Dozens urge Clay County to keep flavored-tobacco ban at public hearing

Dozens of students, school staff, public-health workers and community leaders urged the Clay County Board of Commissioners on March 18 to keep in place the county's ordinance restricting flavored tobacco products, telling commissioners that flavored products are driving youth nicotine use and addiction.

Speakers including school principals, counselors and students described frequent on-campus vaping, easy access to flavored products and a rise in use among middle-school students. Shannon Hunstead, superintendent of Dilworth-Glyndon-Felton Public Schools, told the board the district has documented dozens of vaping incidents this year and that administrators are spending instructional time addressing the issue.

"The shocking thing for them is the number of middle school kids that have started this habit," Hunstead said.

In public testimony students and college representatives described how flavors make nicotine products appealing to young people and said flavored products are easy to hide and to buy. Michaela Balens, a senior at DGF High School, told commissioners: "What starts as a curiosity or peer pressure can quickly turn into an addiction and by the time students realize they have a problem, it is way too late." Grace Halverson, student-body president at Concordia College, said Concordia's student government voted unanimously to support the ban.

Public-health and clinical witnesses cited the neuroscience of adolescent nicotine exposure and warned of long-term harms to developing brains. Becky Anderson, a retired respiratory therapist who worked on tobacco-prevention policy, told commissioners that nearly 90% of tobacco users begin using by age 18 and that flavors are engineered to attract young people.

Board chair Campbell opened and later closed the hearing at the commissioners' meeting; commissioners said they will review written materials already submitted and will take the issue up again at a future meeting. Commissioners said the next formal discussion on the ordinance is expected at the board's April meeting cycle; the chair indicated April 15 is the likeliest date for more board discussion.

The board received dozens of letters and on-the-record comments during the hearing; the record will remain part of the public file. No vote to change the ordinance was taken at the March 18 meeting.

Proponents of maintaining the restriction urged the board to treat the measure as a public-health protection rather than a retail or tax issue; several requested the county use the ordinance to encourage neighboring jurisdictions to adopt similar limits. Opponents of the current ordinance did not testify during the hearing.

The hearing record will remain open to written comments, and the commission expects to discuss the ordinance in a subsequent public session, with staff and stakeholders given time to provide additional information ahead of any vote.