2 hours Ago By Kit Geary
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With youth nicotine usage still prevalent in Summit County, officials are now considering a ban on flavored electronic vapes. This comes five years after the county beefed up nicotine regulations, which were prompted by a 2017 survey that showed Summit High School students had higher nicotine usage compared to the state average. In 2019, Summit County voters approved heftier taxes on nicotine, which included a tax of $4 per cigarette pack, a 40% increase in sales taxes for all other nicotine products and a 10% annual increase in sales tax for four years.
Currently the tax is at 80%. County staff members said they are still finding noncompliance with taxation at nicotine retailers. The 2024 Summit County government budget outlines the county anticipating collecting around $2.
75 million in nicotine tax, which is down from $2.86 million in 2023 and $2.92 million in 2022.
According to the county, these funds go to youth programming, adult and youth cessation programs and are put toward nonprofit funding. Additional regulations were implemented in 2019. T owns across the county implemented rules changing the purchasing age from 18-21 before President Donald Trump signed a law at the federal level that did the same thing in December 2019.
While youth usage rates have since dropped, Summit High School students told Silverthorne and Breckenridge officials this month that they are still seeing their peers use nicotine. After hearing from the students, Breckenridge Town Council member Steve Gerard asked town staff members to “investigate an ordinance which would ban flavored vapes of all types” and also requested collaboration with other entities to make the ban cover the entire county. All council members agreed with Gerard’s sentiments.
Silverthorne officials also expressed interest in hearing more about what a ban would entail and more about its effectiveness. Summit County government’s health promotion and prevention specialist, Becky Peltier, told officials the Federal Drug Administration currently permits retailers to sell 34 different vape flavors. But she said there are many retailers in Summit that sell far more than 34 flavors.
She said enforcing compliance can get tricky. “I’m working with the state (to see) if there’s more compliance that we can do locally, but since it’s federal, we really can’t hold them accountable at a local level,” she said. She said the county can report the violation to the Federal Drug Administration, but that’s essentially the extent of what they can do.
Peltier said flavor bans can be critical in preventing youth usage of nicotine because many times flavors like cotton candy and blue raspberry can get kids to start vaping in the first place. Alongside flavor-related compliance issues with retailers, the county staff members said there are also age-related compliance issues. Around 81% of people who responded to the county’s 2023 youth nicotine usage survey successfully bought nicotine products even though they were underage.
She said the nicotine industry is pushing new products out onto the market to keep users interested, which creates more problems for youth usage. For instance, some vapes can now connect via bluetooth so people can get texts and play video games on them, she said. Another product skyrocketing in popularity, nicotine pouches , is changing how people consume nicotine, and it isn’t presently included in the county’s survey to gage youth usage.
Peltier said the county plans to add nicotine pouches in its youth survey soon because they have been hearing about kids in Summit using them in lieu of vaping. Summit High School student James Rivera said he sees many kids taking to the nicotine pouches because they are more discreet than vapes. He added he sees usage among a “concerningly high amount (of) athletes because a lot of athletes have stayed away from vaping because of the negative effects on lungs.
” Council member Dick Carleton said he has been seeing people in their 20s switch to nicotine pouches to move away from vaping..
