No Tanning Salons for Teens in Utah Without Parent’s Permission (video)
Posted By Vicki McClure Davidson on February 27, 2012
A bill against minors going to tanning salons without parental permission was passed last week in the Utah Senate, 18-9. The bill is now headed for the House.
From The Salt Lake Tribune, Utah Senate approves tougher tanning rules:
Minors who want to go to tanning salons would have to get parental permission on each visit under a bill passed Wednesday by the Utah Senate.
Sen. Pat Jones, D-Holladay, said parents have a responsibility to learn about the risks posed by the ultraviolet light from tanning beds, which she warned is a known carcinogen and 15 times more dangerous than midday sunlight.
“If you think it’s inconvenient for parents to be warned about the dangers of tanning, how inconvenient is it to take your children to chemotherapy treatments?” Jones asked.
Newscast from earlier in the month:
From KSL News, Lawmaker proposes ban on tanning beds for teenagers:
“The risk of melanoma increases by 75 percent if a person begins using tanning beds before age 30,” Jones said on Utah’s Morning News on KSL Newsradio. She added, Utah has the country’s highest melanoma rate.
Medical professional have not ruled out Utah’s elevation as an added contributor to the state’s melanoma risk, but Jones points out, the World Health Organization declared tanning beds a known carcinogen in 2009.
“The risk of melanoma increases by 75 percent if a person begins using tanning beds before age 30.”
–Pat JonesCurrent Utah law allows teens under 18 to go to the tanning salon with a parent’s permission, which must be renewed annually. She worries about enforcement, as the health department is responsible for making sure salons are keeping up with the paperwork. If there’s a ban, she says, that isn’t a problem.
In California, a law banning all minors, with or without parental permission, from tanning salons and tanning beds was passed last fall.
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Good for Utah.
Those things are a menace.
It never fails to amaze me that laws are passed banning all manner of things for minors, but a minor can kill an unborn child in secret…{sigh}.
I’m not arguing that the abortion example you cite isn’t magnitudes worse than the tanning bed issue, but until the federal government gets enough money from the tanning bed lobby, there is at least hope that children can be protected in this one small way (though it’s unlikely that absentee parents will have the moral fortitude to deny their children access to the tanning beds anyway – so the whole thing is likely just a waste of legislative ink).
A dear friend passed away as a result of melanoma. He left two very young babies at the time. Parents don’t have a clue as to what is involved if their child develops melanoma. If they did, tanning beds wouldn’t exist. Then again, I’ve seen too many tanned parents who set the bad example.