CLEVELAND — The numbers are no industry secret: the younger a person starts smoking, the more likely they are to be a long-time nicotine user.
"We know that four out of five, most smokers have started smoking by the age of 21," said Ohio Health Director Dr. Amy Acton. "Delaying that age of initiation is crucial."
As smoking rates decline, what sparked state and national concern is the rise in the use among teens of e-cigarettes.
"We know that the number of high schoolers who are vaping increased 78 percent in just one year and more worrisome — the amount of middle schoolers increased by 48 percent," Dr. Acton said. "It's being targeted very selectively to our youth so this is a tremendous public health problem and we feel this is a way to begin to address it."
Ohio Governor Mike DeWine said as father and grandfather he couldn't sit idly by and do nothing. "Even if they know it's nicotine they probably don't know how horribly addictive it is," he said.
"What these companies are doing is really targeting the next generation of smokers and instead of getting them through cigarettes, which is really not socially acceptable anymore among young people, they've decided a different way to do it. And they've come out with different flavors, fruity flavors and the packaging is designed to appeal to young people."
DeWine admitted the state needs to take a closer look at the amount money that is being spent on cessation and prevention programs, a figure that's reportedly been slashed by two-thirds over the last decade.
"We've got to look at that, you're absolutely right we are not spending enough, we have not focused enough. Sadly when we had the tobacco settlement a number of years ago that money was spent. I'm sure it was spent on good things, but it was not spent on as much on cessation as frankly it should have," DeWine said.
Dr. Acton said the health department is looking to change that. "The cessation dollars have pretty much disappeared, but we are asking for general revenue to fill that back in and so that's what you'll see in our budget. We do have funding that we are going to the legislature for to do cessation, but not only that, to put some teeth behind this and do compliance checks and do the work that we have done in the past that was very successful," she said.
A JUUL Labs spokesperson tells News 5 they are in favor of the governor's efforts. "We strongly support raising the purchasing age for all tobacco products, including vapor products, to 21 and have been actively supporting legislation to do this in states across the country and at the federal level. "
"Tobacco 21 laws fight one of the largest contributors to this problem – sharing by legal-age peers – and they have been shown to dramatically reduce youth-use rates. That is why we will continue to work with lawmakers across the country to enact these effective policies," the JUUL statement read.
