Tobacco 21 Legislation Important Step but Rest of Package Falls Well Short of Policies Needed to End the Youth E-Cigarette Epidemic.
​WASHINGTON, D.C. (December 11, 2019)—The American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Lung Association released the following statement in response to the release of the agreement reached by the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) and the House Committee on Energy and Commerce on a package of tobacco control legislation:
“As the leading pediatric medical organization dedicated to the health and well-being of all children and the leading organization working to save lives by improving lung health and preventing lung disease, our organizations greatly appreciate the effort to reach a bipartisan solution to protecting our nation’s children and public health from the dangers of tobacco use.
“We strongly support the inclusion of the Senate HELP Committee’s legislation to increase the minimum age of sale to 21. This proven policy will reduce youth tobacco use.
“While we are supportive of many of the polices also included in the package, our organizations are deeply disappointed about the missed opportunity to include other meaningful polices that will have a significant impact on reducing youth tobacco use, including removing all flavored tobacco products from the marketplace; prohibiting the online (remote) sales of all tobacco products and codifying the deadline for premarket tobacco application submissions of May 2020.
“With more than 6 million children using tobacco products, Congress must act to add these provisions, to protect children from the addiction, disease and death caused by tobacco products before the legislation moves forward. Further, we call on the Trump Administration to follow through on its promise, made three months ago today, to clear the markets of all flavored e-cigarettes.”
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The American Academy of Pediatrics is an organization of 67,000 primary care pediatricians, pediatric medical subspecialists and pediatric surgical specialists dedicated to the health, safety and well-being of infants, children, adolescents and young adults.