JOSEPH A. ROUSE
WESTFIELD – The Board of Health is considering hiking the age patrons can legally purchase tobacco products as a means of combating use of those products by teenagers.
Currently state law limits sale of tobacco products to persons 18 years of age or older, but health boards in a dozen Baystate communities have hiked that age to 21, while another eight, including Westfield, are considering adopting local regulations to further restrict tobacco product sales. Local health boards have the authority to set standards that are more stringent than state law.
Health Director Joseph Rouse said that he began investigating the option after receiving communication from a pediatrician, Lester J. Hartman, MD MPH FAAP, about the Tobacco 21 program.
“One community which adopted this regulation in 2005 has seen a 50 percent reduction in tobacco uses by high school students,” Rouse said. “Data show that 90 percent of underaged tobacco users get tobacco from people between the ages of 18 and 21.”
Rouse said that if the Health Board decides to proceed with the local regulation it would have to conduct a public hearing.
“Currently 12 communities, through their boards of health, have adopted the 21 and older tobacco purchase policy,” Rouse said. “And there are eight communities presently considering adopting local regulations.”
Currently the Tobacco 21 communities include: Needham, Arlington, Sharon, Canton, Ashland, Dedham, Dover, Norwood, Scituate, W. Boylston, Hudson and Westford.
In other business, Rouse reported that the city has placed a purchase for a prescription drug kiosk that will be located in the lobby of the Police Department headquarters at 15 Washington Street.
“It has been ordered and there is a four- to six-week delivery time,” Rouse said. “The city has obtained approval from the DEP (state Department of Environmental Protection) which has a special prescription drug kiosk application.”
Part of that application is how those medications are disposed of after being collected.
“The disposal process is very strict, with controls requirements to account for destroying all of the collected materials,” Rouse said. “We’re using the facility at Bondi’s Island.
“The Police Department has been very supportive of this project,” Rouse said. “Chief (John) Camerota has to fill out the DEP kiosk applications.”
Rouse said that a number of city residents have contacted the Health Department requesting information about how they could legally, and environmentally, dispose of prescription medication.
The federal Drug Enforcement Administration has funded prescription drug collections for the past several years, which have been very successful. The advantage of installing the kiosk is that it will allow residents to dispose of prescription drugs at any time in the police station lobby, without having to wait for the DEA program.
Residents are encouraged to use the disposal program, rather than disposing of prescription drugs in household trash or flushing them down the toilet, because many of the drugs are water-soluble and are seeping into water supplies.
