Bills aims to curb e-cigarette, tobacco use by teens

Gov. John Carney backed a bill March 5 to increase the age to 21 for purchases and use of tobacco products, including teen favorites e-cigarettes and Juul products. Carney's support guarantees the bill will be signed into law, if it passes the state Legislature. “I think this is the most important thing we can do to contain healthcare costs and prolong the life of so many Delawareans,” he said during a speech in Dover.

Carney said about 1,400 Delawareans die each year from tobacco-related illness – a number more than three times the number of people who die from opioid overdose deaths.

If the current trend continues, he said, recent data estimates 17,000 young people today will die prematurely from tobacco-related illness. “We have to do more to address this scourge,” he said.

Costs have also skyrocketed to treat tobacco-related illnesses, rising to more than $500 million a year in Delaware, he said. “Imagine what we could do with that money used elsewhere,” he said. “This is the right thing to do and the right time to do it.”

Secretary of Health and Social Services Karen Odom Walker said Medicaid costs alone are $95 million annually because of tobacco use. She said she is particularly worried about young people smoking e-cigarettes, after a recent state Youth Risk Behavioral Survey given to students in public schools reported 14 percent have used e-cigarettes or Juul.

Rep. Melissa Minor Brown, D-New Castle, said students have told her about the popularity of Juul devices, which look like a computer hard drive and can be charged by plugging them into a computer or similar charging device. Various flavored cartridges are inserted into the smoking device, which produces a vapor cloud.

“Right now our teenagers are smoking this twice as much as cigarettes,” she said, holding up an e-cigarette.

Mount Pleasant High School student Queen Cornish said the legislation is needed to curb the e-cigarette trend popular with today's students. “We see our classmates every day using Juuls and e-cigarettes,” she said. “Raising the age will make it harder for kids to get them.”

The Senate bill to raise the age to 21 for tobacco and e-cigarette purchases was voted out of committee March 6 and now awaits action in the full Senate.