TURNER: Vape use growing among youths

Published 9:00 am Saturday, January 11, 2020

I was disheartened to read Rep. (Dexter) Sharper’s misguided thoughts on e-cigarette use. In 2017, only 2.8% of adults were current e-cigarette users. More so, no e-cigarette product on the market has been approved by the Federal Drug Administration as a tobacco cessation device.

Sharper is right about one thing though. Many individuals have moved toward e-cigarettes for nicotine use – our kids. And studies have shown that e-cigarette use increases the risk of youth and young adults using combustible tobacco products.

Due to the growing popularity of e-cigarettes, the rate of high school students who use tobacco products is at its highest level in almost 20 years.

With the start of the session near, I encourage Sharper to effectively address today’s youth e-cigarette epidemic by significantly increasing the tobacco tax and allocate the revenue to our state’s dangerously underfunded youth tobacco prevention programs.

An increased cigarette tax to $1.87 per pack paralleled with an increase in the tax on all other tobacco products including e-cigarettes to 41% of the wholesale price would prevent youth tobacco use and help many adults to quit.

Born and raised in rural Georgia, I’ve seen tobacco’s toll firsthand in my community and my own life. I was one of the lucky ones, beating cancer at the young age of 2.

But 204,000 kids under 18 and alive today in our state will die prematurely from smoking if nothing is done. My disease wasn’t preventable, but theirs is.

It’s my hope that Sharper delivers on his promise to protect the next generation from a lifetime of addiction and untimely death by voting to raise the cigarette tax to $1.87 per pack with an equivalent tax on all tobacco products and funding the vital youth prevention programs needed in our state. 

Lee Turner,

Tifton