CNY Central
by Emma Misiasze
Mon, March 13th 2023
ALBANY, N.Y. — Students, educators and parents joined together Monday to call on state lawmakers to end the sale of flavored tobacco in New York and increase the state’s cigarette tax by $1.
Members of the NYS PTA, NYS School Boards Association and New York School-Based Health Alliance support Gov. Kathy Hochul’s proposal for legislation to curb youth from using tobacco by banning the sale of flavored tobacco and raising taxes on other tobacco products.
“The New York School-Based Health Alliance, which represents over 250 school-based health centers which care for children in NY’s most underserved communities, strongly supports the Governor’s proposals to create a tobacco-free generation,” Executive Director of the Alliance Sarah Murphy said. “We cannot allow the tobacco industry to continue to prey on these communities and hook kids as their replacement tobacco users through flavored tobacco products. The communities we serve are predominantly people of color and immigrant populations who are already struggling with significant health disparities including staggering numbers of asthma cases and other chronic diseases that we know are exacerbated by tobacco. This is about prevention and New York must enact these lifesaving policies in the final budget.”
