RICHMOND, Va. — Some prominent legislators are backing a bill to raise the minimum age for buying cigarettes and vapes from 18 to 21 in Virginia, a state where tobacco once loomed so large that images of the leaves adorn its stately Capitol. Alarmed by rampant vaping by teens, a group of Republicans and Democrats in both the House and Senate rolled out legislation last week targeting an industry whose roots in the Commonwealth stretch back four centuries to the Jamestown Colony. “Certainly we have a history of tobacco … that really dates back to 1608,” said Del.