The Division of Public Health of the Commonwealth Healthcare Corp. supports and will be educating the public on the inclusion of e-cigarettes in the Smoke-Free Air Act of the Commonwealth.<\/p>\n
Through Public Law 19-32, it is now illegal in the CNMI to use e-cigarettes in places where smoking is prohibited by the Smoke-Free Air Act.<\/p>\n
\u201cIncreasing access to smoke-free air has been a priority for the Division of Public Health Services and including e-cigarettes in the law will further promote our mission to achieve optimal health and well-being for the people of the CNMI,\u201d Public Health Services director Margarita Torres Aldan said.<\/p>\n
The Smoke-Free Air Act of 2008 or Public Law 16-46, which now includes e-cigarettes, prohibits smoking in government buildings and vehicles, public places, places of employment, and school and college campuses. <\/p>\n
Smoking is also prohibited in outdoor areas that are within 25 feet of an enclosed smoke-free area.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis law protects non-smokers who might be in an enclosed area from involuntary exposure to toxins. The NCDB looks forward to including e-cigarettes in our community education effort on the Smoke-Free Air Act,\u201d DPH-Non-Communicable Disease Bureau administrator Becky Robles said.<\/p>\n
To further fulfill their goal of increasing access to smoke-free environments for 75 percent of the CNMI adult population by next year, the University of Hawaii, in partnership with the NCD Bureau, hired part-time local project assistant, Jessica Lorfing.<\/p>\n
\u201cDrastically improving compliance with PL 16-46 and PL 19-32 is crucial to reaching our goal. We have developed an educational toolkit for the community that includes information on e-cigarettes,\u201d Lorfing said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAdding e-cigarettes to our educational toolkit strengthens our efforts to ensure smoke-free air at places protected by the law. This year, we are specifically focusing on helping bars, poker rooms, and hotel establishments become compliant,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Division of Public Health of the Commonwealth Healthcare Corp. supports and will be educating…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[900],"tags":[26,140,1766,2248],"class_list":["post-223324","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured","tag-cnmi","tag-commonwealth-healthcare-corp","tag-dph","tag-public-health-services"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=223324"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223324\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=223324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=223324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=223324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}