About a decade after vape pens hit the shelves, anti-smoking advocates concerned about the risks those products pose believe they have the support needed to advance legislation that would regulate them more like cigarettes.
Teens participating in the anti-smoking Kick Butts Day on Tuesday highlighted the problem of vaping in schools, and health lobbyists are optimistic about the chances of a bill currently before the House Committee on Ways and Means.
Anti-tobacco activists have put their support behind legislation that would raise the age of purchasing tobacco and electronic cigarettes to 21 and ban workplace vaping the way lawmakers banned workplace smoking 14 years ago.
“We’ve got great support from the House and the Senate,” said Marc Hymovitz, who handles Bay State government relations for the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network. He said, “We are encouraged and hopeful that there will be a vote in both the House and Senate before the end of formal sessions.”
The Senate last session passed legislation to raise the tobacco purchasing age to 21; the legislation has so far failed to gain momentum in the House.
Sarah Ryan, a 17-year-old junior, said she remembers when she first saw e-cigarette products among the other tobacco wares in a store across the street from Holbrook Middle-High School.
“It’s the convenience store that we all hang out at after school to get candy and chips, and they sell flavored tobacco,” said Ryan, who is the recipient of the Kick Butts Day Statewide Youth Leadership Award.
Vaping is a technology that enables people to inhale vapors from electronically heated liquids that are usually flavored and often contain nicotine or other chemicals, and Ryan said she knows that children as young as fifth and sixth grade have started using them. While reams of medical studies have conclusively linked smoking and chewing tobacco to cancer and other ailments, Ryan must make more nuanced pitches to ward off her peers from vape pens.
“I think that’s what makes this so dangerous, because we really can’t see the long-term effects. We can’t say, ‘Fifty years of using e-cigarettes is going to do this to your lungs,’” Ryan told the News Service. “We can say that we know that nicotine increases your susceptibility to addiction; we know that it interferes with your brain development; we know that the surgeon general says that it’s dangerous for any young person to be exposed to nicotine, but we can’t say, ‘E-cigarettes are going to give you cancer’ because it’s just too early for us to know.”
In her bid to prevent other young people from taking up vaping, Ryan tells them the tobacco companies want them to start using e-cigarettes.
“We try to talk about the tobacco industry is targeting you,” Ryan said. She said, “They really try to prey on you and use you to meet their ends.”