Advocates, students rally for laws to curb e-cigarette use

Kentucky School Advocate
February 2020

By Brenna R. Kelly
Staff writer

McCracken County High School student Abby Hefner was in ninth grade when someone offered her a Juul. She tried it – after all, it wasn’t a cigarette. 

“I was always taught that cigarettes are bad,” said the now 10th-grader, “and I knew not to try them.” 

But she didn’t know about e-cigarettes. She liked the mint taste of the Juul and the buzz that came along with it. So, Hefner bought her own Juul from a friend and quickly became addicted. 

Even after getting caught vaping at school and being sent to detention, she couldn’t quit. Sometimes the nicotine made her sick, but when she stopped, she felt even worse. 

“It took me over a year to finally quit,” Hefner said at a January rally urging lawmakers to adopt measures to combat the surge of e-cigarette use by Kentucky’s youth.

The rally, held in the Capitol Rotunda, was organized by the Coalition for a Smoke-Free Tomorrow, a group of more than 225 Kentucky organizations including the Kentucky School Boards Association. 

“Too many Kentucky adolescents and teens are using e-cigarettes,” said Ben Chandler, chairman of the Coalition and president/CEO of the Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky.

E-cigarette use more than quadrupled among middle school students and nearly doubled among high school students from 2017 to 2019. This past year, more than one in four Kentucky high school students used e-cigarettes monthly. That number was one in five in middle school.

“E-cigarette use is an epidemic,” Chandler said. “It’s an epidemic across the nation and it’s an epidemic in Kentucky and it’s a serious health problem.” 

To combat the problem, the Coalition is supporting legislation designed to keep e-cigarettes out of teens’ hands. The measures include: 

• Adding an excise tax on the sale of e-cigarettes that is equivalent to the current tax on cigarettes.

• Raising the minimum legal age for sales of tobacco products from 18 to 21 and removing the status offense for underage purchase, use and possession of tobacco products. 

• Increasing funding for tobacco use prevention and cessation efforts.

Advocates hope to build on the success of last year’s tobacco-free schools law which gave Kentucky school districts the opportunity to adopt policies to prohibit the use of any tobacco products on campuses and in school vehicles. The model policy prohibits tobacco use by school officials on field trips when students are present. The law does not prohibit adult use of nicotine replacement therapy products for tobacco cessation.

By the end of January, 97 percent of Kentucky school districts had adopted a tobacco-free policy. Before the law’s passage only 42 percent of districts had such a policy. Districts can opt-out, but the Coalition is working to encourage every district to opt in. Only Union County Schools has decided to adopt a policy that doesn’t comply. 

The law was a strong first step but there is more to be done, said Rep. Kim Moser, one of the bill’s sponsors. 

“The Kentucky student vaping rate continues to skyrocket,” she said. “In addition to changing Kentucky's Tobacco 21 law this year, we need to raise the price of e-cigarettes with an excise tax, and devote a more appropriate level of resources to preventing tobacco use in the first place and to helping addicted smokers and vapers quit.”

Hefner believes at least one of those measures might have prevented her from accepting that first Juul puff.

“It was so easy for me because I didn’t know all the dangerous things in the product, I didn’t know what was in it,” Hefner said. “I think if we put more money put into the funding of education (about e-cigarettes) it would greatly reduce the number of teens who use.”

Taxing e-cigarettes  
E-cigarettes are the only tobacco product not subject to the state’s excise tax. The Coalition supports House Bill 32, introduced by Rep. Jerry T. Miller, which would tax e-cigarettes at 27.5 percent of their wholesale price, which is parallel to Kentucky's $1.10 per cigarette pack tax. 

The bill would generate an estimated $34 million its first year. The Coalition notes that a 10 percent increase in the price would reduce disposable e-cig sales by approximately 12 percent and reusable e-cig sales by 19 percent. Research shows that price increases are particularly effective among youth and pregnant women. 

Campbell County High School student Ana Pohlgeers said at the rally that she believes the tax would keep students from buying e-cigarettes.

“Most kids my age have very little cash flow. Even though I work two jobs, I would have a hard time finding the extra money to purchase e-cigarettes, especially if a tax was added,” she said. “Adding the e-cigarette tax is a no brainier – you can’t purchase what you can’t afford.” 

Raising the age to purchase tobacco to 21
The Coalition supports updating Kentucky law to comply with the new federal law raising the minimum legal age to purchase tobacco products from 18 to 21.

Sen. Ralph Alvarado’s Senate Bill 56 which raises the age to 21 and removes the status offense and penalties for youth who purchase, use or possess tobacco products has passed the Senate.

“It allows the products to be confiscated and penalizes retailers who fail to adequately check buyers' ID, but the evidence shows that educating kids about the dangers of tobacco use leads to far better health outcomes than putting them into the juvenile justice system,” Alvarado said. "

Funding prevention and cessation programs 
Kentucky brings in more than $500 million a year in tobacco revenues yet spends just $3.3 million a year on tobacco control and cessation, 6.7 percent of what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends. The Coalition urges the General Assembly to raise the annual budget to $10 million in order to conduct multi-media education campaigns about the dangers of e-cigarettes and other tobacco use, and expand its cessation and other services.

“Kids don't understand that e-cigs contain very high levels of nicotine that threaten the way their brain works and puts them at risk for a lifetime of addictions,” Chandler said. “We’ve got to hit them from every angle with messages that vaping is a very dangerous choice.”