Tobacco Age 21! Anyone Know Any Other Surprises?

[perdurabo]

From Border Security To Tobacco Age, Both Parties Tout Key Wins In Spending Deal

Congressional leaders unveiled new highlights for a fiscal year 2020 budget agreement. It boosts spending for census, federal workers and the military, election security and border security efforts.

www.npr.org

Anyone know of other secret tobacco legislation in this massive Spending Bill?

 

[Akousticplyr]

"Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and others also touted a new age requirement of 21 for tobacco use. McConnell, a Republican who hails from the tobacco state of Kentucky, joined forces with Sens. Tim Kaine, D-Va., Todd Young, R-Ind., and Mitt Romney, R-Utah in a bipartisan push earlier this year for the new age requirement."

"Stories of vaping related illnesses and deaths — especially among young people — have stunned Kentucky and the nation," McConnell said in a statement Monday evening. "I'm grateful to the communities, the health advocates and my fellow elected officials, including President Trump and Senators Todd Young and Mitt Romney, who have joined Senator Kaine and me to address this urgent crisis and keep these dangerous products away from our children."

...and so it begins!

 

[Bowie]

Are cigarettes and cigars still cheaper on military bases? They were when I was in. If so, then this section of the bill linked in the news article ("TEXT OF THE HOUSE AMENDMENT TO THE SENATE AMENDMENT TO H.R. 1158") seems to do away with this domestically:

The Secretary of Defense shall issue regulations to prohibit the sale of any tobacco or tobacco-related products in military resale outlets in the United States, its territories and possessions at a price below the most competitive price in the local community: Provided, That such regulations shall direct that the prices of tobacco or tobacco-related products in overseas military retail outlets shall be within the range of prices established for military retail system stores located in the United States.

 

[Casual]

Thank god they acted to stop that avalanche of vaping deaths. I‘m sure this new age limit for tobacco will ensure that no one else will ever be hurt by additives in homegrown vape juice.

 

[ron123]

To be consistent, we need to raise the age to 21 for everything considered "adult": alcohol (done), smoking (might be happening, and already done in some states), buy guns (might be done? I'm not sure...might just be for pistols), abortions, consent to sex, vote, and oh yeah, join the military. Did I miss anything?

 

[olkofri]

Ahh, good ole omnibus bills... the perfect means of sneaking in all kinds of shit because... who's gonna bother reading them? Or, if forced to read them, by the time they're almost done their bleary eyes won't notice a game-changing legislation craftily buried in page 527, will they?

 

[logs]

I hear what you're saying but it's not always about the sneak attack. It's the nature of political bills that lawmakers have to compromise. You can't just charge in the direction of what you want, as far as bills go, because the other side will just shoot it down; it's easy to do when there's nothing in it for the opposition. Bills get padded with all sorts of unrelated watered-down mishmash simply because then they stand a fighting chance of getting passed.