Guest column: Port Hueneme needs to get tougher on vaping

Aliana Perez
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Port Hueneme is constantly behind when it comes to protecting youth and families from the harmful effects of tobacco.

In the past couple of years, it was revealed to the city council that Port Hueneme had been receiving an “F” letter grade from the American Lung Association for their inadequate policies to address tobacco-related issues. Recently, Port Hueneme has taken small measures so that they can receive a barely passing grade. Those measures include restricting smoking at the beach and creating a Tobacco Retail License Program.

While these measures are a step in the right direction, they ignore some of the biggest issues tobacco presents that plague our youth and families. Vaping amongst youth and smoking in multi-unit housing cause significant harm to families in Port Hueneme and must be addressed.

Vaping is the cigarette of our generation; it has taken over high schools. According to the 2018 California Student Tobacco survey, 86% of young tobacco users reported using flavored tobacco products. Oxnard and Ventura understand this, and that’s why they have banned flavors from their cities. The question is, why hasn’t Port Hueneme done the same?

As a student, I’ve witnessed firsthand the dramatic effects vaping has had on my peers. Before the pandemic students would go into restrooms to vape. This would trigger our smoke alarms to go off constantly throughout the day. It happened so often that students in the classroom wouldn’t flinch when a smoke alarm went off. There would be so many students vaping that you would be walking into smoke filled restrooms daily.

Students don’t understand how bad vaping affects their health. They have been manipulated into believing that vaping is healthier and won’t harm them. The tobacco industry has purposely made its products more attractive to youth with flavors that cover the harshness of the nicotine. There are over 15,000 flavors of vape, each one targeting the youth. These flavors include bubblegum, horchata, watermelon, and other fruity flavors.  

The tobacco industry understands that flavor vaping is a gateway for youth addiction; it has purposely made it enticing. What’s worse? The fact that teachers can’t even spot them. On numerous occasions I have seen students sneaking away to vape while teachers were clueless. The fragrance is so sweet that if you were not familiar with vaping you would assume it was perfume or candy. The device itself was made to appear harmless and unsuspecting. It can often be confused for a USB drive or pen, not a receptacle of harmful chemicals. Vaping has made a comeback for smoking in high schools and we must ban flavors because it targets and harms youth.

Furthermore, the fact that we don’t have any policies to protect our families from the harmful effects of smoking in multi-unit housing is heartbreaking. Most of the families residing in multi-unit housing are Latino and they are the ones who are suffering from this oversight. A ban is especially important to me because I have a sister and nieces who live in multi-unit housing and there is nothing in place to protect them from the harmful chemicals in smoking. Since they live in multi-unit housing, they only have a say for what happens in their own home. They have no control over the other residents that may be smoking close to them.

Even though they aren’t smoking in their home, they are still being greatly affected by the secondhand smoke that travels nearby and through common areas. Secondhand smoke contains hundreds of deadly toxic chemicals that may lead to cancer. My sister and nieces should not be subject to these toxic air contaminants because the city has failed to protect them. It is especially worse right now because we are all forced to stay indoors during the pandemic. 

Port Hueneme must put the community’s public health over profit. We must ban flavors and vaping because of their disastrous impact on our youth and we must ban smoking in multi-unit housing because it disproportionately affects Latinos. If the city is OK with the sale of flavored tobacco and smoking in multi-unit housing, then Port Hueneme is co-signing along with the tobacco companies that it’s OK to harm our youth and families.

Aliana Perez is a Youth Leader for the Future of Leaders of America.

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