Starting in July, people under the age of 21 will no longer be able to buy tobacco products from Walmart or Sam’s Club stores in the United States. Walmart Inc. announced on Wednesday that it would be raising the minimum age for buying the products on July 1, making it the latest retailer to make changes regarding tobacco sales to minors. Walmart’s move comes after a letter from the Food and Drug Administration last month that requested it to submit a plan to end illegal tobacco sales to minors. Walmart will also no longer sell “fruit- and dessert-flavored electronic nicotine delivery systems” and other devices for vaping, according to the company’s announcement. Other retailers have also recently changed their policies around the sale of tobacco products to minors. Walgreens will stop selling them to customers under 21 in September, while Rite Aid announced in April it would remove e-cigarettes from its stores over the next 90 days. For its part, CVS stopped selling tobacco products in 2014. Several states have also moved to raise the minimum smoking age.<doc-sep>WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Walmart Inc said on Wednesday it will raise the minimum age to purchase tobacco products to 21 across its U.S. stores starting July 1, responding to growing regulatory and political pressure to curb a surge in teenage use of e-cigarettes. FILE PHOTO: Walmart's logo is seen outside one of the stores in Chicago, Illinois, U.S., November 20, 2018. REUTERS/Kamil Krzaczynski It also pushed the world’s largest retailer to say it discontinue the sale of fruit-and dessert-flavored electronic nicotine delivery systems. In March, the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) put 15 national retailers, including Walmart, Kroger, Walgreens Boots Alliance and Family Dollar Stores, on notice for allegedly selling tobacco products such as e-cigarettes to minors. In April, Walgreens and Rite Aid said they would raise the minimum age to buy tobacco products to 21. Last month, U.S. Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell said he plans to introduce legislation to raise the minimum age for buying tobacco products, including vaping devices, to 21 from 18. E-cigarettes have been a bone of contention in the public health community. Some focus on the potential for the products to shift lifelong smokers onto less harmful nicotine products, while others fear they risk drawing a new generation into nicotine addiction. The increased pressure on retailers comes at a time when states and cities across the United States have moved to raise the legal age for purchasing tobacco in an effort to prevent addiction at young ages. A 2015 study from the National Academy of Medicine found that among adults who became daily smokers, about 90 percent started using cigarettes before they were 19. The study found that raising the minimum legal age to 21 would prevent 223,000 premature deaths. So far 12 states have enacted laws to raise the minimum age to 21, including New Jersey and California. Lawmakers in New York state and Maryland have also approved legislation. Walmart said the FDA had conducted approximately 12,800 compliance checks involving minors at Walmart stores and Sam’s Club locations around the country since 2010. Over that period, Walmart stores passed 93 percent and Sam’s Club cleared 99 percent of those checks. In 2018, the Walmart stores cleared 94 percent of the 2,400 FDA checks and Sam’s Club passed 100 percent of its 15 checks. “While we have implemented a robust compliance program, we are not satisfied with falling short of our companywide goal of 100 percent compliance,” John Scudder, U.S. chief ethics and compliance officer, said in a letter to the FDA. “Even a single sale to a minor is one too many,” he said. In the letter, Walmart also assured the regulator that it would remained focused on improving its compliance rates and any sale-to-minor violation would be dealt with promptly. Walmart said it had increased disciplinary action against store workers who failed to check ID’s for shoppers who appeared to be under 40. It will also use internal and external data, including FDA data, to implement alerts, controls, training and monitoring to reduce the risk of a sale to an underage customer. In 2019, the retailer said it would conduct 8,000 secret-shopper visits, and stores and that workers who fail the checks would be required to complete a “corrective action plan.” “Going forward ... a cashier who fails a secret-shopper check will be subjected to disciplinary action, up to and including termination,” Scudder said in the letter.<doc-sep>The retail giant is also discontinuing the sale of fruit-flavored nicotine. Walmart is following in the footsteps of other retail brands and raising the minimum age to buy tobacco to 21. The superstore also announced Wednesday that it will discontinue the sale of fruit and dessert-flavored nicotine. On April 5, Walmart received a letter from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration regarding its efforts to prevent the sale of tobacco and electronic nicotine delivery systems to minors, which caused the company to reevaluate its policies, John Scudder, chief compliance and ethics officer for Walmart, said in a statement. "Even a single sale to a minor is one too many, and we take seriously our responsibilities in this regard," Scudder said. Walmart passed 93% of nearly 13,000 of its FDA compliance checks involving minors at its stores, according to a letter the chain sent back to the FDA on Wednesday. With the new policies, the company-wide goal will be 100%, according to the retail chain. The new policy will go into effect across all Walmart stores in the U.S. on July 1. Last month, Walgreens and Rite Aid announced similar initiatives to raise the minimum age to buy tobacco in their stores to 21. Walgreens' new policy will take effect on Sept. 1, while Rite Aid's will be implemented in July.<doc-sep>
Walmart plans to increase the minimum age to buy tobacco products to 21 starting July 1, joining a growing list of retailers under pressure from federal regulators to curb sales to minors and boosting their age restrictions as a result. Walmart told the Food and Drug Administration in a letter Wednesday that it's going to stop selling fruit and dessert-flavored e-cigarettes altogether as part of a plan to prevent minors from buying tobacco. The FDA in April threatened to fine Walmart, Kroger, Family Dollar and more than a half dozen convenience store chains for illegally selling tobacco products to minors. Walmart had a violation rate of about 17%, the FDA said at the time. Walmart said it's taking a number of corrective actions, including strengthening penalties for stores that fail secret shopper checks, enhancing its data, analytics and systems as well as upgrading its age-verification training by using virtual reality technology. "We unequivocally acknowledge that even a single sale of tobacco product to a minor is one too many, and we take seriously our responsibilities in this regard," John Scudder, Walmart's U.S. chief ethics and compliance officer, wrote in the letter Wednesday. Walgreens and Rite Aid have already announced they are raising their minimum age restrictions to buy tobacco. Rite Aid also said it would stop selling all e-cigarettes though it would continue to sell cigarettes. A dozen states have already increased age requirements and federal lawmakers are also considering raising it to 21 across the U.S. Read the full letter here.