Students express feelings on tobacco law change

Alachua County raised the minimum age to buy tobacco products to 21 last week.

But students like Ale Nossa, a 21-year-old UF nutritional sciences junior, said changing the age doesn’t change the problem.

“It’s the same thing as alcohol,” Nossa said. “By raising the age, it’s literally going to do nothing. It’s just going to create more of a black market.”

The county became the first in Florida to pass an ordinance of this kind.

The county commission unanimously passed it, joining hundreds of other cities that have already taken part in Tobacco 21, the national movement to increase the minimum purchase age.

Alachua County has seen about a 60 percent increase in electronic vape use among teenagers in the past two years, according to the Florida Department of Health.

The 2018 Florida Youth Tobacco Survey showed that 15.1 percent of youth, from ages 11 to 17, use an electronic vape. In 2016, it was 9.5 percent.

Dion Campbell, a 32-year-old UF sociology doctoral student, expressed a similar concern.

“Twenty-one is such an arbitrary age for people to do anything,” Campbell said. “If you can serve in the military and die, then it doesn’t make sense that you can’t smoke or drink at the age of 18. I just find it kind of weird.”

Businesses will need to get a new annual license from the county to sell tobacco. Violations of the new ordinance will result in license suspensions.

On the first violation, the license will be suspended for seven days. The second offense within two years will result in a 30-day suspension. The third offense within two years will be a 90-day suspension, and a fourth offense in two years will revoke the license with no option to re-apply.

Dennis Pfeiffer, a 20-year-old Santa Fe College business sophomore, said the new ordinance is a move in the right direction.

“It opens a lot of people’s eyes in a way that it’s kind of like, ‘Let’s take notice now and do something about it before it’s too late,’” he said.

City Commissioner David Arreola said the commission hasn’t discussed the new ordinance much or whether the city would opt-out of the law, but it will soon be a conversation.

“The health benefits are obvious,” Arreola said. “But, if I was under 21, I would oppose it.”

Abby Bayacal, a 19-year-old University of Central Florida biomedical sciences freshman, drove about two hours from Orlando to attend the Jan. 22 meeting as a student advocate for Tobacco 21.

“They listen more when it’s someone who’s younger,” Bayacal said. “I wanted to use that to my advantage and to make it worth something and for something that I believed in, that I thought would better my community.”

This Tuesday, April 10, 2018 file photo shows vaping devices, including a Juul, center, that were confiscated from students at a high school in Marshfield, Mass. On Tuesday, Nov. 13, 2018, San Francisco-based Juul Labs Inc. announced it had stopped filling orders for its mango, fruit, creme and cucumber pods but not menthol and mint. It will sell all flavors through its website and limit sales to those 21 and older. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)