AMHERST — Revised regulations on the sale of tobacco products in Amherst drafted by the Board of Health, including restricting oral nicotine pouches to adults-only tobacco stores, is winning both praise and criticism from the public, with advocates for curtailing access to tobacco calling for the town to bolster the rules by adopting a nicotine-free generation measure.

At a virtual public hearing Thursday on the amended policies the Board of Health is considering for adoption, possibly as early as its March meeting, Amherst officials were urged by Kenneth Elstein, a member of Belchertown’s Board of Health, to join in the nicotine-free generation policy adopted there in December, which prohibits anyone born on or after Jan. 1, 2004 from buying tobacco products in Belchertown stores.

“There are no real borders between towns,” Elstein said. “For us to pass nicotine-free generation here in Belchertown, the kids can go across the border, so it’s important that we have a consistent policy.”

Elstein said Amherst should also heed a call from Pelham’s Board of Health, which recently voted unanimously to advocate that all neighboring communities enact nicotine-free generation tactics.

Colleen DuroShea, also a member of the Belchertown Board of Health, said Amherst could lead in the way it did when raising the age to buy tobacco products to 21.

“It’s going to happen in other towns, and eventually it will happen in the state,” DuroShea said. “I hope this will snowball eventually to the rest of the country.”

For now, the Board of Health doesn’t have that included in the proposed amendments to the “Regulations Restricting the Sale of Tobacco and Vape Products,” though there is a range of other adjustments, including the limitation on where oral nicotine pouches are available, increasing the minimum price of cigars to be consistent with state regulations, and not allowing a tobacco retailer to move within 1,000 feet of an existing business selling tobacco.

Opposition weighs in

Still, even those came with some opposition, including from the business community.

Peter Brennan, executive director of the New England Convenience Store and Energy Marketers Association, said restrictions on nicotine pouches don’t make sense since they are less harmful than cigarettes and can serve as a form of harm reduction and encouraging people to quit smoking, meaning curtailing their availability is “counteractive to public health.”

“You should not unnecessarily harm our retailers by putting nicotine pouches in adult-only facilities,” Brennan said, adding that he would also oppose the nicotine-free generation policy.

Ben Brooks, a manager for Nouria, which operates the FL Roberts gas station on Northampton Road, said that the changes to the regulations will make that store, on the Hadley town line, less profitable, and will also mean reducing opportunities for those fighting addictions.

A representative for Lazy Lungz Smoke Shop on North Pleasant Street suggested that any efforts by the Board of Health won’t work.

“There are people who smoke,” representative Joseph Dion said. “It’s going to be very tough to stop that.”

Others who spoke against the changes included members of Cambridge Citizens for Smokers’ Rights, an organization that also wrote a letter stating that there would be mostly harms to businesses owned by immigrants of color.

Supporters want more

Many of those who endorsed the regulations, including many from the eastern part of the state, suggested Amherst should be more progressive in its approach like it was in the past when it became one of the first communities to raise the buying age to 21.

Kate Silbaugh, of Brookline, who spearheaded the nicotine-free generation in her community, called it an “emerging end game” that Amherst should endorse. Similar sentiments came from Maureen Buzby of Melrose, part of Yes to Nicotine-Free Generation, and Ginny Chadwick of Somerville, a graduate student at Brandeis University who served as a city councilor in Columbia, Missouri, sponsoring a 21-and-over tobacco buying measure in that college town.

“It is communities in Massachusetts, like yourself, being in a college town, that lead, and it allows us around the country to adopt policy,” Chadwick said.

Heather Warner, a coordinator for the Hampshire-Franklin Tobacco Free Community Partnership, said the Amherst regulations send a positive signal to the state and the Legislature. Warner said pouches can have incredibly high nicotine content and more young people are taking up use of Zyn products.

Warner, who recalled buying her first cigarettes when she was 14 at Augie’s smoke shop in downtown Amherst and later quit, said nicotine pouches don’t help people quit.

“These are not approved as a cessation device,” Warner said.

Small impact

Many of the amendments the heath board is considering won’t have a major impact on how tobacco sales are handled. One of them is renaming the regulations to “Restricting the Sale of Tobacco and Vape Products,” which board members say removes the emphasis on combating underage tobacco use and ensures that tobacco and nicotine are public health matters for people of all ages.

Another change is eliminating the requirement for tobacco sellers to take and pass the tobacco quiz.

The changes to tobacco sales permits will put an explicit cap at 14, and reasons for revocation of permits; adopt a unified fining structure for all tobacco violations; require the Board of Health to hold a hearing if there are four violations within a three-year period; and eliminate the regulation prohibiting anyone under the age of 21 from selling tobacco products, though those under 21 are not allowed to work in adult-only tobacco retailers.

The updated regulations on oral nicotine pouches emphasizes that they can only be sold in stores where customers have to be 21 to enter, the price of cigars will match state regulations by increasing minimum price from $2.50 to $2.90 per cigar and for multipacks to go up from $5 to $5.80, and clarify the definition for tobacco product flavor enhancers to include flavored rolling papers.

The latest proposed changes in regulations follows ones adopted in 2019, moving menthol cigarettes to adult stores, in advance of the state’s June 2020 ban on menthol cigarettes, and in 2015 raising the age to buy tobacco to 21, which the state did three years later, and also banning flavored tobacco from package and convenience stores. In 2013, the town banned the sale of tobacco at pharmacies, prohibited blunt wraps, and set a policy to retire permits when they were not renewed.

Written comments to the Board of Health will continue to be accepted throughout February.

Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.