LITTLE VALLEY — Starting Oct. 1, smoking or vaping on Cattaraugus County property is now not permitted, following motion by the county legislature.
The legislature handed the native legislation banning smoking and vaping on county property with out dialogue on Wednesday. Nobody spoke in the course of the public listening to at first of Wednesday’s session.
Intent of the native legislation is to “protect and enhance the general public well being by limiting the publicity of the general public to environmental tobacco smoke or vapor prompted by way of tobacco, hashish, nicotine, vaping and different like substances,” based on the decision.
The smoking and vaping ban is in impact for all merchandise and on all county-owned, leased or occupied properties. The smoking age for tobacco, hashish, vaping and different like merchandise is 21.
County property shall embody any county-owned or -leased autos in addition to any county-owned or -leased buildings, buildings and amenities. Smoking can be prohibited open air of county-owned or -leased property, together with the encircling outside grounds inside 100 ft of any county property, excluding designated smoking areas.
Smoking contains lighting, smoking or carrying a lighted cigarette, cigar or pipe, which can comprise tobacco or hashish merchandise or every other chemical substance. Smoking additionally contains
“vaping” and using digital smoking gadgets, which embody e-cigarettes or different digital gadgets, akin to pens, that ship vapor that’s inhaled by a consumer.
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In March, a presentation to the Cattaraugus County Board of Well being reported {that a} dramatic drop in teen and younger grownup cigarette smoking over the previous decade had been eclipsed by the skyrocketing use of e-cigarettes and different nicotine supply techniques.
Dr. Kenneth Dahlgren, neighborhood engagement coordinator for Roswell Park Most cancers Institute, advised the heath board the state averages of highschool college students who reported smoking went from 27% in 2010 to 19.5% in 2014 to 7.4% in 2020.
Nonetheless, these utilizing e-cigarettes — vaping — in 2020 was 22.5%. Domestically, the share of youth vaping is nearer to 30%, Dahlgren mentioned. A 2021 survey of scholars in all colleges in Allegany County discovered 27% of scholars in grades 10-12 have been common customers of e-cigarettes. The numbers have been comparable in Cattaraugus and Chautauqua counties.
“Smoking has led to poor well being outcomes in Cattaraugus County,” mentioned Dr. Kevin Watkins, Cattaraugus County’s public well being director, in March.
Consequently, he mentioned, the county has been a trend-setter in tobacco restrictions together with elevating the age to buy tobacco merchandise from 18 to 21 in 2016. Over these seven years, the share of the county’s grownup people who smoke has declined from 28.4% to fifteen.4%, Watkins mentioned.
“I believe we’ve performed an incredible deal to maneuver the dial for Cattaraugus County,” he added. “We’re lastly turning the dial in the best path.”
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