Stop Big Tobacco From Targeting Arizona Kids

There’s a public health emergency unfolding right before our eyes — and the cause couldn’t be clearer.

• Some 2 million kids nationally now use e-cigarettes.
• One in six Arizona high school students use e-cigarettes.
• 7 out of 10 youth e-cigarette users cite flavors as a reason they use e-cigarettes.

Youth e-cigarette usage has skyrocketed to what the US Surgeon General and Food and Drug Administration have called “epidemic” levels.

The main cause of the problem was Juul, a sleek, high-tech e-cigarette that looks like a USB flash drive – and is small and easy to hide, came in sweet flavors that enticed kids and delivered a powerful nicotine hit. One Juul pod delivers as much nicotine as a pack of 20 cigarette. But Juul isn’t the only problem. And the FDA has taken no action against the most popular flavored e-cigarettes and other flavored tobacco products still on the market.

These flavored tobacco products undermine Arizona’s efforts to reduce youth tobacco use:

• 81% of kids who have used tobacco started with a flavored product.
• 85% of youth e-cigarette users have report using flavored products.

Tobacco companies continue to aggressively market menthol-flavored cigarettes to kids, African Americans, Latinos and other demographic groups as they have for decades. Menthol cigarettes are disproportionately used by communities of color:

• 85% of all African American smokers and
• 47% of Hispanic smokers smoke menthol cigarettes, compared to 29% of Whites.

Menthol cigarettes pose a tremendous public health threat – they make it easier to start and harder to quit smoking.