2.1 The ISLAND County Health Department Board of Health finds that the use of tobacco
has prevalent, material, and predictable deleterious impacts on the health of individuals
and is therefore a significant threat to the public health in Island County.
2.1.1 Users of tobacco suffer significant health consequences.
2.1.1.1 Eight thousand people die every year in Washington State from illnesses
attributable to tobacco. More people die from tobacco use than from auto accidents,
suicide, alcohol, AIDS, drugs, homicides, and fires combined.
2.1.1.2 Lung cancer is the state's leading cause of cancer among both men and women.
Cigarette smoking causes more than 81% of Washington's lung cancer deaths.
2.1.1.3 Smoking-related illnesses caused 1.3 million disability days among Washington
workers in 1988.
2.1.2 Persons exposed to second-hand smoke suffer significant health consequences.
2.1.2.1 Every year diseases caused by exposure to tobacco smoke, a class-A carcinogen,
kill more than 50,000 non-smoking Americans. Passive exposure to cigarette smoke is the
third leading cause of preventable death in America. Only active smoking and alcohol abuse
rank higher.
2.1.2.2 According to the Environmental Protection Agency, second-hand smoke causes
3,800 lung cancer deaths each year.
2.1.2.3 Nonsmokers that live with smokers have a 10- to 30-percent greater risk of
death from heart disease than nonsmokers that do not live with smokers.
2.1.2.4 Second-hand smoke causes 150,000 to 300,000 lower respiratory infections in
infants each year.
2.1.2.5 Infants exposed to cigarette smoke face an increased risk of Sudden Infant
Death Syndrome.
2.1.3 Infants exposed in-utero by mothers who smoke suffer significant health
consequences.
2.1.3.1 Infants born to mothers who smoke have reduced lung function for years.
2.1.3.2 Children of mothers who smoke are more likely to have oral clefts, where the
upper lip or roof of the mouth do not close properly, than children of nonsmokers.
2.1.3.3 Smoking may cause up to 7.5 percent of all miscarriages in America.
2.1.3.4 Each year, 26,000 infants are admitted to intensive care because of low birth
weights caused by maternal smoking.
2.2 Tobacco advertising, whether intended to promote tobacco use or only to compete for
market share, has the consequence of promoting tobacco use.
2.2.1 Tobacco advertising induces children to initiate tobacco use.
2.2.1.1 Countries that have banned or restricted tobacco promotion have enjoyed greater
decreases in the prevalence of young people that smoke than more permissive countries.
2.2.1.2 Teens are three times more sensitive to tobacco advertising than adults. A
20-year comparison of cigarette brand sales and advertising campaigns found that youth are
three times more likely than adults to buy the most heavily advertised brands of
cigarettes.
2.2.1.3 RJR initiated the Old Joe Camel campaign in 1988. In the next three years, the
Camel brand's share among underage smokers rose from 0.5% to 32.8%, and underage
purchasers became one-quarter of Camel's market. Since the introduction of the Old Joe
Camel campaign, teen smoking has increased ten percent.
2.2.1.4 An aggressive marketing campaign aimed at young people to promote smokeless
tobacco has dramatically stimulated use among children. The average age for new users is
now 10 years.
2.2.1.5 Camel's market share among children is twice what it is among adults.
2.2.1.6 Although tobacco advertising does not appear on television and six-year-olds
are not significant consumers of magazines, enough exposure to the Old Joe Camel campaign
has occurred in their environment to give that artwork recognition by six year old
children equal to Mickey Mouse, Chevrolet, and Ford, all of whom do appear on TV.
2.2.1.7 Exposure to tobacco marketing, parental smoking, and peer smoking are the
greatest risk factors for teens who decide to smoke. Of these, exposure to marketing is
the greatest risk.
2.3 RCW 26.28.080 provides that selling or giving tobacco to a minor is a gross
misdemeanor.
2.3.1 RCW 26.28.080's prohibition on sales, as a supply-side measure, is useful but
insufficient alone to prevent tobacco use by minors.
2.3.2 Additional, demand-side measures are necessary to reduce the harm tobacco use
causes in Island County.
2.4 Adults who wish to purchase tobacco products have legitimate interests in
information that provides price and availability--hours, locations, and brands--but have
no fundamental need for art or other inducements that do not provide truthful information
about tobacco products or about the market for tobacco products.
2.4.1 Tombstone advertising is sufficient to provide the truthful information, such as
price and availability, that adults may desire to make an informed choice in the
marketplace among retailers and brands.
2.4.2 Logos, artwork, and opinions do not provide information about price and
availability and cannot be truthful information because they are not falsifiable.
2.5 Outdoor advertising on billboards or otherwise outside premises where tobacco
products may lawfully be sold to consenting adults intrude into public spaces.
2.5.1 When such messages intrude into public spaces, parents lose the ability to
restrict the inducements to tobacco initiation and use to which their children are
exposed.
2.5.2 When such messages intrude into public spaces, current users of tobacco--both
lawful adult users and unlawful minor users--receive cues that can stimulate cravings that
lead to avoidable use and deeper addiction.
2.5.3 When such messages intrude into public spaces, minors who are former, recovering
users of tobacco receive cues that can stimulate lapses in their recoveries and contribute
to re-addiction.
2.6 The interest of adults in market information with which to make lawful purchases
may, under the Constitution, outweigh the interests of parents, nonusers, users who seek
to reduce use, and recovering users, but is not immune from reasonable time, place, and
manner restrictions.
2.7 The interest of adults, who use tobacco, in messages beyond those needed to make
lawful purchases – color messages, images, logos, and other artwork and
non-falsifiable statements – does not outweigh the interests of parents who wish to
protect their children, minors who prefer not to begin tobacco use, minors who wish to end
their unlawful use of tobacco, and minors who wish to preserve their status of being in
recovery from addiction to tobacco.