Emanuel ramps up fight against teen smoking

For more than seven years as mayor, Rahm Emanuel has pursued a sweeping anti- smoking agenda that has more than cut Chicago’s teen smoking rate in half, to 6 percent.

Now the mayor wants to get even tougher by requiring health- risk warning signs at the doors to all tobacco dealers and closing a legal loophole that has allowed Big Tobacco to distribute free samples at “qualified adult facilities.”

The warning signs would be designed by the Chicago Department of Public Health. They would contain “factual information” about the health risks posed by e- cigarettes, cigars, cigarillos, smokeless tobacco and other tobacco products that do not include cigarettes. The signs will also include a “quit- line” phone number users can call if they need help in kicking the tobacco habit.

Kate McMahon, director of chronic disease prevention and health promotion, acknowledged that federal law already prohibits much of the distribution of free samples.

But there are still too many places where smokeless tobacco samples can be distributed at “qualified adult facilities.”

“What this ordinance is doing is strengthening our local protections to ensure that can’t happen,” McMahon said.

Teen smoking has dropped from 13.6 percent when the mayor took office in 2011 to 6 percent today.

But McMahon noted that Chicago high school students have a higher rate of using e- cigarettes, 6.6 percent, and cigars, 7.2 percent.