[A] Chittenden County lawmaker wants to restrict the online sale of e-cigarettes in Vermont and raise the state’s legal age for purchasing tobacco from 18 to 21.
State Rep. George Till, D-Jericho and a longtime physician, said there’s a common thread in the two bills: He believes both measures could save lives by reducing young people’s exposure to nicotine and their risk of lifelong addiction.
“What makes this more pressing now is the e-cigarette (use),” Till said. “Your brain doesn’t care whether you got addicted to nicotine from e-cigarettes or standard tobacco. You’re addicted to nicotine.”
Even as tobacco use declines among youth, exposure to electronic cigarettes – devices that can deliver nicotine via heated liquid, without tobacco – is on the rise.
In Vermont’s 2017 Youth Risk Behavior Survey, 34 percent of high school students said they had tried an electronic vapor product. About 12 percent said they currently used one.
The survey also found that 9 percent of middle school students had tried an electronic vapor product, and 4 percent said they had used one in the past 30 days. Both numbers were up slightly from 2015.
Nationally, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently reported “an alarming increase” in e-cigarette use among middle and high school students. “Youth e-cigarette use raises a number of health concerns including risk of addiction to nicotine early on in life, potential harm to the developing adolescent brain and exposure to chemicals including carbonyl compounds and volatile organic compounds known to have adverse health effects,” the federal agency said.
The trend has caused concern among federal and state regulators, who have funded educational campaigns and sought ways to keep e-cigarettes out of the hands of minors.
Till’s e-cigarette bill, H.26, was introduced Tuesday in the House. The legislation places restrictions on the sale and shipment of e-cigarettes that are identical to restrictions already in effect for tobacco products.
For example, the bill prohibits the sale of “tobacco substitutes, liquids containing nicotine or otherwise intended for use with a tobacco substitute, or tobacco paraphernalia” unless the seller is a state-licensed wholesale dealer or has purchased the products from a licensed wholesaler.
Also, those products cannot be shipped “to anyone other than a licensed wholesale dealer or retail dealer in this state.”
While federal and state laws already say e-cigarettes can’t be sold the minors, there is concern that online sales continue to happen. The 2017 Youth Risk Behavior Survey said 10 percent of current electronic vapor product users under age 18 had purchased those devices online.
Till said he hopes his bill could curtail such sales, and he said it would not negatively impact Vermont sellers.
“You can’t say it’s going to hurt Vermont businesses, to not be able to order them (online) directly, yourself,” Till said. “Because those aren’t Vermont businesses they’re ordering them from. They’re from out of state.”
Another Till-led initiative – raising the legal smoking age from 18 to 21 – has generated opposition in past years. The measure most recently failed to get through the Legislature in the last biennium, when the Senate narrowly voted it down.
Till’s new bill, H.27, takes another crack at the issue by saying no one under 21 can “possess, purchase or attempt to purchase tobacco products, tobacco substitutes or tobacco paraphernalia” except for purposes of conducting licensed sales. That would include e-cigarettes.
The bill features a detailed public-health rationale for raising the tobacco age: “An estimated 10,000 children under 18 years of age who are alive in Vermont today will die prematurely from smoking-related illnesses,” the document says.
The bill also says “persons 18 through 20 years of age are responsible for 90 percent of the cigarettes purchased on behalf of minors under 18 years of age.” So, by raising the smoking age, “the benefit will extend to much younger teens,” the document says.
In an interview, Till added that “we know, the way the brain functions, it takes less nicotine to get you addicted the younger you are.”
Six states – Oregon, California, Hawaii, New Jersey, Massachusetts and Maine – have raised their smoking ages, according to a national advocacy website. Municipalities and counties in other states have done the same, though Till said Vermont law does not permit towns to raise the smoking age on their own.
But, as past debates in Vermont have shown, not everyone is on board.
Sen. Christopher Pearson, P/D-Chittenden, was one of those who voted against the tobacco-21 bill in 2017. And in an interview Tuesday, he said his view hasn’t changed.
“I think that we have accepted that age 18 is when one becomes an adult,” Pearson said. “And you can make a lot of very weighty choices that will impact the rest of your life … you can do all sorts of things, good and bad, including deciding to use tobacco.”
Pearson said he doesn’t dispute the health benefits of raising the smoking age. “I’m quite sure, if we waited to (age) 31, the data would be even stronger,” he said.
“I’m just looking at a bit of a bigger picture in recognizing that, as a adult, people have to make choices for themselves,” Pearson added.
