SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) – California has become the second state in the nation to raise the legal age to buy tobacco from 18 to 21, starting the clock for opponents to ask voters for a reversal this November.
Gov. Jerry Brown’s signature on Wednesday means, beginning June 9, it will be a crime in California to sell or give tobacco to anyone except military personnel under age 21. He did not say why he signed the measure along with four others restricting tobacco use in various ways.
Tobacco interests have threatened to target the changes at the ballot box if they are signed into law. Industry or other opponents would need to collect 366,000 valid signatures by early August to ask voters to reject the new laws in November.
“The fierce opposition from Big Tobacco on this measure proves just how important this law is and how much their business model relies on targeting our kids,” state Sen. Ed Hernandez, an Azusa Democrat and author of the tobacco age bill, said in a statement.
Supporters of the law said it aims to deter adolescents from the harmful, sometimes fatal effects of nicotine addiction. The Institute of Medicine reports that 90 percent of daily smokers began using tobacco before turning 19.