(a) Each year 400,000 Americans die prematurely from tobacco related illnesses. Tobacco use has been linked to cancer, emphysema, heart disease and a variety of other life threatening health problems.
(b) These health problems create a burden for local communities, and more specifically for Yolo County. In addition to the health care cost for these diseases, there is the lost human and economic contributions of each individual who suffers from the preventable effects of tobacco use.
(c) The 1994 National Household Survey on Drug Abuse showed that 90% of tobacco users start well before the age of eighteen, the average child smoker started at age 13 while the average age for smokeless tobacco initiation is 9 years. According to the California State Department of Health Services Tobacco Control System, while adult tobacco use has been declining, youth use has been rising.
(d) All fifty states, and the District of Columbia , prohibit the sale of tobacco products to minors. California Penal Code Sections 308(a) and 308(b) prohibit the sale of tobacco products and paraphernalia to minors and possession of tobacco by a minor. Yet, over 29 million packs of cigarettes are sold to California children annually.
(e) The Synar Amendment to the 1992 Alcohol, Drug Abuse and Mental Health Reorganization Act requires that states reduce sales of cigarettes to minors to below 20% by the year 2000 or lose federal Drug and alcohol funding.
(f) California ’s sales rate sales of cigarettes to minors in is still 21%. Studies show that over 40% of grade school students who smoked daily have shoplifted cigarettes, at some time, from self service displays and that sales to minors drops by between 40% and 80% after enactment of ordinances requiring vendor assisted sales of tobacco products.
(g) Similar legislation in other counties and cities in California have reduced youth access to tobacco products without negatively affecting businesses. (§ 1, Ord. 1226, eff. October 1, 1998)