Update at 8:30pm: A few extra notes.
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In addition to signing the bill boosting the age limit on cigarette buying, Mr.
The bills also restrict electronic cigarettes the same as tobacco products.
Tobacco company Altria declined comment on the governor’s actions. “We agree with the governor”, said coalition spokeswoman Beth Miller. Tobacco continues to claim too many lives and is the leading cause of preventable death. This will make them subject to smoke-free laws, age restrictions and other rules governing tobacco products. A 2012 ballot initiative to raise taxes by per pack failed by less than half a percentage point after the tobacco industry spent $47 million to defeat it.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) Gov.
Gov. Jerry Brown has signed the bill increasing the legal age to buy tobacco in California to 21, as well as four other tobacco related measures regulating e-cigarettes and smoking in the workplace, CBS Sacramento reported.
The measures are part of a package of anti-tobacco bills passed earlier this spring. But Democratic legislative leaders used a special session of the Legislature to get around some of these hurdles and get the bills to the governor’s desk. The new laws help address the public health scourge of our time through what ACS CAN describes as the “three-legged stool of tobacco control” by improving smoke-free laws, regularly and significantly increasing tobacco taxes and funding tobacco prevention and cessation programs.
Mr Brown stopped short of allowing local counties to impose their own tobacco taxes, noting in his veto message that several proposed new taxes would be placed before voters on the November ballot.
Original story: California Gov.
Brown, a Democrat, also signed bills to regulate electronic cigarettes, set annual tobacco license fees, push for all charter schools to be tobacco free and expand existing requirements for tobacco-free workplaces to include small businesses, break rooms and hotel lobbies.
The Legislature gave final approval to the bills on March 10.
Originally introduced previous year, they initially stalled in an Assembly committee awash with money from tobacco companies amid intense industry opposition.
Brown had 12 days to sign the bills or they would not become law. These measures are drawing support from numerous same interest groups that are backing the tobacco bills.
And while California already limits sales of e-cigarettes to adults, a report released past year by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that e-cigarette use among middle and high school students tripled from 4.5 percent in 2013 to 13.4 percent in 2014.
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By holding onto the bills so long, Democratic legislative leaders have ensured the tobacco industry will not be able to interfere with the initiative campaigns now gathering signatures.
