The Baltimore Sun Editorial Board has offered support for calls to ban flavored e-cigarettes as a means of stemming youth vaping.
Among other supporting arguments, the editorial pulls from research findings that additives in flavored e-cigarettes have been used by manufacturers to make them “more ‘palatable.'”
From the Sun Editorial:
We think the time is right as gains made in smoking prevention have been threatened by the growing popularity in e-cigarettes, which aren’t as highly regulated as traditional cigarettes. Nationally, from 2017 to 2018, use of tobacco products grew by nearly 40% among high school students. The use of electronic smoking devices increased by 78%, according to the Maryland Health Department.
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It is smart for Maryland to take a proactive approach and not wait for changes in federal law, and not only because the Trump proposal is limited to e-cigarettes. Already, health advocates are worried the administration is waffling on the idea and may eliminate menthol and mint products from the ban. Fifty groups, including the American Heart Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics, sent a letter to U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar urging him to follow through with the original proposal.
For more information read the full editorial in The Baltimore Sun.
Vaping will be a topic of discussion at the MACo Winter Conference. Attend the “Clearing the Air: A Closer Look at Vaping” session scheduled for Wednesday, December 4 to learn more.
The 2019 MACo Winter Conference, “Building for the Future,” will be held on December 4-6, 2019, at the Hyatt Regency Chesapeake Bay Hotel in Cambridge, Maryland.
Learn more about MACo’s Winter Conference:
