By Alice Waugh
The Board of Health has approved new rules restricting sales of electronic cigarettes in Lincoln and raising the age for buying tobacco products from 18 to 21.
The board amended the town’s existing tobacco regulations to include the phrase “nicotine delivery products,” which are defined as “any manufactured article or produce made wholly or in part of a tobacco substitute or containing nicotine that is expected or intended for human consumption,” including but not limited to e-cigarettes. The new rules go into effect on Jan, 1, 2015.
E-cigarettes heat a solution to deliver nicotine in a vapor-like aerosol that is inhaled, meaning the user and others nearby are not exposed to smoke.
The only retailer in Lincoln that sells tobacco products is Donelan’s, which told the Board of Health they were fine with whatever changes it made.
The move was prompted by a visit to the board several months ago by Westwood pediatrician Lester Hartman, one of two Massachusetts pediatricians who lobby local boards of health on behalf of the Preventing Tobacco Addiction Foundation to raise the minimum purchase age for nicotine products to 21. According to the foundation’s Tobacco21 website, 37 Massachusetts towns have done so, starting with Needham in 2005. Massachusetts currently has the second-highest cigarette tax in the nation at $3.51 per pack.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has regulatory power over cigarettes, cigarette tobacco, roll-your-own tobacco and smokeless tobacco, but the FDA has proposed a new rule whereby it could also require national restrictions on electronic cigarettes, cigars, pipe tobacco, certain dissolvables that are not “smokeless tobacco,” gels, and waterpipe tobacco.
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