Ban On Indoor Tanning Is A No Brainer

A Comment by Doug Draper

If I were to report to you that a corporation was planning to build and operate some sort of facility in your town that could give off enough ultra violet light to raise the risk of skin cancer by as much as  75 per cent for people under the age of 35, I have no doubt that people would be packing council chambers and marching in the streets to keep that facility out of town.

Yet, it is quite likely that at least one out of every 10 people in that community, according to polls conducted for the Canadian Cancer Society, are exposing their skin to ultra violet light in tanning salons and the number of teens is increasing.

Earlier this spring, Ontario’s New Democratic Party tabled a private members bill – one that is still being reviewed – that would at least bar young people under the age of 18 from access to tanning beds. And given growing medical information that people under the age of 18 are at higher of later being diagnosed with the deadliest form of skin cancer from their early exposure to UV radiation than people who begin using tanning salons at a later age in their lives, although they are not immune to the risks either. So passing this bill before the provincial legislature recesses for the summer should be a no brainer.

“Tanning salons directly target youth through advertising in yearbooks and in schools before prom and graduation,” NDP health critic France Gélinas in a media release this spring. “Not only do the salons either not know or play down the lifelong consequences of excess exposure to UV rays, they make tanning accessible and attractive for young people.”

Some of our fellow citizens of a more conservative or libertarian mindset may say that the government should not be controlling who, if anyone, uses indoor tanning beds. That should be an individual choice. The problem with that argument is that the evidence that repeated exposure to the UV rays from these beds heightens the risk of fatal forms of skin cancer, especially among those exposed at a young age, that we are talking about much more than individual rights. We are talking about risky behaviour that will tax an already burdened health care system that we all pay for.

Quite aside from the health risk, I have never been able to understand why people go to tanning salons in the first place. For some reason, they believe or have possibly been sucked in to believing that they look healthier with a tan. It might seem that way for a while, but if you follow along with some the people you know who spend an extraordinary amount of time tanning themselves until they almost look like burnt toast – like ‘the Tan Mom’ in New Jersey did a few weeks ago –  by the time they are in their 40s, their skin starts to look about as wrinkled as that on a peach that has been sitting out in the sun for a couple of weeks. 

So even from an aesthetic point of view – never mind the risk of life-threating surface tumours – what sense does this make?

In Canada, Newfoundland and Labrador also has a bill on the table for banning younger people, at least, from backing themselves in indoor tanning equipment. If you think similar leglisation in Ontario should be passed, contact your MPP and let them know. 

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