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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • THURSDAY, AUGUST 10, 2017
Oregon raises smoking age to 21
Aligned
with alcohol,
marijuana
By PARIS ACHEN
Capital Bureau
EO Media Group
R.J. Marx/The Daily Astorian
Lt. Brian Smith presents an automatic electronic defibril-
lator to Cannon Beach Academy Director Amy Moore.
Firefighters team to help
Cannon Beach Academy
will be located most likely
on the road by the driveway.
“They’re just wrapping every-
thing up right now. They’ve got
the exit signs up, the doors are
up, the emergency lighting.”
Moore said she expects
temporary occupancy to begin
Tuesday. Teachers arrive Aug.
21 and the academy’s first
year of operation begins Sept.
5. More than 40 first- and sec-
ond-graders are enrolled in the
new charter school.
The academy has two teach-
ers, Dawn Jay and Theresa
Dennis.
By R.J. MARX
The Daily Astorian
CANNON BEACH —
With workers hammering and
sanding in the background,
members of the Cannon Beach
Fire Department presented
a gift of an automated exter-
nal defibrillator Tuesday to
the Cannon Beach Academy’s
Director Amy Moore and Pres-
ident Kellye Dewey.
The defibrillator will be
stored at the academy’s new
location on South Hemlock.
“Anybody with some basic
training can save a person’s
life,” said Lt. Brian Smith, a
firefighter and president of the
Cannon Beach Fire and Rescue
Association. “Any time you
have a heart issue, time is life.”
Proceeds from the associ-
ation’s annual ham dinner and
other fundraising events raised
the $2,000 to purchase the
device, used in first aid and car-
diopulmonary resuscitation.
“Hopefully we’ll never use
it, but if we do need to, we’ll
save lives,” Dewey said. “And
every time somebody walks by
and asks about our fire depart-
ment, we can brag about it.”
“It’s fully automatic,” Fire
Chief Matt Benedict said of the
defibrillator. “If the staff has a
heart issue, this is the first thing
they have to do. All they have
to do is hook up the pads and it
does everything for them.”
Benedict said the academy
staff is abiding by all state fire
safety mandates. The hydrant
SALEM — Oregon has
become the fifth state to raise
the legal age to buy tobacco
from 18 to 21.
Gov.
Kate
Brown
signed the legislation into
law Wednesday. The new
requirements take effect
immediately.
The law, co-sponsored by
a Republican and Democrat,
aligns the legal age to pur-
chase tobacco and nicotine
products with that already
established for alcohol and
marijuana.
Raising the legal age to
buy tobacco products “sig-
nificantly reduces the num-
ber of youth who begin
using these products and
become addicted to them,
saving Oregonians bil-
lions of tax dollars, and the
lives of thousands of
loved ones, each year,”
state Rep. Rich Vial,
R-Scholls, a co-sponsor
of the legislation, said last
month.
The law enacts fines rang-
ing from $50 to $1,000 for
individuals or businesses that
distribute or sell such prod-
ucts to buyers younger than
21.
The new regulations also
ban a 21-year-old from pos-
sessing tobacco or nicotine
when on a postsecondary
education campus, effective
in January.
Vial and Sen. Elizabeth
Steiner Hayward, D-Bea-
verton, sponsored the legis-
lation to help prevent youth
from becoming addicted to
tobacco.
About 1,800 Oregon kids
become smokers every year
and an alarming 24 percent of
Oregon’s 11th-graders report
using tobacco products.
The increase in sales age
will keep tobacco products
out of high schools, where
young teens often access
them from older classmates,
according to advocates with
the American Cancer Soci-
ety Cancer Action Net-
work. About 95 percent of
adult smokers started smok-
ing before age 21, accord-
ing to the Cancer Action
Network.
Health advocates hope a
reduction in young smok-
ers will translate into fewer
tobacco-related diseases, the
state’s leading cause of pre-
ventable death.
The statewide law would
follow a similar law enacted
in Lane County in March.
Oregon, Hawaii, Califor-
nia, Maine and New Jersey
have raised the legal age to
buy tobacco.
More than 200 cities and
counties, including New
York City and Boston, have
similar laws.
Despite
endorsements
from public health advocates
and an easy passage in the
Senate, the bill faced a set-
back when tobacco company
Altria hired former state Sen.
Margaret Carter, D-Portland,
to lobby against the measure,
according to a story by Willa-
mette Week. Carter, the first
black woman elected to the
state Legislature, argued to
lawmakers that raising the
legal age could prompt racial
profiling of minority youth,
according to the alterna-
tive-weekly article.
The House Rules Com-
mittee amended the bill in
July to eliminate the potential
for that problem and ensure
individuals younger than 21
are not penalized for possess-
ing tobacco.
The Capital Bureau is a
collaboration between EO
Media Group and Pamplin
Media Group.
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