- May 8, 2024
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Mandarin mint. Winter warm toffee. Apple and vanilla. Berry and citrus.
Those are the flavors of several candy items sold in convenience stores. But they are also flavors of tobacco and nicotine products being sold to area youth, and some high school students want to stop it.
Melissa Boyles, a junior at Flagler Palm Coast High School, stood before the City Council on Tuesday and asked officials to support a resolution to limit youth access to all forms of candy- and fruit-flavored tobacco and nicotine products.
“Since about sixth grade, I have seen my peers rise above the influence of peer pressure and drugs, and I have seen some who have not,” Boyles said to the council. “It wasn’t until the ninth grade that I realized I could change that.”
Boyles, who is the chairwoman of the Flagler County Youth Center’s branch of Students Working Against Tobacco and an elected statewide representative for SWAT, said the idea that tobacco kills isn’t a new one. “And neither is the concept that (tobacco companies) are targeting the youth,” she said.
Last month, a sting operation conducted by the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office nabbed four convenience store clerks who illegally sold tobacco products to minors.
The City Council unanimously approved the resolution to join the fight against the sale of flavored tobacco and nicotine to the youth.
“If we have the power to prevent youth from putting their lives on the line, we should,” Boyles said. “If we show our youth that we are not being deceived and manipulated by the schemes tobacco big shots put on, they will be all the more willing to follow us in our footsteps. So, I ask you: Please establish a candy-flavored resolution — for the youth of Palm Coast.”
Although the city is supporting, Palm Coast Mayor Jon Netts said it’s simply a resolution, but elected officials can do more.
“Each one of us, when we go into a store and we see these products that are clearly designed to entice the very young to start down the road of tobacco addiction ... it wouldn’t hurt if you said you object to that product being sold to our children,” Netts said. “Public pressure has a lot to do with what they will sell, and how they will sell it.”
After the meeting, Boyles said the city’s support will hopefully go a long way.
“Ninety-percent of tobacco users start before they are 18, and this is just another prevention method,” she said. “I hope it empowers (others) to join our movement.”
Go to www.SWATFlorida.com for more.
