Allyson Walker, cardiothoracic surgeon at St. Mary's Hospital, said now is the time to take action toward a healthier Jefferson City, as she urged the community to support the Tobacco 21 campaign at Thursday's town hall meeting hosted by Council for Drug Free Youth.
"Tobacco is a drug; nicotine is a poison. We are not in the habit of offering our kids poison or letting them to do drugs, so I am confused as to why there is known opposition to raising the legal smoking age," Walker said. "As parents, as adults and as health care professionals, it's our duty to protect our children for as long as we can from something we know is deadly."
Tobacco 21 would create a city ordinance raising the legal smoking age to purchase tobacco products, clashing with the traditional ideology that "if you're old enough to serve, you should be old enough to smoke."
Madison Irvin and Paige Henry, freshmen at Blair Oaks High School, said they recognized at an early age underage smoking is a problem for teens in their schools and their community.
Henry said passing Tobacco 21 would give teens a chance to live a healthier lifestyle longer.
"In my opinion, by the time people are 21 they are able to make smarter decisions about their health and may not even start using tobacco products," Henry said.
In Missouri, 17.1 percent of high school seniors smoke, higher the national average of 14 percent, according to data presented by the Ginnie Chadwick, former Columbia City Council member. Chadwick referenced data from the campaign website Tobacco21.org.
Chadwick told the audience Columbia passed the Tobacco 21 ordinance in 2014, and since then, sales to underage tobacco users have decreased due to the enforcement laws that couple with alcohol sales.
She also noted e-cigarettes are also a health concern.
"Oftentimes, the argument is that e-cigarettes are less harmful, and they definitely are," Chadwick said. "But the transition into cigarettes is what's most worrisome."
If the ordinance is passed in Jefferson City, e-cigarettes will be included in the list of tobacco products that can be purchased only by people who are 21 or older.
"A lot of people say they're safer than traditional cigarettes, but you're looking at it from the wrong perspective," Stanley Conwan, research aide at the University of Missouri, said. "When you look at a product that can be deadly, gosh, anything may seem safer. How we should look at it is from the overall impact it has from when you were living a healthy lifestyle."
Conwan explained e-cigarettes are not just water vapor but have toxins and microparticulates that enter the blood stream, causing a host of other problems.
"E-cigarettes are not a safe product," he said.
To help increase awareness of tobacco and substance abuse, Blair Oak students like Henry and Irvin participate in the CDFY Underage Prevention Leadership Involvement for Teens program, where they join other ninth-graders in creating informational skits to students as young as sixth grade.
For Beverly Stafford, director of foundation and community engagement at St. Mary's Hospital, this issue hits close to home because she has teenage grandchildren.
"For teens, the presence of tobacco is everywhere," Stafford said. "Anything that we can do to put one more determent in their lives or to make them stop and think is all the better for the community and their future."
Gaspare Calvaruso, president of Capital Region Medical Center, agreed anything the health care community can do to help create a healthier environment he fully supports.
He said CRMC has conducted two community health need assessments over the past six years, and the factors that kept popping were cancer, heart disease and obesity.