Opinion: Let’s Replace Banned Flavored Tobacco with Healthy Fare in San Diego’s ‘Food Deserts’
The passage of a flavored tobacco ban in the town of San Diego is great news for public health. It could be specially fantastic information for San Diegans dwelling in communities exactly where independently owned food items markets and liquor shops affiliated with the Neighborhood Industry Affiliation are the principal supply of groceries.
That’s because the city council’s 7-2 vote to outlaw flavored e-cigarettes and flavored tobacco goods offers a timely prospect for community marketplaces — found in “food deserts” stretching across the city’s urban core — to fill vacant shops shelves once stocked with brand names like Juul, Blu, Camel, and Marlboro with food items and drinks that boost nutritious, equitable and resilient communities.
Food deserts are residential communities with confined entry to healthier, nutritious food items. These underserved locations are primarily very low-revenue communities of coloration where inhabitants have minimal mobility.
With no transportation and the obtaining ability to entry groceries at big-box suppliers positioned outside their neighborhoods, residents of foods deserts have no selection but to feed their people the high-calorie and very low-nutrient foodstuff and beverages that are readily and conveniently out there at their corner current market.
Somewhere around 25% of all census tracts in San Diego County are foodstuff deserts. In the city of San Diego, most are clustered to the east of Interstate 805, extending to the city boundaries.
Advocates of the flavored tobacco ban maintain sugary sweet flavored tobacco is a hazardous gateway to nicotine dependancy amongst little ones and younger grown ups. Their arsenal of research involves research presenting the assortment of preventable continual illnesses linked to flavored tobacco — together with heart and lung disease, cancer, and diabetic issues — and chronicling the tobacco industry’s predatory advertising and marketing strategies targeting youngsters, gals and ladies, people who detect as LGBTQ and communities of colour.
The Neighborhood Current market Affiliation campaigned against ending the sale of flavored tobacco. Professing flavored tobacco goods comprise in between a quarter and 50 percent of its members’ retail product sales, affiliation leaders warned of the pending financial hardship the ban would carry upon its users, forcing its mom-and-pop marketplaces to lay off employees, elevate costs on other products and solutions and likely shut.
But passage of the flavored tobacco ban sets the phase for the association to pivot to a new business enterprise product. It can motivate its associates to stock new fruits and greens, wholesome foods, and healthier drinks at their corner markets and liquor suppliers. It can advocate for a new relationship with suppliers of products and solutions that trigger the onset of existence-sapping persistent
ailment.
Luckily, the affiliation needn’t glance much for guidance to navigate this important transition. The San Diego County’s Live Nicely Group Current market Program is primed to support the trade organization’s transformation.
Grounded in finest procedures to support marketplace house owners establish organization types that entice new shoppers and maximize their base line, the system is a catalyst for community marketplaces intrigued in selling clean, healthy, and economical meals and drinks.
Specifically, the method collaborates with proprietors and operators to increase interior and exterior retailer designs and increase advertising and availability of these items. This dynamic empowers their prospects to be part of them in setting up healthful, stronger communities.
In partnership with the UCSD Middle for Local community Wellness, the community marketplace program prioritizes collaborations with small, independently owned food marketplaces serving reduced-earnings communities, which include Town Heights and Southeastern San Diego. The application provides a Dwell Very well San Diego countywide platform that publicly acknowledges community marketplaces for their participation and dedication to general public well being.
The method is cost-free, a winning proposition for the little corporations it serves.
The passage of the flavored tobacco ban offers the Community Industry Association a new chance. The community industry software can supply the corporation and its members with the resources and knowledge to assistance them transition absent from a business model dependent on unhealthy products.
Viewing the flavored tobacco ban as an open doorway, not a dead end, it is fair to request: Why would not community current market proprietors choose to cultivate buyer loyalty by stocking their cabinets with locally sourced make and cost-effective purchaser brand names that boost wholesome, flourishing communities?
Dr. Rodney Hood is controlling spouse of the Treatment Watch Health care Team and president of the Multicultural IPA, a group of independent physicians delivering culturally delicate healthcare. Dr. James Dunford served as San Diego’s to start with director of emergency professional medical companies and is health-related director of the McAlister Institute, which offers reduced-charge compound abuse therapy, drug intervention, and recovery guidance.
