Hawaii has become the first state to raise the legal tobacco use age to 21.
The law prohibits people under the age of 21 from smoking, buying, or possessing tobacco products.
The law specifically includes electronic smoking devices, defined as "any electronic product that can be used to aerosolize and deliver nicotine or other substances to the person inhaling the device, an electronic cigarette, electronic cigar, electronic cigarillo, or electronic pipe, and any cartridge or other component of the device or related product."
The law was passed, in part, due to growing concerns about the prevalence of e-cigarette use among youth, noting that 29 percent of 9th and 10th graders in six Hawaii high schools report using these products at least once, and 18 percent report using them regularly, according to the state’s news release.
"Partners statewide have come together to support this monumental legislation that once again puts Hawaii at the cutting edge of public health policy and protecting the health of our youth," the state's director of health, Virginia Pressler, said in a statement.
Hawaii Gov. David Ige signed Senate Bill 1030 (Act 122) late last month. The law will go into effect Jan. 1.
Lawmakers are also pushing to raise the tobacco use age in Washington State and California, where the state Senate passed a bill to raise the age last month, sending the legislation to the Assembly for a vote.
The FDA recently voted in favor of pushing a new formulation of oxycodone hydrochloride for approval. The new OxyContin formula is more difficult to crush or dissolve which will hopefully make it harder to be used as a drug of abuse . The FDA recommended that Purdue Pharma's application for a new, resin-coated formulation should replace the original version, which has been on the market since 1996. Randall Flick, MD, an anesthesiologist at the Mayo Clinic who voted to recommend approval of the drug said, "Clearly the old formulation is worse than the new, although I think the difference is relatively small," Flick concluded, "Hardcore abusers are likely to devise new ways to break down the harder tablet or figure out which solvents will dissolve it fastest, within 'day or weeks' of the product's release on the market."