UPDATE: The California Senate on Thursday approved raising the state’s minimum smoking age from 18 to 21.

A package of bills aimed at tobacco use are gaining momentum in the California Legislature and could spark significant change to the state’s smoking culture.

Governor Jerry Brown may soon be able to sign laws that would change the legal smoking age in the state from 18 to 21, put more restrictions on electronic cigarettes and vaporizer pens and raise the tax on each pack of cigarettes. The Senate will consider the bills this week and the governor is expected to approve them before the end of the month.

(photo by Gregory Cornfield)

“It’s estimated that 90 percent of all smokers start before the age of 21,” said Assemblyman Jim Wood (D-Healdsburg). “Fewer smokers means healthier people, healthier people means we spend less money on healthcare. The only loser in this equation is the tobacco companies, and in my opinion, they have won for long enough.”

If approved, a bill authored by Assemblyman Richard Bloom (D-Santa Monica) would allow local government leaders such as the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors to place tobacco tax initiatives on local ballots to help offset the financial burden nicotine puts on Californians. The bill passed the Assembly last Thursday and passed two senate committees this week.

“Smoking continues to be the leading cause of preventable deaths in the United States. At least 30 percent of cancer deaths and 87 percent of all lung cancer deaths are caused by smoking,” Bloom said. “In California, 40,000 people lose their lives to tobacco related illness each year.”

The Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids estimated that direct health care expenditures related to smoking in California amount to approximately $13.3 billion per year – with $3.5 billion in direct Medi-Cal costs.

California has not increased its tobacco tax since 1998 and ranks 35th in the country with an 87-cent tax per pack when the national average is $1.60. Bloom said for every 10 percent increase in the cost of a pack of cigarettes, teen smoking drops by up to 6.5 percent.

“If our goal is to reduce smoking and disease, then we know that tobacco taxes work,” he said. “In fact, increasing the cost of cigarettes is one of the most powerful and direct ways to reduce smoking.”

Voters will also decide a statewide measure calling for a $2 tax on each pack of cigarettes this November. The revenue generated from the law will expand treatment services for Medi-Cal patients with tobacco-related illnesses, support programs to prevent minors from using tobacco and increase funding for medical research.

If Brown signs state Senator Ed Hernandez’s bill to raise the smoking age to 21, California will be the second state in the country after Hawaii to do so.

“We are no longer going to sit on the sidelines while Big Tobacco markets to our kids and gets another generation of young people hooked on a product that will ultimately kill them,” Hernandez said.

Additional bills authored by Senator Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) and Assemblyman Jim Cooper (D-Elk Grove) attempt to define vapor products as “tobacco,” ensuring that e-cigarettes fall under laws that prohibit smoking at workplaces, schools, daycare centers, restaurants, bars, hospitals and on public transportation.

In January, the California Department of Public Health confirmed that e-cigarettes emit at least 10 toxic chemicals known to cause cancer, birth defects, or other reproductive harm.

E-cigarette use is also climbing among young people who lawmakers say are drawn to the products’ enticing flavors like cotton candy, bubble gum and chocolate. E-cigarette use among middle and high school students tripled from 2013 to 2014, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Botros, owner of Smoke and Vape Depot on Fairfax Avenue, displays some of the vape products his store sells.
(photo by Gregory Cornfield)

Hany Botros, owner of Smoke and Vape Depot on Fairfax Avenue, said he often sees people under the age of 18 smoking, so raising the age will not do much to curb the overall problem.

“From my point of view, I think [minors are] still going to be sending their older friends or parents [to buy cigarettes for them.] They always find a way.” he said.

He also said the proposed restriction would only upset smokers.

Botros said changing the age could affect his sales, but not overall tobacco use.

He also said a tax on cigarette packs will not help curb smoking either, pointing to the prices in New York City reaching $14-$18 per pack, when they are $6-$7 in L.A.

“[Smokers are] going to maybe move to cheaper kinds of cigarettes or rolling their own cigarettes or go more to smoking alternatives like vapors and electronic cigarettes, which is eventually going to be way cheaper than buying cigarettes,” he said. “So if we lost somehow some part of the cigarette selling by increasing prices, they’re going to go eventually to something else.”

The idea of comparing vaping to smoking, though, upset Botros.

“We’re always against treating a person that vapes as a person that smokes,” he said.

Botros tries to inform people that the two habits are different.

“There is no second-hand vapor,” he said. “Basically, what comes outside of the vaping machine is flavor and carbon dioxide, not carbon monoxide, no carcinogens, nothing bad comes from the vapor. As a matter of fact, a lot of people compliment the smell and the vapor because it’s basically fruit extracts.”

Botros questioned whether the state is acting too quickly with electronic cigarette restrictions.

“I understand that you want people not to smoke,” he said. “If we banned vaping, if we put more taxes and restrictions on vaping, people will eventually go back to cigarettes. It’s proven clinically, scientifically, everything has proven that vaping, according to the U.K. last December, is 95 percent safer than smoking cigarettes.”

He said vaping helped him quit smoking.

“The only reason I sell cigarettes at my store is I want people that have never seen vaping before just to come to the store to try a pack of cigarettes and we’ll talk to them [about vaping and how it can help them quit,]” he said.

Botros opened the store almost one and a half years ago, and he claims more than 380 customers quit smoking the same way he did.

The California Distributor Association, CalChamber and Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association also oppose increasing the tax on packs of cigarettes. The Smoke-Free Alternatives Trade Association (SFATA) opposes tax increases and equating electronic to regular cigarettes.

“This is a clear sign that money and not public health is at the core of these measures,” said Cynthia Cabrera, president of SFATA. “While we support sensible legislation to keep [vaping] products out of the hands of minors, lumping vapor with combustible cigarettes does not make sense because they are fundamentally different and opens the door for excessive taxation of vapor products that only will lead adults back to smoking cigarettes or force them to purchase products out of state or on the black market.”

Tobacco remains the leading cause of preventable death in the United States with 480,000 people dying annually – 40,000 from effects of secondhand smoke. According to the CDC, tobacco use kills more people per year than alcohol, murders, illegal drugs, AIDS and motor vehicle accidents.