Daily Sitka Sentinel

Chamber Hears Pitch for Age 21 Initiative

By ABIGAIL BLISS

Sentinel Staff Writer

A pack of cigarettes can cost $12 in Sitka these days, but that high price alone may not be enough to deter youngsters from purchasing and using the tobacco products, warned guest speaker Eric Brodell at Wednesday’s Chamber of Commerce luncheon. 

Eric Brodell speaks at the Sitka Chamber of Commerce luncheon at the Westmark Hotel Wednesday. (Sentinel Photo)

Brodell is the Western States Regional Director for the Preventing Tobacco Addiction Foundation’s Tobacco 21 initiative, which calls for raising the legal age for purchase of tobacco products from 18 to 21. Advocates say the change would put legal purchasers outside of the social spheres of high school students.

While he dubbed Sitka a “leader” in the movement to curb tobacco use, Brodell underscored the work that remains to be done locally, in the state, across the country and around the world.

There are currently 16 million Americans living with smoking-related diseases, he said, and tobacco use is still the number one cause of preventable death in the world.

As for Alaska, Brodell said, 19 percent of adults and 11 percent of high school students smoke cigarettes, and each year 300 kids under 18 become daily smokers. Approximately one third of cancer deaths in Alaska are attributable to smoking, he said.

“When used correctly, it will kill you 50 percent of the time,” Brodell said. “This is obviously a big connection, and we made it decades ago.”

His presentation focused, in particular, on Tobacco 21’s potential effects on the “retail business environment.”

Brodell emphasized that the tobacco industry’s claims of creating jobs and generating revenue in communities ring hollow, especially in Alaska where tobacco is not grown.

Apart from health-related costs, tobacco use costs America billions of dollars in lost productivity, Brodell said.

The $151 billion loss to the economy can be attributed to smoking breaks and distraction by addiction, he explained, adding that the cost to employers is estimated at $5,816 annually for each smoking employee.

There is also the risk of fire started by cigarette embers – ten percent of fire deaths around the world are caused by smoking, Brodell said.

He emphasized the importance of examining the claims that the tobacco industry makes about its economic benefits to communities.

The creation of jobs from production is only a perceived benefit to communities, Brodell told those assembled, as most revenue is pocketed by the companies, with little remaining for workers.

Taxes on tobacco sales were implemented to curb tobacco usage, he explained, so revenue from the taxes will decline as usage goes down.

Some people have framed the premature death of smokers as an advantage, as it skirts the societal health costs of old age. Brodell said he just couldn’t see that side of the argument.

“I guess you can swing it that way, but I don’t like to do it,” he said.  “Overall, the health implications of smoking far outweigh any associated economic returns from the perspective of socially desirable outcome.”

Turning to those “health implications,” Brodell highlighted the high price Alaskans pay for smoking habits. Smoking results in some $438 million in health care costs in Alaska each year, amounting to $1,074 per household of residents’ state and federal tax burden, he said.

Brodell predicted relatively little impact on local retailers if Sitka should adopt a sales age of 21 for tobacco products. Nationally, those between 18 and 20 consume a little over 2 percent of cigarettes smoked. An age 21 requirement would mean “the maximum immediate loss of sales would be just 2 percent of the total cigarette sales in the United States,” which he believed would be mirrored in Sitka.

He compared Tobacco 21’s proposed policy to the change in the legal drinking age implemented in the 1980s, pointing out that alcohol retailers have hardly suffered in the ensuing years.

Although his presentation centered primarily on cigarettes, Brodell took the time to call attention to the dangers of a more recent product increasingly popular among younger tobacco users: e-cigarettes. In Alaska, nearly 18 percent of high school students use e-cigarettes, significantly more than smoke traditional cigarettes, he said, and many have even latched on to JUUL pods, a temperature-controlled alternative vaporizer.

He expressed hope that increasing the legal sales age to 21 would check tobacco consumption among high school students across all products.

The Tobacco 21 initiative first gained traction when Needham, Massachusetts, gradually raised their legal sales age from 2005 to 2008 and witnessed a 47 percent decrease in high school smoking. So far, 278 cities, counties, and states have restricted access to tobacco products for populations under 21.