Trump Recommends Raising The National Vaping Age To 21 Years

Adding to the confusion, the Trump administration might raise the minimum legal sales age for vaping to 21 years. The industry and consumers additionally sit on pins and needles as the FDA's release on the official order to ban flavored e-cigarettes is delayed yet again.

President Donald Trump announced to reporters that his administration may increase the national legal sales age for e-cigarettes to 21 years. Across the United States, individuals must be at least a minimum of 18 years based on federal standards. The trend of “Tobacco 21” policies at the state and local levels continues to create a patchwork of age restriction policies across state lines.

“We’re going the be coming out with a very important position on vaping,” Trump said. “We have to take care of our kids, most importantly. So we’re going to have an age limit of 21 or so, but we’ll be coming out with something next week, very important on vaping.”

Such noncommittal rhetoric leaves both tobacco harm reduction advocates and tobacco control advocates wondering what is coming down the regulatory pipeline. To make matters even more confusing, the administration is again delaying the release of the official rules that finalizes the ban on flavored vapor.

Sources at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) told me to expect the ban on Thursday, Nov. 7. The same goes for other mainstream news outlets who reported similar rumors, like USA Today and The Washington Post. That, of course, never happen occurred.

Trump bucked those expectations during his news conference. He said that the FDA should be expected to publish final guidance on flavors and the premarket tobacco applications compliance policy sometime in the next week. Great concerns have arisen, though. Upon a review of several media reports and multiple replays of the president’s remarks, it appears to me that he is gesturing toward a sales age-lifting measure that only applies to vapor products.