March 8, 2013 -- Tanning beds could soon go soon go the way of cigarettes, strip clubs, lottery tickets and suffrage — off-limits to kids under 18.
The House voted 38-18 to ban minors from using cancer-linked tanning beds without a doctor’s permission, with seven Republicans joining the Democrats to send House Bill 2896 to the Senate.
“We have a crisis on our hands. We were fourth in the nation in skin cancer,” said Rep. Bill Kennemer, R-Oregon City. “As the grandfather of three teenage children who do this, I am furious.”
Kennemer said that he was unaware just how deadly melanoma was in Oregon — the state has the highest death rate among women in the country, and tanning beds increase the risk of skin cancer by 70 percent.
“I found it a really hard committee to sit through,” said Rep. Alissa Keny-Guyer, D-Portland, who told the House she had skin cancer, as did her sister and brother. “My mom died of skin cancer.”
Rep. Peter Buckley, D-Ashland, compared tanning explicitly to cigarettes — if adults want to take that risk, they can, but not teens. “We’re talking about the life and death of children,” said Buckley, who co-sponsored the bipartisan measure with Rep. Mark Johnson, R-Hood River.
The Food and Drug Administration has classified ultraviolet tanning beds as a carcinogen, and tanning has been linked to skin cancers such as melanoma, squamous cell carcinoma and ocular melanoma. According the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 13 percent of all high school students and 32 percent of 12th grade girls say they use tanning salons.
The bill was not without heated debate and opposition from conservatives, led by two Republicans, Rep. Tim Freeman, Roseburg and Rep. Julie Parrish, West Linn.
Freeman spoke out on behalf of small business owners, like a woman in Myrtle Creek who avoided government handouts in the recession and opened a profitable business —a tanning salon where she hires teenagers. But now, facing a ban on teenage girls — some of her most reliable customers — she may be put out of business.
“People in this building and Washington, D.C., have made laws that have made it difficult for me to raise my kids and send them to school,” said Freeman, who owns a gas station in Roseburg.
Douglas County, where Freeman lives, has the highest rate of new melanoma cases in Oregon and is among the top 2 percent of counties nationwide, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. About 120 people in Oregon die each year from melanoma, which kills one-eighth of its victims.Parrish said the state of Oregon should not tell her how to raise her children, and said the bill was pushed through the Health Committee with little notice. “The process did not allow for any time period for these small businesses to come forward,” Parrish said. “People in Oregon who have a small business should not have to hire a lobbyist.”
Rep. Mitch Greenlick, D-Portland, the chairman of the Health Committee, shot down both of their arguments, noting that two tanning salon owners testified and the tanning industry had ample time to fly in a lobbyist from out of state.
“It’s unlikely that tanning salons will go out of business if they can’t sell to 16- and 17-year-olds,” Greenlick said. “There’s a whole grocery business that focuses on selling cigarettes that has not gone out of business because it can’t sell cigarettes to 16- and 17-year-olds.”
Of the two tanning salon owners who testified on HB 2896, one opposed the legislation and one supported it — a woman with skin cancer.
Kennemer and Keny-Guyer both said that the current law that requires parental consent but not a doctor’s permission was inadequate since teens often ignore the law and forge signatures if needed.
At the House Health Committee hearing last week, Dr. Brian Druker of the Knight Cancer Institute and Dr. Bud Pierce, an oncologist and president of the Oregon Medical Association, both urged legislators to pass the ban.
“Bud Pierce and Brian Druker don’t come here for money or politics,” said Rep. Brian Clem, a moderate Democrat from Salem who expressed his initial skepticism of the bill. “They see patients who are dying of malignant melanoma.”
