Boone County expands tobacco ordinance to include vaping, e-cigarettes
- 6:15 pm
- February 25, 2019
BOONE COUNTY (WREX) – Whether it’s cigarette smoke or a vape cloud, it’s no longer allowed in Boone County’s non-smoking areas.
“Now, what we’re discovering is with these electronic cigarettes is that the vapor that cloud, if you will, is not harmless,” Illinois tobacco-free communities coordinator for the Boone County Health Department Ellen Genrich said.
The Boone County Board has changed its tobacco ordinance to make sure e-cigarettes and vape pens are also banned in areas where smoking is already not allowed.
“So, just like you don’t want to exposed to secondhand smoke because someone wants to smoke near you, we want to protect the public’s health by not being exposed to that vape cloud,” Genrich said.
But it’s not just the public the health department is trying to protect; it also wants to send a clear message to young people.
“I think when you clearly lay it out for them that using this products especially in public where you’re not allowed to use traditional products that might make them think twice about what they’re doing,” Boone Conty Drug Prevention Coalition Program Director Alyssa Lazzerini said.
It’s an important message for health officials who say more and more teens are joining this dangerous trend.
“It’s increased 78 percent among high schoolers all across the nation and in our community alone it’s doubled among in numbers,” Lazzerini said.
While it’s illegal for anyone under 18 to buy or use an e-cigarette in the state of Illinois, it’s now also illegal for minors to possess it in Boone County.
“Except for these products, all of these have been confiscated from one of the three high schools we have here in Boone County,” Genrich said.
The Boone County board passed these changes unanimously on Thursday, February 21. They go into effect immediately.
Above is from: https://wrex.com/category/2019/02/25/boone-county-expands-tobacco-ordinance-to-include-vaping-e-cigarettes/
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