Board of Aldermen 05-14-2019 Page 20
raise the age. | found out that Dover did it last summer and Keene did it most recently effective
January 1*' of this year.
| had long known about the evils of tobacco and nicotine and | thought since we had the opportunity to
do that that we should do so. | basically gave copies of the Keene and Dover ordinances to the Legal
Department and they drafted the original version of this ordinance. After that was done, when the
ordinance came before the Personnel & Administrative Affairs Committee, that Committee voted 3 to 1
to recommend final passage. Prior to the full board meeting, | was approached by Alderman Clemons
asking me to make some amendments to the ordinance. After doing some research | found that the
amendments that he was requesting were more consistent with what other areas of the country had
done; specifically the amendments that he requested and are part of this amended version. They are
that number one it removes possession from the ordinance. It concentrates on the purchase, sale and
distribution of tobacco products.
So the criticisms that you’ve heard about people being subject to being fined for merely possessing the
tobacco products has been removed. The argument that people coming from one jurisdiction where it
is legal, passing through Nashua where it is illegal and being stopped for some other reason would be
subject to being fined is no longer part of the ordinance. The possession part has been removed. And
| was comfortable with that change because not only has my research shown that other jurisdictions
that have raised the age to 21 have not prohibited possession, | found out that the model legislation
propounded by tobacco-free kids does not prohibit possession. The model legislation recommended
by the American Heart Association, the American Lung Association, The American Cancer Society all
recommend against prohibiting possession. So it takes away, and their purpose in that is that they
don’t want to penalize possession by young people, they want to deny access, they want to make it
more difficult for these people to purchase. They want to penalize people who are selling these
products to people under 21.
With that research | was comfortable making that amendment. The other change is that rather than
making, if this passed, making it illegal for someone who is already 18, 19 or 20, all of a sudden
making it illegal for them to obtain these tobacco products kind of denies the reality that nicotine and
the nicotine that is contained in tobacco products and vaping devices is very, very addictive. That’s
one of the arguments that the people who want to raise the age have made; that this is very addictive
and it’s especially to young people because the young brain is more susceptible to addiction. And as
has been pointed out by the people who have testified in favor, you know, remember some of the
people you have heard from who have testified in favor of this have been the Director of our Health
Department, Bobbie Bagley; two physician members from our Board of Health, Dr. Cappetta who is a
pediatrician and Dr. Wolf-Rosenblum who is a pulmonologist. We've also heard from Dr. Albee
Budnitz who is an expert. He’s a retired pulmonologist but he teaches at Dartmouth now and he’s very
active in Breathe New Hampshire and the Prevention Coalition.
These people have pointed out to us that the brain of a young person is not fully developed, that brain
is not capable of appreciating full the consequences of decisions that they make. And so these people
who up until now have been able to obtain these products have become addicted. And we have to
acknowledge that addiction is a disease. You know, these are not bad people; these are people who
have become addicted. And to suddenly say to them you know, from now on you can’t obtain these
products isn’t going to necessarily make it happen. We have to recognize their addiction and we have
to acknowledge that it is not as easy as we may hope to just stop.
So this provided for a grandfathering of this ordinance. So it says that it applies to people who are
either under 21 and born after June 30", 2001 will be exempt from this ordinance. So this
acknowledges people who will have become 18 by June 30" or the effective date, July 1°, will be
exempt from this. But in the future, people who haven’t reached 18 yet and don’t reach 18 by that
date, it will be illegal to sell these products to them or for them to purchase it. At the last hearing there
was a police officer who came to testify and he was asked about if this would make it more difficult for
you. And |’m not sure that he was completely aware of the wording of the ordinance because he said
