Welcome to this edition of FDA's Tobacco Compliance Webinars
Information and Education for Retailers
and Small Businesses, brought to you by the Food
and Drug Administration's Center for Tobacco
Products. Today's presentation is entitled,
Tobacco 21 Update for Retailers. The FDA has
created this webinar to assist you with
understanding changes made in the law to increase the
federal minimum age of sale of tobacco products
to 21 years of age, referred to as Tobacco 21.
We will discuss how retailers, including
online retailers, can comply with these
requirements. At the end of this webinar, we will
discuss additional resources for you as a
tobacco retailer. Let's first discuss the changes
made to the Food Drug & Cosmetic Act, also known
as the FD&C Act, to increase the federal
minimum age of sale of tobacco products. On
December 20, 2019, the federal law was changed to
raise the minimum age of sale of tobacco products
from 18 to 21 years of age. This means that as of
December 20, 2019, it became illegal to sell
tobacco products to anyone under 21. There are no
exceptions to this requirement regardless of
other state or local laws. This law applies to sales
of tobacco products – including cigarettes,
cigarette tobacco, roll-your-own tobacco,
smokeless tobacco, as well as covered tobacco
products such as hookah tobacco, cigars, pipe
tobacco, electronic cigarettes, and certain
other electronic nicotine delivery systems, or ENDS,
including liquid nicotine and e-liquids containing
nicotine. This federal law also required FDA to
update its regulations concerning how tobacco
products are sold. These updates have not yet been
published. Once finalized, the updated regulations
will be available on the FDA website. If you
operate a brick-and-mortar retail store that sells
tobacco products, it is important that you
understand your obligation to only sell cigarettes,
cigarette tobacco, roll-your-own tobacco,
smokeless tobacco, and covered tobacco products
to individuals 21 years of age or older. This
obligation extends to your clerks and employees as
well. In addition to not selling tobacco products
to anyone under 21, you and your employees are
still required under the regulations to check IDs
for anyone under the age of 27. Remember that it is
illegal to sell tobacco products to anyone under
the age of 21, and age verification with a photo
ID is required for anyone under 27 who attempts to
purchase tobacco products. This is true even if the
purchaser is old enough to buy tobacco products.
Retailers must continue to comply with all applicable
requirements under the law. For example, you
still cannot sell single cigarettes and you still
cannot give away free samples of tobacco
products. It is important to make sure your
employees understand these requirements and how to
comply with the laws. As in brick and mortar
stores, if you sell tobacco products online,
it is important to understand your obligation
to ensure that you only sell tobacco products to
individuals 21 years of age or older.
We encourage online retailers to use adequate
means of age and identity verification to prevent
sales of tobacco products online to individuals
under the age of 21 years, to better ensure
compliance with this requirement. Examples of
age verification for online sales may include
use of independent age and identity verification
service that compare customer information
against independent, competent, and reliable
data sources, such as public records, to prevent
the sale to individuals who are under 21 years.
But, it is ultimately the responsibility of the
retailer to ensure tobacco products are only sold to
those 21 years of age or older. Retailers who fail
to comply with these rules may be subject to
enforcement. Generally, FDA will issue a Warning
Letter after your first violation of FDA's tobacco
laws and regulations. Subsequent violations may
result in FDA seeking a monetary penalty, called a
Civil Money Penalty. If multiple repeated
violations continue to occur at your
establishment, FDA may seek a
No-Tobacco-Sale-Order where you cannot sell
tobacco products for a specified period of time.
For more information about Tobacco 21 and your
requirements as a tobacco retailer, we encourage you
to visit the links provided on this slide.
Included in these links are the FDA's website
explaining the law that raised the minimum age for
tobacco sales to 21, and additional resources for
retailers, including FDA's Age Calculator app and
materials you can download or request be mailed to
you to place in your store. To receive email
updates from the Center for Tobacco Products, you
may sign-up at www.f da.gov/tobacco-produc
ts/ctp-newsroom. Please direct any additional
questions to us via email at AskCTP@fda.hhs.gov or
via phone at 1-877-287-1373 For small
business assistance, please contact the Center
for Tobacco Products' Office of Small Business
Assistance at SmallB iz.Tobacco@fda.hhs.g
ov This presentation is brought to you by the
FDA's Center for Tobacco Products, whose mission is
to protect our youth and the nation's health from
the dangers of tobacco.