Despite federal, state, and local policies that prohibit the sale of tobacco products to persons under the age of 21, youth use of e-cigarettes remains unacceptably high in the United States, with 2.13 million (7.7%) middle and high school students having used an e-cigarette in the past 30 days in 2023.

Applying strategies that are effective in preventing underage access to e-cigarettes is crucial for protecting youth from the health risks of vaping.

Near Field Communication (NFC) is a short-range communicationprotocol based on Radio-Frequency Identification technology. Already used in personal debit/credit cards, NFC chips exchange data over short distances and allow for the ‘locking’ of e-cigarettes at the point of manufacture. Thereafter, a locked e-cigarette can only be unlocked by a designated NFC reader after age verification of a customer’s photo ID at the point of sale by a licensed retailer. This novel use of NFC ensures an e-cigarette cannot be legally purchased by an underage person at a retail location.

The calculator tool below allows you to estimate the potential youth access prevention impact of NFC-enabled e-cigarettes in the US under different scenarios of e-cigarette market adoption and success of the NFC system.