As dad and mom, aunts, and uncles, we all know the impacts of tobacco dependancy on a private stage. We’ve watched as family members have struggled simply to breathe. We’ve witnessed pals’ lives lower quick by most cancers and different devastating diseases. We’ve frightened as our personal youngsters’s colleges have tried, time and again, to cease vaping within the bogs.
Nevertheless it’s not simply us. Take Victoria, a highschool senior within the Denver space who used a fruit-flavored vape in a second of curiosity. That curiosity shortly changed into a behavior, then an dependancy, as she used three or 4 vapes every week.
We’ve heard from dozens of scholars asking us to ban the sale of flavored tobacco. Tara, a Denver highschool pupil, instructed us in regards to the youthful siblings of excessive schoolers, youngsters as younger as six, seven, or eight, who strive vaping.
There are numerous such tales from youth throughout our group, drawn in by flavored merchandise designed to enchantment particularly to youngsters. Youth who vape are 4 occasions extra more likely to begin smoking cigarettes inside a yr, in response to the Colorado Division of Well being. Tobacco and nicotine use are the primary reason for preventable and untimely demise in Colorado.
Brightly packaged in sweet flavors, these merchandise have sparked a well being disaster. In 2023, the Wholesome Youngsters Colorado Survey discovered that 6.9% of Denver highschool college students use tobacco merchandise. Every year, extra lives are misplaced whereas a brand new technology of younger folks is addicted earlier than they even perceive the dangers.
The tobacco trade has identified for many years that flavors entice youngsters. From 1950 Flintstones advertisements to Juul’s insidious social media, large tobacco firms have invested tens of millions in advertising designed to lure in youngsters whereas realizing that addictive nicotine severely harms mind and lung improvement.
Menthol, the “unique” taste, has triggered devastation amongst communities of coloration, like 5 Factors, Whittier, Globeville, Elyria-Swansea, Park Hill, and Montbello, focused with predatory promoting. The College of Colorado reviews roughly 45,000 Black Individuals prematurely die from tobacco-caused ailments yearly. Lung most cancers is the main reason for most cancers demise amongst Latinos and the second main trigger amongst Latinas, in response to the American Most cancers Society.
To take away these harmful merchandise from our cabinets as soon as and for all, we now have launched a Metropolis Council ordinance to finish the sale of all flavored tobacco merchandise in Denver. Collectively, we are going to break the tobacco trade’s cycle of dependancy and cease the unnecessary deaths of relations and pals. The Nationwide Affiliation for the Development of Coloured Individuals (“NAACP”) reported that banning menthol alone might save an estimated 654,000 lives nationwide, together with 255,000 Black lives, over the subsequent 40 years.
We additionally perceive that punishing youngsters for possession shouldn’t be the reply. Our ordinance eliminates penalties for underage possession, shifting accountability to the tobacco firms and retailers who revenue from youth dependancy. Research present that punishing youngsters does nothing to cut back smoking charges and solely stigmatizes those that are already affected by dependancy.
Our proposal is a couple of imaginative and prescient for a more healthy, safer Denver shared by our group. Denver voters assist ending the sale of flavored tobacco merchandise, and 100 native organizations, together with Kids’s Hospital Colorado, Tepeyac Neighborhood Well being Middle, Denver Well being, the Colorado Academy of Household Physicians and the Denver Board of Schooling have voiced their assist.
We name on our Denver Metropolis Council colleagues to vote in favor of this ordinance and put Denverites’ well being over tobacco trade earnings. Collectively, we are able to halt the cycle of dependancy, save lives, and create a Denver the place each baby is free to thrive, unshackled from the grip of tobacco and nicotine. By ending the sale of flavored tobacco in Denver, we aren’t solely defending youngsters like Victoria and Tara but additionally guaranteeing a more healthy, brighter future for all.
Serena Gonzales-Gutierrez is an at-large member of the Denver Metropolis Council. Shontel M. Lewis represents District 8 on the Metropolis Council, and Darrell Watson represents District 9.
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