The City Council expressly finds and declares that:
(A) (1) Cigarette smoking and other uses of tobacco products are dangerous to human health;
(2) There exists substantial scientific evidence that the use of tobacco products causes cancer, heart disease and various other medical disorders;
(3) The Surgeon General of the United States has declared that nicotine addiction from tobacco is similar to addiction to cocaine, and is the most widespread example of drug dependence in this country;
(4) The Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse has concluded that the majority of the 320,000 Americans who die each year from cigarette smoking became addicted to nicotine as adolescents before the age of legal consent;
(5) The National Institute on Drug Abuse has found that adolescent cigarette smoking precedes and may be predictive of adolescent illicit drug use; and,
(6) The present legislative scheme of prohibiting sales of tobacco products to persons under the age of 18 has proven ineffective in preventing such persons from using tobacco products.
(B) The enactment of this chapter directly pertains to and is in furtherance of the health, welfare and safety of the residents of the city, particularly those residents under 18 years of age.
(Ord. 7860, passed 10-1-96; Am. Ord. 8475, passed 4-4-06; Am. Ord. 9202, passed 5-7-19)