For those who are unaware, California has voted to raise the legal smoking age, of tobacco products, to 21 years of age, as of June 6. What this means is that products containing tobacco are no longer able to be sold to minors.

The beauty of this age raise is that now, citizens under the age of 21 will be somewhat forced to either quit smoking, or face potential legal issues by pursuing an addiction or “bad habit” that they do not really need in their life.

Hopefully more people, at a younger age, will realize that smoking in anyway, even the use of vaporizers, will have nothing but negative impact on their bodies. Even though the use of vaporizers is shown as an alternative to cigarette addictions, the interchangeable levels of nicotine that one can put in their body can lead to stronger addictions than that of an average cigarette, not to mention that there are still chemicals you are putting into your system when using the liquids for vaporizers that contain any level of nicotine higher than zero milligrams.

On the contrary, the raise of the smoking age is detrimental to the vaping industry.

With electronic cigarettes and vaporizers being grouped into “tobacco products,” sales of these products will more than likely plummet due to the fact that many buyers happen to belong to the younger generation.

Along with this negatively impacting the vaping industry, it will not have as big of a threat to the cigarette industry. This is because more smokers exist over the age of 21. The older generations will continue to have easy access to products and their usage. With that being said, the only negative impact towards cigarette companies would more than likely be from the older generation either switching from regularly smoking cigarettes to using vaporizers, or, quitting smoking in its entirety.

You can expect more youth to buy these products, because they are seen as a decent replacement to the idea of smoking cigarettes once they turn 18. Other reasons that today’s youth may be smoking is a unofficial “cool factor” that they may think exists, or for the use of stress relief.

Nonetheless, this will affect youth in both negative and positive ways.

Overall, the raise of the legal smoking age in California will prove to be both positive and negative for different age groups.