Protect our children from flavored tobacco products
Commentary, By Elsie Flemings, Jun 19, 2023
As a parent and a resident of Bar Harbor, a community that recently passed an ordinance ending the sale of flavored tobacco, I strongly encourage the Legislature to do the same. Our state lawmakers have the chance to do so this session as they consider LD 1215, An Act to End the Sale of Flavored Tobacco Products.
While Bar Harbor joined Portland, Brunswick, Bangor and South Portland in passing a full-flavored tobacco ban, it’s critically important to extend the protection that we are giving our children in Bar Harbor to other communities statewide. I know this as a parent, looking ahead to the choices that my own young children will face as they navigate the world, subjected to the pressures by tobacco companies looking for future customers and exploiting the natural risk-taking phase of youth brain development.
I know this also with the added perspective afforded to me as the executive director of Healthy Acadia, a nonprofit community health organization that primarily serves Washington and Hancock counties and partners with other organizations across the state. Given that tobacco use remains the leading cause of preventable death and disease nationwide, we must do everything we can to prevent future deaths from this highly addictive drug. Banning the sale of flavored tobacco to reduce youth initiation is an important and meaningful next step.
Early youth use of nicotine and tobacco products has profoundly negative impacts on those youth and our communities. Tobacco companies specifically target young people with flavored tobacco products, using insidious online marketing techniques that often don’t register with parents and other adults because they don’t see the same advertisements. Nicotine use is linked to increased anxiety and depression, a serious concern when we are already seeing high numbers of youth experiencing mental health struggles. And youth and young adults are also much more susceptible to nicotine addiction, which can in turn increase risk for addiction to other substances.
Keeping flavored tobacco out of the hands of our youth will help to protect them, and that is the primary focus here, but it will help to protect our communities as a whole, too. Tobacco kills nearly half a million people per year, which is more than alcohol, AIDS, car accidents, illegal drugs, murders, and suicides combined. Its use also harms community members’ efforts to be successful in recovery, as studies have shown that individuals in recovery are much more likely to relapse if they continue to use nicotine and maintain that addiction. And we know that nicotine, when consumed with other substances like opioids, results in a greater consumption of both substances.
I implore our local delegation and lawmakers statewide to please protect our children and other vulnerable populations in our communities by voting “yes” to support LD 1215 and ending the sale of flavored tobacco products once and for all.
Elsie Flemings, executive director of Healthy Acadia, has been in her position for nine years. Healthy Acadia’s mission is to empower people and organizations to build healthy communities together.