BOH approves landmark tobacco regulations

Purchase age raised to 21, assorted products banned ~

Beginning next year, tobacco users in Canton will be faced with some of the toughest regulations in the country after the Board of Health voted unanimously Monday night to raise the legal purchase age to 21 while at the same time banning a slew of “nonmedical” nicotine products such as blunt wraps, snus, and other forms of smokeless tobacco.

The new regulations, which take effect January 1, were universally hailed by health officials as a victory for public health in Canton — even as consumer advocacy and retail groups expressed reservations about the extent of the restrictions and products ban.

“I want everybody to understand that our role is different than a business owner,” BOH member Robert Schneiders reminded the audience at Monday’s hearing. “Our role is not economic in nature. It has to do with safety and it has to do with the protection of the people we work for.”

The board did make one major concession — scrapping a proposed ban on electronic cigarettes, also known as e-cigarettes or personal vaporizers, which have been growing in popularity and which advocates say are a “reduced-harm alternative” to conventional cigarettes or cigars.

E-cigarettes will instead be permitted to be sold but will be subject to the same heightened age restriction as traditional tobacco products and other approved nicotine replacement therapies such as nicotine patches and gum.

The rumored e-cigarette ban had reportedly touched off a firestorm within the blogosphere and among manufacturers and consumer groups. However, Public Health Director John Ciccotelli, who drafted the regulations with input from BOH members, acknowledged that he had only sought to ban e-cigarettes because he had mistakenly lumped them in with some of the other “backdoor” products on the market that seem to target young people, such as flavored blunts and assorted nicotine “candies.”

Ciccotelli assured the e-cigarette’s legion of supporters, who submitted hundreds of comments and had representatives in attendance at the hearing, that he had since been properly “schooled” on the benefits of the product and had no intention of banning them.

“That is not the intent of the regulation,” he told the e-cigarette crowd. “It is not the intention to take e-cigarettes out of the hands of adults.”

Ciccotelli said the far bigger issue for the health department — and the reason they took up this cause in the first place — was to restrict access to all tobacco and nicotine products to young people.

“The main purpose of this regulation is to raise the age of purchasing tobacco to 21 in order to keep cigarettes and nicotine out of middle school and high school aged kids’ hands,” he said, “which is the time where they’re most vulnerable and where most people in general start smoking. That’s the intent.”

Canton now becomes the fifth town in the commonwealth to raise the smoking age to 21, joining Needham, Dover, Sharon, and Arlington, the latter of which has opted for gradual implementation over the next three years. In addition, several other communities have gone to 19, including both Walpole and Westwood earlier this year.

In Canton’s case, the new age restriction carries a five-year “sunset” provision whereby the purchase age would revert back to 18 if the measure fails to produce a positive effect on teen smoking rates. However, if it does succeed in lowering tobacco use among Canton youth, then the regulation will be automatically renewed.

The Board of Health will conduct an annual survey of Canton middle and high school students to determine the efficacy of the new regulations. Cicotelli said the superintendent of schools has approved the study, which will closely mirror the Centers for Disease Control’s Youth Risk Behavior Survey.

Cicotelli also made it clear that the age increase was not designed to penalize Canton retailers, which he said have an “excellent track record” in tobacco-related stings, particularly over the past few years. Rather, the real target of the regulation change, he said, are those individuals ages 18-21 who purchase tobacco for their younger siblings and friends.

“That being the case, as far as we can tell, the board decided we are going to take away the ability of that small group to purchase cigarettes at least in this town,” he said.

However, not everyone who attended Monday’s hearing was satisfied with that explanation.

Steve Ryan, a Canton resident and the executive director of the New England Convenience Store Association, argued that local retailers should not have to bear the punishment for the actions of the “enabling adult.”

“In that scenario [retailers] are the only ones that are not doing anything wrong,” he said, “but at the end of the day they’re the ones ultimately put in this position.”

Stuart Ravech, an attorney for CB Perkins Tobacconist in Cobb’s Corner, said his client is very careful not to sell to minors, yet they support the rights of legal adults over age 18 to purchase tobacco products.

“They’re adults too,” said Ravech, “and we all understand that as an adult they have the right now, at 18 years old, they have the right to decide whether you folks are on the Board of Health, whether the selectmen in this town are elected, whether the president of the United States is elected.”

Several e-cigarette supporters also questioned the age increase, claiming that 18-21 year olds who currently smoke will now be deprived of access to “reduced risk” products.

For the most part, however, health officials felt that the benefits of going to 21 would far outweigh any potential harm.

“To me, there’s good, solid biological reasons and common-sense reasons to expand to 21 beyond just trying to prevent teenagers from smoking,” said BOH member Dr. Julie Goodman, adding that the ultimate goal is that “nobody smokes,” thus negating the impact to businesses.

Both Schneiders and fellow member Dr. Richard Levrault expressed hope that tougher tobacco policies would soon be applied across the state and across the country.

“Maybe something will come from this,” said Levrault, “and maybe it will go statewide and maybe we’ll prevent kids from having long-term problems with cigarette smoking and other related tobacco use. So I looked at it as just a very positive thing.”

As for the items that will be banned by the new regulations, health officials felt they had no redeeming value and in many cases were being used for illegal purposes. These include flavored blunt wraps, dissolvable tablets, and snus — a moist powder tobacco similar to American dipping tobacco.

However, some insist that the latter two products can be used as a less harmful alternative to smoking, similar to the way e-cigarettes are used.

Greg Conley, the legislative director for the Smoke-Free Alternatives Association, went so far as to call the ban on snus and dissolvables “public health malpractice.”

“They are both approximately 99 percent less hazardous than smoking, and it is a travesty that supposed health authorities would ignore this fact,” said Conley.

Ryan also challenged the ban, claiming that Canton is now the only community in America that has outlawed such a wide swath of legal products. He asked that the board consider waiting for guidance from the FDA, which he claimed was imminent; however health officials said they had already made up their minds.

“No one has defended, other than people who want to sell them, these other products from having any social value, health value, medical value,” said Ciccotelli. “But they do contain one of the most addictive products in the world — nicotine — and we want to stop it.”

Schneiders, for one, looked forward to a day when people would look back in amazement that such policies were ever controversial.

“I think this may well be the wave of the future,” he said. “Five years from now we may have a statewide or even countrywide age of 21, and we’ll look back and say, ‘I can’t believe we were arguing about this.’”

“This was supposed to be, we hoped, a positive initiative to help or to at least get kids to stop smoking or [prevent them from] even starting smoking,” added Levrault. “I realize there are all sorts of other ramifications, but can’t we give this a start? That’s all I’m asking, and I don’t think it’s unreasonable.”

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