As a local agency, Community Solutions is committed to health of
our young people. For many years we have worked with the county
’s Tobacco Control Program to reduce the use and accessibility
of tobacco with young people.
EDITOR:
As a local agency, Community Solutions is committed to health of our young people. For many years we have worked with the county’s Tobacco Control Program to reduce the use and accessibility of tobacco with young people.
It seems that the more knowledgeable Californians become about the power of Big Tobacco, the more dollars the industry pours into its marketing and promotional campaigns. The tobacco industry spends an estimated $2.3 million per day marketing to consumers in this state alone; this works out to more than $1,500 a minute.
Parents and concerned individuals can work to combat the tobacco industry’s ability to excessively finance their advertising efforts, starting in our own backyard. Cities like Morgan Hill can pass laws making it tougher for the tobacco industry to lure youth into a habit that causes the premature death of one in every three persons who begin smoking.
Morgan Hill can combat the tobacco industry’s predatory practices by limiting the location of new tobacco retail outlets. For example, new tobacco shops can be outlawed within 1,000 feet of a school. Since more than 80 percent of adult smokers started before they reached 18, eliminating youth access is a crucial strategy in fighting for the health of future generations.
Despite the fact that everyone agrees selling cigarettes to kids is wrong, Morgan Hill retailers have done it in the past. In the most recent tobacco stings by the Police Department, nearly half of the tobacco retailers targeted sold to minors. Youth themselves confirm our worst fears: 89 percent of young people attending Live Oak High School report that it is easy to buy tobacco in Morgan Hill. (Santa Clara County Tobacco Prevention Program, student opinion survey, May 2003)
In October of last year, community advocates along with the staff of the Santa Clara County Department of Public Health addressed these youth access issues to the Morgan Hill City Council.
The following recommendations were made: That the City of Morgan Hill should enforce the ordinances that the city already has in place to protect our youth such as limiting window advertisement, that will protect young people from excessive tobacco and alcohol ads. This has the added benefit of wiping out the visual clutter on our streets. It was also recommended to ban all form of tobacco from self-services displays and to ban portable advertising, portable signs that often introduce proliferation of tobacco retailers as a way to make the storeowners and not the clerks liable for repeated sales to minors.
The city may mandate that retailers must have a license to sell tobacco products. Licensure is currently required for selling alcohol and many other goods and services.
Morgan Hill can ban the self-service display of all tobacco products. Currently cigars and chewing tobacco can be displayed at children’s eye level and within their reach, right next to candy and chips.
Chewing tobacco is every bit as dangerous as cigarettes. The American Health Foundation reports that a single can of smokeless tobacco contains three times the cancer-causing chemicals found in a pack of cigarettes. These substances, like nicotine, formaldehyde, and nuclear waste (polonium 210) are known to cause cancer of the mouth, jaw, and tongue. Banning self-service displays will make it tougher for kids to shoplift these items, and lessen the temptation for anyone to purchase them on impulse.
Tobacco remains the number one preventable cause of death in California. It kills more people each year than alcohol, AIDS, car accidents, illegal drugs, murders and suicides combined. There is no reason to face defeat in the advertising wars waged by the tobacco industry – especially when we can fight and win by adopting local laws.
Community Solutions and El Toro Youth Center staff and parents support the efforts to keep tobacco away from young people an encourage the city council to move forward enforcing and strengthening our local tobacco control ordinances.
Lori Escobar, programs manager,
Community Solutions
Morgan Hill
