The following piece is an op-ed authored by
Dave Adkisson, President and CEO, Kentucky Chamber
Ben Chandler, President and CEO, Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky
Terry Brooks, Executive Director, Kentucky Youth Advocates
Kerri Schelling, Executive Director, Kentucky School Boards Association
Jack Hillard, Executive Director, Kentucky Cancer Foundation
Kentucky students need a statewide tobacco-free schools law to protect them from secondhand smoke, e-cigarette aerosol and tobacco product messaging at school. Nearly 60 percent of Kentucky kids attend schools that do not have such policies, so they smell, breathe and otherwise absorb tobacco emissions and messaging during the school day, field trips and after school events. Most of the schools that have already adopted these policies are located in larger, urban areas of Kentucky.
It’s time to pass House Bill 11, to enact a statewide policy so every Kentucky K-12 public school student has the opportunity to learn in a tobacco-free environment. Tobacco-free schools policies are proven to reduce peer pressure among adolescents and teens to use tobacco and, in turn, keep kids from trying and becoming addicted to the nicotine in cigarettes, vapes and other tobacco products.
About 90 percent of tobacco use starts in the teen years, so HB11 is about stopping nicotine addiction during youth, when it can permanently damage the developing brain and impair mood, impulse control and learning.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that one in five high schoolers now uses e-cigarettes, such as Juul or other vaporized nicotine products. Teens often call school bathrooms “juuling rooms.” Youth tobacco use, which had been declining for decades, is suddenly rising again. Focus groups of teens in rural and urban school districts around Kentucky elicited numerous anecdotes illustrating that what the CDC is seeing nationwide is also prevalent right here in the Commonwealth.
Moreover, Kentucky’s youth tobacco use rates were much higher than the national rates before the current e-cig epidemic. Neither our children’s health nor our state budget can afford the expensive tab – in terms of disease, death and health care costs – that failure to address this youth vaping epidemic is quickly running up.
HB11 passed the Kentucky House on an 85-11 vote, and awaits Senate action on March 28. For the health of our children, this should be an easy “yes” vote.