What’s the new Federal tobacco and vapor law mean to Utah?

A new federal law is sweeping the nation. If you smoke tobacco or use vapor products, the Food and Drug Administration states you need to be 21 and over to buy it.

The new law was passed by Congress and signed by President Trump during the spending package.

Juan Bravo owns VIP Vapors and is the President of the Utah Vapor Business Association. He’s had the job of explaining the new law to customers and retailers.

“It’s made a lot of consumers very, very uneasy because yesterday when they get off work they could purchase vapor products legally, you know if they were 19 or 20, and this morning they could not,” he said.

How will the federal law be enforced in Utah?

In a statement, Braden Ainsworth with the State Health Department tells ABC4 News, Jason Nguyen:

“The FDA hasn’t yet mentioned to us how they plan on enforcing it. They do their own enforcement independent from what we or the local health departments do. Local health departments can also do enforcement and we are meeting next week to put a plan in place. We did not expect the FDA to implement this change so quickly so we haven’t had time to make a formal plan.”

The question ABC4 News wanted to know, what about the employees under 21, can they sell tobacco or vaping products?

Ainsworth goes on stating:

“Unless there is a local regulation prohibiting a clerk from selling tobacco when under the age, the federal legislation doesn’t seem to prohibit this and there isn’t a statewide law prohibiting this either.”

“It makes sense, it’s a little chaotic, it been a little bit more stressful, it should have been thought out better,” said Bravo. “In my opinion, it should have been staggered, once again to not exclude anybody who is legally using the product.”

Story provided by our news partners at ABC 4 News.