A state senator wants to prevent teenagers from using electric tanning beds.
State Sen. Jamie Raskin, a Montgomery County Democrat, presented a bill that would ban minors from indoor tanning beds to the Senate Finance Committee on Thursday afternoon.
He said teenagers do not have the capability to consider the risks associated with ultraviolet light emitted by the devices.
The legislation would prohibit anyone under 18 from using an electric tanning bed, eliminating a provision in Maryland law that allows minors to tan if they have parental permission.
"We don't say you can smoke cigarettes if you get a note from your parents. We don't say you can drink liquor if you get a note from your parents," Raskin said in an interview Wednesday. "It is a deadly health risk, and we should not be allowing minors to do it."
Raskin is a colon cancer survivor.
Last year, California enacted a law to keep minors out of tanning beds, and in 2009 Howard County became the first jurisdiction in Maryland to ban tanning for teenagers. The Howard County law does allow minors to use commercial tanning beds if they have a prescription from a doctor.
Raskin said he would support an amendment allowing for a similar prescription provision, but only if it is necessary to get the measure passed.
Opponents of Raskin's bill said the correlation between exposure to ultraviolet rays and skin cancer is not strong enough to warrant banning minors from the beds and that the measure could hurt small businesses and take away parental rights.
Bruce Bereano, a lobbyist for the tanning industry, said there hasn't been a single complaint or a problem with parental consent in the four years since the law requiring parental permission was passed.
A panel of doctors and cancer research representatives spoke in favor of the bill, noting research they say suggests tanning beds can cause multiple forms of skin cancer.
According to the Joanna M. Nicolay Melanoma Foundation, the disease is the most common cancer among adults ages 25 to 29, and the number of cases has been growing among young white women since 1992.
"The question for us is: Is it good enough to say you can get a parent's note as a 15-, 16-, 17-year-old and you can spend two or three days a week in front of a known carcinogen?" Raskin told the panel. "This legislation enables us to save people from that terrible fate."
Opponents argued that exposure to ultraviolet light can toughen the skin and reduce the chance of developing melanoma.
Scientists opposed to the bill said studies that identify serious risks associated with tanning beds are skewed because they include very fair-skinned people who are more likely to develop melanoma.
Teens and their parents will also likely invest in at-home tanning beds and lights if they cannot tan in salons, Bereano said.
"It is not going to stop minors from tanning," he said. "We're talking about parents, and I believe in parents' rights."
Several tanning salon owners testified that their employees take precautions to make sure teens don't tan without parental permission and that people with fair skin are discouraged from using tanning beds.