CA Assembly Votes to Raise Smoking Age to 21

On Thursday, the California Assembly voted to raise the legal age for smoking from 18 to 21.

Last year, the California Senate approved the bill, but the Assembly did not vote on it. Now that the Assembly has passed the bill, it will return to the Senate for approval.

ABC 10 reports that the Assembly interpolated a change in the bill allowing military members to smoke if they are 18 or older. The bill was passed by a 46-26 vote.

In Massachusetts, over 80 communities have raised the access age for cigarettes to 21. At the end of last year, Kansas City and Cleveland raised their tobacco age to 21. As of February 2016, 121 cities across nine states and the state of Hawaii had raised the smoking age to 21. New Jersey’s General Assembly is considering the matter.

Only days before the California Assembly voted to raise the smoking age, San Francisco officials voted to implement the same policy in their city, making it the second-largest city after New York City to raise the smoking age, which did so in November 2013.