Spokane Health Board Passes E-Cig Resolution

[Lil' Lou]

SPOKANE, Wash. – Oct 5, 2010 – Spokane Regional Health District announced today that its board of health unanimously passed a resolution requesting that jurisdictions in Spokane County adopt policies prohibiting the sale of electronic cigarettes and their component parts to minors. This is the first resolution of its kind in Washington state.
Spokane Regional Health District -

 

[lmrasch]

Quote: SRHD’s tobacco Prevention and Control program recently completed a special emphasis project in Spokane County in which electronic cigarettes were sold to underage youth in over 90% of its attempts. End Quote

This is disturbing....If this is true, these vendors are shooting us all in the foot!

Banning sales to minors is a good thing...at least they're not trying to ban e cigs as a whole .

 

[Kempton]

That's right "IF IT IS TRUE" So I guess having a lingerie store in a mall is targeting children because they go there. Having a lottery kiosk in a mall is targeting children because they frequent the mall. Starbucks, Coffee Time, Tim Hortons are in malls and must be targeting children with their caffeine products and poison pastries. Same old same old.

 

[Lil' Lou]

Banning sales to minors is a good thing...at least they're not trying to ban e cigs as a whole .

Couldn't agree more and compared to some of the news releases I've read, this one seems fairly objective. One thing that raised my eyebrows though was this statement -
"Some electronic cigarette producers market their products to children by utilizing shopping mall kiosks and locations frequented by children."
Locations frequented by children? Are we talking schools, roller skating rinks, arcades??

 

[Our House]

"Some electronic cigarette producers market their products to children by utilizing shopping mall kiosks and locations frequented by children."
Locations frequented by children? Are we talking schools, roller skating rinks, arcades??

And the internet of course, which adults hardly ever use.

 

[Vapenstein]

Somebody needs to start investing on education so the public knows what ecigs are; that they aren't proper for minors, but that they present a way for nicotine addicts to consume nicotine without a lot of the known health risks of tobacco. Don't sell them as a cessation tool, sell them as not causing emphysema, not causing lung cancer and not polluting the air. Certainly a safer alternative to traditional nicotine delivery systems.

 

[Lil' Lou]

Somebody needs to start investing on education so the public knows what ecigs are; that they aren't proper for minors, but that they present a way for nicotine addicts to consume nicotine without a lot of the known health risks of tobacco. Don't sell them as a cessation tool, sell them as not causing emphysema, not causing lung cancer and not polluting the air. Certainly a safer alternative to traditional nicotine delivery systems.

Thankfully, there are quite a few members on this forum who dedicate a good chunk of their time doing this. You might want to check out CASAA - http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/forum/casaa/95016-what-who-casaa.html

 

[kristin]

If you want to invest in educating the public about e-cigarettes and smokeless alternatives - donate to CASAA! It's the best investment out there!!

(Sorry - shameless plug, lol! Thanks, Lil' Lou!)

It's good that they only went after banning sales to minors (which would already be done if the FDA and public health groups weren't fighting catagorizing e-cigarettes as tobacco products) but it is very disconcerting that "90% of attempts" resulted in sales to minors. I wonder how many "attempts" were actually made?

 

[BCB]

Maybe it was one attempt and they ALMOST sold it to a minor.

 

[Vocalek]

And can we see a photo of these minors?

 

[BCB]

Maybe it was a typo. Maybe they were sold to miners. 10% decided not to purchase.

 

[kristin]

I can't find the actual report that they get the 90% figure from online. Does the FOIA apply here?

 

[James Wall]

On the whole, I think that the site provides some fairly unbiased information. I am all for the idea of banning sales to minors. Heck, I'd support raising the smoking age and sales of e-cigs to 21 that way they wouldn't be available to 18 year olds in school. (I won't ever suggest it to anyone with the ability to do anything about it, but I like the idea.) I do believe that a ban on sales to minors is in the best interest of the e-cig community and I think support for the ban on sales to minors from the e-cig community would be a great PR boost for us. That is as long as it doesn't mean giving up our flavors.

 

[rothenbj]

On the whole, I think that the site provides some fairly unbiased information. I am all for the idea of banning sales to minors. Heck, I'd support raising the smoking age and sales of e-cigs to 21 that way they wouldn't be available to 18 year olds in school. (I won't ever suggest it to anyone with the ability to do anything about it, but I like the idea.) I do believe that a ban on sales to minors is in the best interest of the e-cig community and I think support for the ban on sales to minors from the e-cig community would be a great PR boost for us. That is as long as it doesn't mean giving up our flavors.

That's something I thought and wondered about for a long time. Why hasn't TC pushed for this? I remember when they lowered the drinking age to 18 in NJ. I went to an Iron Butterfly (okay oldies, you know the times) concert in a large bar room. By about eleven you knew that an 18 year old shouldn't be drinking in public.

Back on topic, there is a far greater chance that an eighteen year old would buy cigarettes for their fourteen or fifteen year old brother or sister. Heck they might even get a kick out of it. Most 21 year olds wouldn't do the same thing. They may buy for someone underage, but I would think that would raise the age of those they are buying for.

In my mind the argument against such a strategy is the same as the voting age issue forty some years ago. If you're old enough to die for your country, you're old enough to make adult decisions. I still feel it would eliminate a lot of the start smoking ages and increase the chance that a child will never start.

 

[kristin]

The site isn't too bad and yes, banning sales to minors vs. everyone is preferable, however, they cite a study that most teenagers buy cigarettes because of advertising and not because of influence of friends, family or personal stress. So, they want to use that study to justify how they control e-cigarette advertising. I don't buy that for one minute. Can anyone here say an ad influenced them to start smoking? Tobacco ads influence brand choice, not the decision to start in the first place!

It's the same logic with flavors. No one started smoking because cigarettes came in vanilla or chocolate, yet they used falvored cigarettes as an example of how kids get addicted. If they are allowed to use this logic and aren't called on it, they try to apply it to e-cigarettes and the adults who use non-tobacco flavors will be SOL.

It's perfect example of how our battle and the smokers battle are tightly linked - what happens to them can easily affect us.

I don't think raising the age would help one iota, but it couldn't hurt. Yet, the more you mystify and deny something, the more kids want it.

 

[James Wall]

Actually the age thing is based on the fact that I, and so many others, started smoking to be included in a crowd at school, hey I was 14 and stupid. By the time I turned 16 (still stupid) and could legally buy my own smokes I was already hooked. I know I and many others bought for our friends at school. I do believe this would help to limit cigarette smoking by kids, but as I only have an opinion and no basis for this belief other than anectdotal experience I would never push my view on others (smarter now).

As Kristin says, there was no advertisement (I didn't like country music back then, so the Marlboro man was not an icon for me) or flavor that encouraged me to smoke. I believe that kids start because of 1) their parents who smoke 2) a desire to rebel against their parents who don't smoke 3) a desire to be like some other kid who is doing one of these three reasons.

 

[Torrentula81]

You know what, I grew up in spokane, wa. Not once have I seen or evven heard of a store that sells ecigs, let alone a person smoking one. Its a small .... hillbilly town going down the drain. I have to believe this whole thing must have been rigged. Were not talking about open minded people with numerous culture like Seattle or Portland where people might try ecigs. Just not that kind of town. Theres just no way this is legit.

 

[banjo]

No one should be selling eCig hardware or juice to minors, so I agree with the Spokane Resolution.

 

[sherid]

As long as 18 year olds are granted the right to vote, to be held accountable at adult standards for crimes committed, are held liable for contracts signed and are able to fight in wars; they should also have the legal right to purchase cigarettes, buy beer, and do anything else granted to legal adults. If all of these expectations and legal issues were raised to age 21, only then should other rights also be changed to 21.

 

[kristin]

I don't think that anyone disagrees that e-cigs shouldn't be sold to minors, it's just the vilification of the kiosk sellers that I'm questioning. We know from experience that antis will use misleading statistics to further their war against e-cigs. Who knows what they'll say to get e-cigs banned altogether? It's important for us to question when they state statistics without providing the supporting evidence, because that is exactly what the FDA did with "carcinogens" and "anti-freeze" in their press statement.