State Rep. Cheri Helt, R-Bend, plans to introduce a measure in the 2020 legislative session that would ban the sale of flavored e-cigarette or other vaping products. The bill should spark badly needed debate on the topic.
Vaping does have its problems. According to the Centers for Disease Control, it’s increasingly popular among high school and middle school students, so much so that more than 10 % of middle school students and 27.5% of high schoolers reported using vaping products in the last 30 days. At the same time, however, cigarette smoking in that same age group has declined dramatically, the CDC says.
That said, not everyone agrees that banning even the sweetest vaping products is a great idea. A recent article in Science magazine noted that vaping has moved people away from traditional tobacco products, which pose more health risks than vaping products do. Opting to reduce harm rather than eliminate it is considered by some to be a better approach to such problems.
Here’s another piece to add to the puzzle: According to the CDC’s 2019 National Youth Tobacco Survey, a big majority of teens who had ever tried vaping, some 55.3 %, did so out of curiosity, not because candy- or fruit-flavored products were available. Only 22.4 % said they first tried vaping because of the flavors available.
None of this means vaping is good for kids, of course. But, the Science magazine researchers say, the best way to approach the problem is by taxing vaping products heavily enough to discourage teens’ use of them, by tracking their sales closely and by restricting the sale of nicotine in any form to those 21 or older, something Oregon already does.
Scientists agree that nicotine is not good for anyone, adult or child. It raises blood pressure, can increase risk of heart attacks and it is highly addictive. Oregonians will have to decide how they want to approach the problem of keeping it out of the lungs of kids, and Helt’s bill can be a good starting point for the discussion.
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