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Board of Health Discusses Potential Ban on All Flavored E-Cigarettes

Doctor's office supplies.
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The Columbia Board of Public Health unanimously passed a motion to have a letter about potential solutions to youth e-cigarette use drafted and sent to the Columbia City Council on Thursday.

Ginny Chadwick spoke to the board about the health risks of vaping. Chadwick, a health sciences adjunct assistant professor at MU and former Columbia City Council member, discussed how the use of e-cigarettes among middle school and high school students has increased between 2017 and 2018.

E-cigarette usage increased by 78% between 2017 and 2018 among high school students across the country, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Chadwick described the surge in vaping across the country as “reversing of decades of public health work.”

Chadwick, who works with Tobacco 21, also introduced different policies to combat the increased use of e-cigarettes by minors that other city and state governments have adopted. The policy ideas ranged from a ban on all flavored e-cigarettes to raising the age to purchase nicotine-containing products from 18 to 21. Columbia adopted a ban on tobacco and e-cigarette sales to people under the age of 21 in 2014.

To read more, visit our partners at the Columbia Missourian.