Age to purchase tobacco now 21 years old

Anyone looking to buy tobacco products in Minnesota will have to be at least 21 years old to do so under a new law.

This includes e-cigarettes, which have become incredibly popular amongst teenagers and nearly erased two decades of progress in limiting tobacco use. Increasing the legal purchasing age is intended to interrupt the cycle of addiction.

Rep. Heather Edelson (DFL-Edina) and Sen. Carla Nelson (R-Rochester) sponsor the law, which brings the state into line with federal statute. A statewide approach is intended to address confusion for retailers as well as law enforcement. The law takes effect Aug. 1, 2020.

In addition to changing the legal age for purchasing tobacco and tobacco products, the law will:

• make people liable to administrative penalties for giving or otherwise furnishing tobacco products to underage people, in addition to selling them;

• include a wider range of tobacco and nicotine delivery products, including e-cigarettes;

• increase penalties for stores that sell to underage people and allow licenses to be revoked for a third or subsequent violation;

• eliminate the petty misdemeanor for underage people who possess tobacco or purchase it with a fake I.D. and

• require alternative civil penalties for underage people who purchase tobacco products, which can include tobacco-cessation programming and community service, but not fines or monetary penalties.

The new law will make selling or giving tobacco to an underage person a petty misdemeanor for the first violation – a lower penalty than the misdemeanor in previous statute. Penalties for subsequent violations will be lowered from gross misdemeanors to misdemeanors.

Under the law, a first violation by a retailer will result in a $300 penalty, a second violation will cost $600, and later violations within 36 months of the initial violation will cost $1,000.

Previously, the penalties for retailers were, respectively, $75, $200, and $250 for violations within 24 months of the initial violation.

HF331*/SF463/CH88

HF0331* / SF0463 / CH88