Idaho Lawmakers Reject Moving Smoking Age to 21
This makes no sense to me at all, but our Idaho Legislature has decided not to move the legal smoking age to 21, which is the age of the federal law.
The legislation was presented to move our state's legal smoking age to 21 which would match it up with the federal law that was passed by the United States Congress and signed into law by President Trump lat year.
It failed the Idaho Senate last week going down 10-22. Numerous State Senators explained their vote against the legislation primarily centering on not criminalizing behavior that, up until this point, has not been.
A few other members of the Senate spoke in support of the bill, but the primary feeling was that legislators do not support the change, even though it is already a standard across the country.
Our news partner, KTVB Newschannel 7 quoted Sen. Janie Ward-Engelking, Democrat of Boise saying, "We need a more comprehensive bill that deals with vaping. We need to stop online sales from our vaping products, because that’s how our young people get the product."
That point is interesting and probably fair, since vaping has become such a substantial portion of the smoking marketplace and the basic proposed legislation did not cover it.
There is a more involved bill that is already making it's way through the State House, so this issue may not be dead, even though this version did not make it through.