The Facts About Kids and E-Cigarettes BreatheND News is the official newsletter of the North Dakota Center for Tobacco Prevention and Control Policy. The Center, created by a statewide initiated measure passed by North Dakota voters, is funded by tobacco settlement dollars and is a comprehensive tobacco use prevention and control program.
You’d be shocked to see a kid walk into a convenience store and buy a pack of cigarettes, and for good reason. Laws prohibit sales to minors to protect them from tobacco’s harmful and addictive effects. But you might be surprised to know that there is no statewide law in North Dakota to prevent minors from legally buying electronic cigarettes.
While the state’s smoke-free law prohibits the use of e-cigarettes in locations where smoking conventional cigarettes is prohibited, North Dakota is one of eleven states, including the District of Columbia, with no statewide law preventing their sale to minors. In the absence of a state law, several cities have enacted their own ordinances, while others are waiting to see if the State Legislature takes action on this issue.
A recent nationwide study, “Monitoring the Future,” shows the need for swift action. Young people are taking up e-cigarettes at an alarming rate. Use of e-cigarettes has now surpassed the use of conventional cigarettes, and 8th and 10th graders are using e-cigarettes at twice the rate of regular cigarettes:
- 8.7 percent of 8th graders reported using an e-cigarette in the past 30 days, compared to 4 percent reporting use of a traditional cigarette.
- 16.2 percent of 10th graders reported using an e-cigarette, compared to 7.2 percent reporting use of a traditional cigarette.
- 17.1 percent of 12th graders reported e-cigarette use, compared to 13.6 percent reporting use of a traditional cigarette.
The increase in use of e-cigarettes among young people should come as no surprise to their manufacturers. They target youth with celebrity endorsements, glossy spreads in magazines with a high readership of young people, and sponsorships of concerts and sporting events. Unlike conventional cigarettes, e-cigarettes can be advertised on TV and made with fruit and candy flavors that are highly appealing to kids.
E-cigarettes pose other dangers as well. The American Association of Poison Control Centers reports that calls to poison centers involving e-cigarettes and their liquid nicotine products more than tripled from 2012 to 2013, and doubled again through the end of November 2014. In December, a one-year-old boy in New York became the first child in the U.S. to die from ingestion of liquid nicotine.
The facts are clear. While the reduction in use of conventional cigarettes shows that tobacco prevention programs are achieving their goals, the alarming increase in use of e-cigarettes shows that tobacco companies continue to target our kids. With fewer kids starting to smoke and more adults quitting, they need replacement customers. They’re targeting them with replacement products – e-cigarettes – that are largely unregulated and, in most North Dakota cities, can be sold to minors.
Action is needed now to protect the next generation of kids from the next generation of nicotine products to help our youth stay smoke-free, tobacco-free and nicotine-free through the crucial teen years and for life.
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BreatheND is the official website and logo of the North Dakota Center for Tobacco Prevention and Control Policy, a division of the Tobacco Prevention and Control Executive Committee. North Dakota voters passed a statewide initiated measure that created the Tobacco Prevention and Control Executive Committee and requires a portion of the money North Dakota receives from tobacco settlement dollars to be used for tobacco prevention and control programs. The Center, along with the North Dakota Department of Health, local public health units and other partners, is charged with implementing North Dakota’s comprehensive state tobacco prevention plan: Saving Lives – Saving Money.
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