Like indoor smoking, flavored vape tobacco, menthol sales must be banned in region| Opinion

Rob Crane is board president of Preventing Tobacco Addiction Foundation/Tobacco21.

We've suffered through two and a half years of a devastating pandemic, but what many may not realize is that during this period, more Americans died from tobacco than from COVID.

The equally sad truth is most smokers fervently want to quit, and half have made at least a 24-hour quit attempt in the last year. But more than 90% will fail.

We know why: The nicotine habit is arguably the most deadly and powerful addiction in the world, and one that virtually always starts in adolescence. So, what have we done to prevent our kids from getting started?

Over the last two decades, through education, higher taxes, sales restrictions, and taking most flavors out of cigarettes, we've persuaded most teens that smoking cigarettes is stupid and gross. Two decades ago more than a third of high school seniors smoked, but that number dropped nearly 80% by 2019.

More:Youth misled, manipulated into vaping

But along came vapes. Electronic or e-cigarettes, propelled by extraordinary social media advertising, invaded our schools, our playgrounds, and our kids’ bedrooms.

Our view: City must spoil sinister ploy. Ban flavored vaping tobacco, menthol cigarettes.

Heavily marketed with seductive candy and fruity flavors, tens of millions of teens tried e-cigs. Kids loved the taste, the smell, the cool adultness of smoking, and well, also the little buzz they got from the nicotine.

There's the rub. Without nicotine, e-cigarettes would have gone the way of fidget spinners, hover boards and hula hoops - a transient fad, gone as fast as a Tik-Tok dance step.

Nicotine, however, is a tough mistress.

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Enough exposure physically rewires the deepest parts of kids’ brains. Teens' greatest asset, their enormous learning capacity, combined with a drive to try new things, makes them enormously vulnerable to addiction. In just a few short years, slick, highly flavored vaping devices wiped out 20 years of progress fighting nicotine.

Worse, kids who use e-cigarettes are four times more likely to go on to regular cigarettes. Flavors set the hook, nicotine reels them in.

More:Hightower: Tobacco industry's racist tactics enticing Black people with Menthol cigarettes

The deadliest flavor, however, is menthol.

For decades, tobacco companies specifically targeted Black teens with an appeal to “coolness," relentlessly pushing menthol cigarettes like Kool, Newport and Marlboro Green. These campaigns were enormously successful.

Fifty years ago, less than 10% of Black smokers used menthol cigarettes; now that number is 85%. Because menthol reduces throat irritation and cough in kids, menthol products are easier to start and harder to quit.The tragic consequence is that each year, 45,000 Black Americans die from smoking.

Our organization,Tobacco21, has worked across the country to reduce tobacco retailer access to kids by raising the legal sales age to 21. This effort, thus far successful in 41 states, has been helpful, but it’s not enough. In addition to working the supply side, we must also reduce demand.

Over 300 cities and a handful of states have sought to prohibit the sale of various flavored nicotine products, including menthol. But no city across the middle expanse of the U.S. has taken the step to end the sale of all flavored nicotine and tobacco products.

We’ve joined the local Coalition to End Tobacco Targeting that has twin goals of ending the sale of candy flavors in e-cigarettes and menthol in regular cigarettes. Columbus City Council is considering this policy, but it can’t successfully act alone.

In 2004, a dozen central Ohio cities moved in concert to become the first cities in the Midwest to keep noxious second-hand smoke out of all indoor workplaces and public spaces.

That effort rapidly spread across the country. Similarly, in 2016, our communities collectively moved to raise the legal age of sale of these addictive deadly products, which has become a national standard.

Talk to your kids or grandkids about vaping and flavors. Ask your teacher friends what they see every day. And then remind your local politicians what’s at stake. Columbus and its suburban communities have stood together before to protect our kids from tobacco predators. It's time to act again.

Rob Crane is board president of Preventing Tobacco Addiction Foundation/Tobacco21.

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Opinion: Sale of flavored tobacco should be banned in Greater Columbus