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News
Time to Raise SD Tobacco Sales Age
February 6, 2018
Five hundred kids become new daily smokers in South Dakota every year.
That means every day tobacco finds its way to children in our state. Every day, a child starts a lifetime of deadly addiction that increases their risk for cancer, heart disease, a host of debilitating conditions and early death. It also means the age of tobacco sale currently on the books is not doing the job to keep this dangerous product out of children’s hands.
The consequences are serious. Nearly 95 percent of adults who smoke started smoking before the age of 21. At the current rate, 21,000 S.D. kids alive today will die prematurely from tobacco-related illnesses.
We can do better. S.D. lawmakers can help reverse these dire statistics by passing a bill to raise the state’s legal sales age for all tobacco products to 21. The bill, HB 1250, sponsored by Sen. Alan Solano, R-Rapid City and Rep. Leslie Heinemann, R-Flandreau, covers cigarettes, cigars, e-cigarettes, snuff and all other tobacco products.
The South Dakota State Medical Association, the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, and the American Heart Association urge the state legislature to support HB1250 all the way to passage. The reasons are many. Here are just a few.
•Tobacco use is a fiscal problem, even for people who don’t use tobacco. S.D. pays more than $373 million annually in tobacco-related health care costs and $282.5 million in lost work productivity. Each household is paying $782 in taxes to cover these tobacco-related costs, whether they use the products or not.
•Big Tobacco relentlessly targets teens. The tobacco industry preys on young adults ages 18 to 21 because they know it’s a critical period for nicotine addiction to take hold. In fact, it’s the age range when most people transition from experimental tobacco use to regular daily use.
•Raising the sales age helps keep tobacco out of high schools, where younger teens often turn to older friends for tobacco products. Many kids turn 18 in their final year in high school, but very few turn 21.
•Evidence suggests that adolescents are particularly vulnerable to nicotine’s addictive qualities with parts of the brain most responsible for impulse control, decision making and susceptibility to peer pressure still developing. The U.S. Surgeon General reports youth can become dependent on nicotine very quickly and at lower consumption levels than adults.
•Protecting kids from using tobacco is popular with the public, including adults who smoke. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, three-quarters of Americans – including seven in 10 current smokers – support the policy.
•The use of tobacco products remains the nation’s number one cause of preventable death, killing more than 480,000 Americans each year, including 1,300 South Dakotans.
Raising the tobacco sales age promises to save lives, curb tobacco use and reduce tobacco-related disease and health care costs. California, Hawaii, Maine, New Jersey, Oregon and nearly 300 cities, counties and townships across the United States have taken this step, with the list growing all the time. The momentum is building. It’s time for South Dakota to pass Tobacco 21.
MY VOICE
Robert E. Van Demark, Jr., M.D., is an orthopedic surgeon from Sioux Falls and is president of the South Dakota State Medical Association. E. Paul Amundson, M.D., is a family medicine physician from Sioux Falls and serves on the Advocacy Committee for the American Heart Association in South Dakota. Allen Nord, M.D., is a family medicine physician from Rapid City and is chair of the state leadership board for the American Cancer Society and a volunteer advocate with the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network. My Voice columns should be 500 to 700 words. Submissions should include a portrait-type photograph of the author. Authors also should include their full name, age, occupation and relevant organizational memberships.
As printed by the Argus Leader.