Berkeley Police Awarded $191k Grant To Enforce Underage Tobacco Laws

BERKELEY, CA — The Berkeley Police Department is the recipient of a $191,053 award from the California Department of Justice, the city announced in a news release Monday, Oct. 17.

According to the news release, the department plans to use the funding to "educate youth and businesses about the negative health effects of tobacco" and e-cigarette use and "enforce underage tobacco laws against businesses" in an effort to reduce and prevent underage tobacco related purchases within the city.

The Office of the Attorney General established the California Department of Justice Tobacco Grant Program in 2017 to provide annual funds to local enforcement agencies throughout California, the Office of the Attorney General said.

As of October 2022, the Tobacco Grant Program has distributed approximately $151 million in grant funding to more than 330 grantees through what the Office of the Attorney General calls a "competitive process."

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration's 2022 Annual National Youth Tobacco Survey found that in 2022, about one in 10 or more than 2.5 million U.S. middle and high school students currently used e-cigarettes and approximately, 2.55 million students reported current use of a tobacco product 2.06 million of those using tobacco were high school students and 470,000 were middle school students.

"E-cigarettes were the most commonly currently used tobacco product, cited by 2.06 million (7.6 percent) middle and high school students, followed by cigarettes (410,000; 1.5 percent), cigars (380,000; 1.4 percent), smokeless tobacco (240,000; 0.9 percent), hookahs (220,000; 0.8 percent), and nicotine pouches (200,000; 0.8 percent)," the FDA said.

According to the FDA, Tobacco product use was higher among certain subpopulations. Current use of any tobacco product was reported by 14.2 percent of students identifying as lesbian, gay or bisexual versus 7.9 percent of heterosexual and 18.9 percent of students identifying as transgender versus 8.2 percent of not transgender.

Also, current use of any tobacco product was reported by 14.2 percent of students suffering from severe psychological distress versus 5.5 percent with no distress.

A study by the National Cancer Institute indicates that in 2021 around 1,600 youth aged 18 or younger smoked their first cigarette and another 200 become daily cigarette smokers each day in the United States and according to TobaccoFreeKids.org, nearly 12 percent of high school students smoke in California.

Berkeley Police hope to make a dent in those numbers with the grant by using it to meet numerous objectives, including general enforcement operations at tobacco retailers and identifying problematic retailers who are out of compliance.

Berkeley PD will also hold minor decoy operations and conduct inspections of businesses licensed to sell tobacco products, the city said.

The grant will cover three years, 2022 through 2025, the city said.