchasing tobacco, but Kuderer is convinced the bill could pass this year.

“We're much more health conscious today than we've ever been before," Kuderer said.

It helps, she added, that the bill is bipartisan.

"My colleague in the house is a Republican," Kuderer said. "We both feel very strongly about this and that this is a really smart way of preventing a much larger problem down the road and hopefully saving people from starting this habit.”

Listen to the interview by clicking the play button above.