A group of high school students is encouraging the Harrison City Council to pass a Tobacco 21 law prohibiting the sale of tobacco products, including e-cigarettes, to anyone under the age of 21.
The students, members of Ignite, a youth group supported by North Arkansas Partnership for Health Education (NAPHE) and the Boone County Substance Abuse Prevention Coalition, made a presentation to council members during their monthly committee last week.
They were accompanied by Chrissie Larchez, youth program coordinator for the Drug Free Communities program and Patrick Hunter of the Boone County Substance Abuse Prevention Coalition.
The students are working to get signatures of 1,000 city residents to show support for the measure, Larchez said.
Alathea Bright, Ignite chairman, explained Tobacco 21 is a nationwide effort to raise the age of buying tobacco and e-cigarettes to 21. The initiative is being proposed to local governments.
In June 2016, Helena-West Helena was the first city in Arkansas to adopt a Tobacco 21 law. Mountain Home is currently working towards passage of a Tobacco 21 ordinance, she said. But those efforts were not led by students, she added.
Passing such a law will help reduce the use of tobacco by high school students, Bright said.
She said passing the law would cost the city nothing. Even retailers would see little decrease in revenues as a national study shows the effect would only be around 2 percent.
Brianna Setchfield gave statistics showing the effects of smoking citing Arkansas has one of the highest high school and adult smoking rates in the country. About 1,700 children become daily smokers every year, she said.
The state spends only about 29.7 percent of the CDC recommended amount of money for tobacco prevention. This about a 50 percent drop in funding since 2016, she added.
The state’s annual health care cost due to smoking is about $1.21 billion and the state loses $1.7 billion in productivity every year due to smoking.
Setchfield read a list of states and cities where Tobacco 21 has been embraced.
Ignite secretary Tylar Madison said her generation wants to make change. Changing the age for smoking to 21 has significant benefits. In Arkansas, 5,800 people die every year from tobacco use and more than 500 die every year from second hand smoke.
Tobacco use would decrease by 12 percent by the time today’s teenagers are adults and smoking deaths would decrease by 10 percent.
