Photo by Maurice Mercado/City of Yonkers
By Dan Murphy
The Yonkers City Council held a special meeting Sept. 17 to pass legislation that will ban the sale of flavored e-cigarettes or vaping devices. The measure was quickly adopted 7-0 without much discussion.
Council Majority Leader Michael Sabatino made an amendment that moved up the date in which the new law will be in effect, from Oct. 15 to Oct. 1. That means vape shops in Yonkers, and convenient stores that sell vaping devices like Juul – the most popular, have until the end of the month to liquidate their stock of flavored product.
It is also interesting to note that lobbyists for the vaping industry were in attendance at the meeting and had met with councilmembers the week earlier, in an attempt to stop the ban. But the avalanche of support to ban flavored vapes across the state and the country is too great to stop.
It appears Yonkers will be the first “big city” in the country to ban flavored vaping products. New York State and Gov. Andrew Cuomo, are also racing to ban flavored e-cigarettes and will do so round Oct. 15, so the amendment to move the date up to Oct. 1 in Yonkers was designed – as one elected official told us – “to beat King Cuomo to ban mango vapes.”
“Nicotine poses very serious health risks to adolescents, and parents and health professionals are rightfully demanding action, especially since the State Health Department is reporting a growing number of cases where vaping is causing lung damage resulting in hospital stays,” said Mayor Mike Spano. “Federal and state action is ultimately needed to effectively address this problem, but we will not wait to act while more of our children become addicted and sickened by e-cigarette use.”
Yonkers City Council President Mike Khader added: “When a vaping company’s CEO tells you not to use their product, it raises a red flag. Aggressive marketing by ‘Big Tobacco’ has introduced a whole new generation to nicotine addiction almost completely unnoticed. With flavors like bubble gum and Fruit Loops, it makes vaping all too appealing to teens. That’s why I’m proud to stand alongside Mayor Spano, my colleagues on the council, and the Board of Education in supporting a ban on the sale of flavored e-liquids in Yonkers. Let’s keep these products out of the hands of our youth, and start putting people before profits.”
Data from the 2011-18 National Youth Tobacco Survey shows that among high school students, the prevalence of current e-cigarette use increased from 1.5 percent (220,000 students) in 2011 to 20.8 percent (3.05 million students) in 2018. The survey noted a particularly shocking increase in use from 2017 to 2018, during which time there was a 78 percent increase in current e-cigarette use among high school students and a 48 percent increase among middle school students. More than two-thirds are using flavored e-cigarettes.
“Let’s be honest – flavored e-cigarettes aren’t about helping adults stop smoking,” said Spano. “They’re about helping our kids start smoking. Yonkers needs to say ‘no’ to creating a new generation of nicotine addicts.”
Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg recently penned an editorial in the New York Times in which he announced that he is writing a check for $160 million to educate the public and get several states to move forward and ban flavored e-cigarettes.
Bloomberg, and Matt Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, lay out the case, which should make us all think that the time is now to ban flavored e-cigarettes.
They wrote:
(The e-cigarette companies, the largest of which is Juul, are) “making huge investments in nicotine-loaded e-cigarettes and selling them in a rainbow of sweet and fruity flavors like cotton candy, gummy bear, mango and mint. They’re turning millions of young people into addicted customers, all the while insisting they aren’t targeting kids at all. But we know Big Tobacco’s playbook. We’ve seen this before. It is targeting kids – and putting them in serious danger.
“This is an urgent health crisis and tobacco companies are behind it. They are major players in the e-cigarette market – including Altria, the tobacco giant and parent company of Marlboro, which paid roughly $13 billion for a stake in Juul. To those of us on the front lines of the fight against tobacco use, the tactics companies are employing to sell e-cigarettes – flavorings, unfounded health claims and the hiring of celebrity promoters – are all too familiar. They are the same strategies tobacco companies have long used to get kids to try cigarettes.
“Studies show that kids who use e-cigarettes are more likely to use real cigarettes. E-cigarette companies insist their goal is to help people quit smoking. But 13-year-olds don’t start using cotton-candy-flavored pods for Juul devices to kick a cigarette habit. Much more often, e-cigarettes lead kids directly to nicotine addiction.
“These are important steps, but we must act more boldly and quickly, starting with a national ban on flavored e-cigarettes. The FDA can ban flavors immediately, but it has repeatedly kicked the can down the road when it comes to taking serious steps.
“So our organizations, Bloomberg Philanthropies and the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, are starting a national campaign – including an investment of $160 million to empower parents and kids and to push our leaders to act. History shows that progress is possible.
“It wasn’t long ago that restaurants and offices were so full of toxic cigarette smoke that it was hard to see across the room. Tobacco-product sales peaked in 2012; global sales of cigarettes then began declining for the first time since the dawn of the tobacco industry. In the U.S., teenage smoking has fallen by nearly 70 percent since 2000.” (End of Bloomberg/Myers op-ed.)
Juul is the leading e-cigarette brand, accounting for three-quarters of the market at the end of 2018. Last year, Vaping360, a site aimed at former smokers who have switched to vaping and current smokers who are thinking about it, surveyed readers about their favorite Juul pod flavors. It got more than 38,000 responses, and the top pick by far was mango (46 percent), followed by cool mint (29 percent), crème Brule (11 percent) and fruit medley (8 percent).
The American Heart Association supports the ban of flavored vaping products proposed by Spano, but also wants menthol tobacco products banned.
“The youth e-cigarette epidemic is nothing short of a public health emergency that must be urgently confronted,” said Greg Mihailovich, community advocacy director for the American Heart Association. “While we support the Mayor’s efforts to combat the youth e-cigarette epidemic, we recognize that menthol products, which produce a cooling and soothing effect that is more attractive to kids, are also ‘starter products’ for youth and other inexperienced tobacco users.
“Research shows that 97 percent of current youth e-cigarette users used a flavored product in the past month and 70 percent cite flavors as a key reason for their use,” he continued. “The time for waiting is over. Until the FDA takes the necessary steps, the mayor and Yonkers City Council must immediately prohibit the sale of all flavored tobacco products, which includes flavored cigars and menthol cigarettes.”
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is finalizing plans to ban flavored e-cigarettes by next month. The policy would remove most flavored e-cigarettes, including mint and menthol, from the market.
“These are dangerous tobacco products and it is the federal government’s responsibility to ensure they do not fall into the hands of children,” said Congressman Eliot Engel. “I commend the Centers for Disease Control and FDA for working with public and private stakeholders, including poison control centers, to investigate and end this horrible outbreak, which has claimed American lives. In the meantime, Congress must continue to work on common-sense policies that will help lead to the first generation of tobacco-free Americans.”
New York State is quickly moving to ban flavored vaping products after Cuomo announced an “emergency executive action” to place a ban on the sale of flavored e-cigarettes.
“New York is confronting this crisis head-on and today we are taking another nation-leading step to combat a public health emergency,” said Cuomo. “Manufacturers of fruit and candy-flavored e-cigarettes are intentionally and recklessly targeting young people, and today we’re taking action to put an end to it. At the same time, unscrupulous stores are knowingly selling vaping products to underage youth; those retailers are now on notice that we are ramping up enforcement and they will be caught and prosecuted.”
New York State Police will now partner with the Department of Health to conduct undercover investigations under the Adolescent Tobacco Use Prevention Act. Under the executive order, retailers who are caught selling tobacco and vaping products to underage individuals will face criminal penalties in addition to civil penalties. Statewide enforcement of the ban could start Oct 4.
