Phoenix must ban flavored tobacco items targeting kids

With Arizona’s COVID-19 rates still a concern, we should consider everything we can do to keep ourselves and our youth healthy.

The bulk of COVID-19 cases, similar to our state’s population, is centered in Maricopa County, with our Latino communities hit particularly hard and facing an infection rate more than twice that of non-Latinos.

Phoenix residents should follow public health guidance, but it is also critical that policymakers address the many factors that drive health and other disparities and make people of color more vulnerable to this pandemic — from housing and work conditions to health care access to high rates of underlying health conditions.

This is an important time for city leaders to take immediate action to protect the lung health of its residents. As we battle the novel coronavirus in Phoenix, we must also prioritize tackling tobacco addiction. Helping people quit smoking and vaping, coupled with a policy to end the sale of flavored tobacco products, is a great start.

The coronavirus attacks the respiratory system, which means that in the midst of this pandemic it’s best to avoid behaviors that harm the lungs. We know that smoking increases the risk for respiratory infections, weakens the immune system and causes many underlying conditions, like lung and heart disease, that expose individuals to deadly complications from COVID-19.

In a recent study, researchers found smokers were more than twice as likely as nonsmokers to experience severe symptoms from COVID-19. There is also growing evidence that vaping e-cigarettes weakens the lungs’ normal functions.

But even in the midst of one of the nation’s worst health crises, the tobacco industry has not backed down from selling its lies. Vape shops have given away protective masks with purchases in exploitative pandemic-themed promotions.

E-cigarettes have risen dramatically in popularity among youth over the past few years, fueled largely by flavored tobacco products.

More than 5.3 million middle and high school students across the nation used vaping products in 2018, and more than 16% of Arizona high school students vape. Moreover, e-cigarettes are the most commonly used tobacco products among Latino youth.

In addition to flavored e-cigarettes, we must also end the sale of menthol cigarettes and other flavored tobacco products. The tobacco industry has a long history of targeting kids, African Americans and other communities of color with marketing for menthol cigarettes, at great cost in health and lives.

Today, 7 out of 10 African American youth who smoke and 57% of Hispanic youth who smoke use menthol cigarettes. Menthol masks the harshness of smoking and makes cigarettes more addictive, making it easier for kids to start smoking and harder for smokers to quit.

So, in the face of both a deadly virus and a predatory industry, the Phoenix City Council should pass the citywide ordinance I am sponsoring to end the sale of flavored tobacco products, including flavored e-cigarettes, menthol cigarettes, flavored cigars and flavored smokeless tobacco.

This policy protects the lungs of young people and people of color, who are most likely to be targets of the tobacco industry’s deceptive marketing tactics.

In addition to an end to the sale of flavored tobacco products, culturally appropriate, bilingual efforts to help users quit are critical to preventing serious outcomes from COVID-19, and resources to help those who want to stop smoking and vaping should be promoted even more as we fight COVID-19.