WESTFIELD – The Board of Health approved new tobacco control regulations last week that will increase the legal age to purchase tobacco and nicotine delivery system to 21 years of age.
The board, which has been evaluating the city’s tobacco control policies for the past four months, also voted to prohibit the sale of tobacco and nicotine delivery system at health care institutions, such as pharmacies and hospitals, and at educational institutions
The current policy allows the purchase of tobacco at 18 years of age. The new regulation, increasing that to 21 years of age, will take effect on Jan. 1, 2016.
State law prohibits tobacco sales to those under 18. Needham, in 2006, was the first community in the country to raise the tobacco sales age to 21.
The Health Board also set a maximum number of tobacco and nicotine delivery sales licenses which will be allowed in the city at 55. Non-residential “roll your own” machines are also banned under the new regulation.
Health Director Joseph Rouse said that licensees will be notified by mail in December and that the Health Department will publish a legal advertisement notify the public of the policy changes.
“The major changes in the Health Board’s policies are the increase of age to 21 for the legal purchase of those products and the restrictions on where those products can be sold,” Rouse said.
Westfield joins a growing number of communities, especially communities with colleges and universities, that have adopted policies restriction the sale of tobacco and nicotine delivery products to persons who are 21 years or older.
Regulations to increase the age to purchase tobacco and nicotine delivery products to 21 have recently been approved in Amherst, South Hadley and Holyoke, as well as in Brookline, Belmont, Sharon, Watertown, Westwood, Walpole and Sudbury.
Greenfield capped the total number of retail tobacco permits in town to 25 and set perimeters prohibiting tobacco sales within 500 feet of a school, although existing permits will be “grandfathered.”
Greenfield, which adopted the new regulations in March of this year, was the 52nd community in Massachusetts at that time to ban tobacco sales to those products to persons between the ages of 18 and 20, said Ken Farbstein of Needham, a healthcare consultant and volunteer advocate for the so-called “T-21” movement.
The purpose of the new regulations is to limit availability of tobacco and nicotine delivery products, such as e-cigarettes, to teenagers.
