Protect youth, update tobacco retailer licenses

Despite being ranked the healthiest county in California for multiple years, data shows Marin’s youth nicotine consumption is skyrocketing. Local tobacco regulation fails to reflect the county’s devotion to public health. As a high school student, I regularly witness the harm nicotine has on my peers. Despite our countless schoolwide discussions, informational lectures and health workshops, youth nicotine addictions are a serious problem.

As a member of the Marin Youth Advocacy Committee, I believe that the county’s current tobacco retailer licenses don’t take into account discounts and coupons that the tobacco industry uses to target price-sensitive groups like youth. Further, they fail to address the products most commonly used among youth: e-cigarettes.

The evidence is clear, vaping rates in Marin are significantly higher than state averages, particularly for 11th graders. In fact, while California has a vaping rate of 10% for 11th graders, Marin is at an astounding 17%.

It’s time for change. We must update the Marin tobacco retailer license to better address the climate of youth nicotine use. Specifically, we should include a ban on marketing techniques (like discounts and coupons). Further, we must prohibit the sale of e-cigarettes, like neighboring communities including Sonoma County, Alameda County, Hayward, Richmond and Livermore. Additional restrictions, such as a minimum price and pack size, as well as stricter enforcement, are necessary.

I urge the Marin Board of Supervisors to update the tobacco retailer licenses to mirror the realities of modern tobacco products. Further, I encourage all residents to stand in support and push for change, using our voices to protect the future of our youth and the community’s health.

— Madeleine Yates, Mill Valley

USAID reflects generosity, American global leadership

As a retired U.S. Agency for International Development foreign service officer, I am deeply concerned about the current administration’s attempts to dismantle it. This is a direct attack on American values, global leadership and thousands of American workers, including jobs in California.

USAID has operated since 1961 under both Republican and Democratic administrations. It provides disaster relief, humanitarian aid and development assistance to over 100 countries, all while costing less than 1% of the federal budget. The agency has saved millions of lives, from global immunization campaigns to emergency food aid in famine-stricken regions.

California has long been a leader in global humanitarian efforts, with thousands of USAID-supported jobs tied to research institutions, nonprofits and global health initiatives. The reckless decision by the administration threatens local jobs, weakens our influence abroad and abandons our commitment to helping the world’s most vulnerable.

I call on our U.S. senators Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff, along with Rep. Jared Huffman, to stand up for USAID as an independent agency and protect the hardworking Californians whose jobs depend on it. Failing to do so would betray our state’s values and America’s role as a force for good in the world.

I know Californians believe that, when people need help, America shows up. It’s time our elected officials do the same.

— Gloria Jean Garland, Larkspur

Chaotic DOGE appears steeped in incompetence

I consider Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency to be a cruel joke. Billed as a blue-ribbon commission advising on “government reform,” it instead appears to have delivered nothing but chaos, incompetence and obliteration of our privacy without concern for consequences.

This is a mafia-style shakedown to terrorize the federal workforce and demolish laws, rules and spending that Musk doesn’t like. I think he is acting like an oligarch. Musk and his young band really think we’re so stupid as to accept his declarations that he has found “massive waste, fraud and abuse” without nearly enough evidence?

The only part I find to be transparent is the apparent corruption, lies and self-dealing. So much of what he wants to eliminate as “waste” will be done in support of his conspiratorial delusions or to benefit him, President Donald Trump and his cronies.

DOGE’s “wrecking ball” to crucial public services will leave us weaker, sicker and more vulnerable to all manner of abuse. Our standing in the world has been irreversibly diminished. If Musk thinks mistakes can simply be corrected, he is woefully ignorant of the world beyond a tech startup.

— John Redfield Brooks, Fairfax