Courtesy of Kentucky Lantern
A legislative committee unanimously advanced a bill Tuesday that the sponsor has promised will add “teeth” to Kentucky laws aimed at keeping nicotine products out of the hands of youth.
Senate Bill 100, from Sen. Jimmy Higdon, R-Lebanon, can now go to the Senate floor for a vote.
Delanie Crump, a first year student at Boyd County High School in Ashland, testified before the Senate Licensing and Occupations Committee alongside Higdon. She said that too many of her peers have access to vapes with the potential for long-term effects.
“Imagine this: A middle schooler, just 12 years old, trying a vape for the first time because it tastes like candy,” Crump said. “They don’t see the addiction coming, but it grabs hold of them anyways. By high school, they’re hooked. This isn’t just a hypothetical. It’s happening in every classroom, every neighborhood, in every state in our nation.”
E-cigarettes are addictive and can damage the heart and lungs, according to Johns Hopkins Medicine.
“The consequences of inaction are devastating. This isn’t just about lung cancer 30 years down the line,” Crump told lawmakers. “It’s about kids dropping out of sports because their lungs can’t keep up. It’s about the anxiety and depression that nicotine fuels. It’s about academic distraction and under performance. It’s about an entire generation being stolen before they’ve had a chance to live fully.”
Crump, who also works with the youth advisory board for the tobacco prevention hashtag movement #iCANendthetrend, said Kentucky needs better enforcement of bans on underage tobacco sales, to license retailers and conduct compliance checks on them, and to impose “harsher” penalties for violations.
All of that would be accomplished by Higdon’s SB 100, which would license all retailers who sell tobacco and vape products, giving the Kentucky Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control inspection and enforcement powers over them, similar to those it exercises over alcohol retailers.
The legislation would also establish a system of fines. Clerks who sell to minors would be fined $100 per violation. Shop owners would receive a notice after the first violation then be fined $500 on the second offense and then $1,000. Upon a fourth violation, retailers would lose their license and not be able to renew it for two years.
Half of the fine money would go to enforcement expenses and the other half to “a youth program directed at targeting and educating youth on the dangers of tobacco products, alternative nicotine products, and vapor products,” according to the bill.
“This bill has one purpose, to stop the supply of vapes and cigarettes to (the) underage,” Higdon said. “The majority of Kentucky retailers are great retailers. They follow the law. This bill is directed at bad actors.”
Griffin Nemeth, a youth advisory board coordinator for #iCANendthetrend, agreed.
“Tobacco retail licensure is not an anti-business measure at all. I think it’s pro-business,” he said. “We care about Kentucky’s economy, and I know you all do as well. We want to preserve its integrity and growth. The only businesses who will be harmed by tobacco retail licensure are those acting criminally, those selling often illegal nicotine products to underage kids.”
Smoking is also a leading cause of preventable death across the country, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges. In Kentucky, smoking and lung cancer rates exceed those in the rest of the nation.
About 17% of Kentucky adults smoke compared to 11% nationally. In Kentucky, 5% of high school students smoke and almost 20% use e-cigarettes, according to The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. Smoking costs the state more than $2 billion every year in health complications, according to the campaign.
“Will this completely stop underage vaping?” Higdon said. “Unfortunately, no. But it’s a step in the right direction.”
Kentucky Lantern is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.